From: Peter Passaro (ocsrazor@cablecomm-pa.com)
Date: Sun Mar 28 1999 - 12:42:43 MST
Nick Bostrom Wrote:
>Are you aware that this is the same reasoning that gives rise to the
>Doomsday argument? Do you accept that argument? If not, why?
You'll have to excuse my naivete, I have only a cursory understanding of the
Doomsday argument. It seems to me though that this argument can not be
applied to living systems. Because of their special status as self
organizing systems they would seem to fall into another category altogether.
It seems that most of the points made in the doomsday arguement can only be
applied to objects which do not act on themselves. The argument (or a
variation thereof) may actually suggest the opposite conclusion - that
humanity and life itself may reach a point where the likelihood that they
would ever be destroyed is next to nil. There seems to be a general pattern
of increasing complexity in systems such that once a system reaches a level
of sophistication (such as the formation of atoms from subatomic particles)
it becomes highly unlikely that the system will fall apart (every atom in
the universe flies apart into its component parts). I think it likely that
life and humanity and headed along such a path of unstoppable organization.
The only way I can see it actually applying to the number of humans alive as
a finite number is if humanity is superseded by another organism of its own
creation. I will read deeper into the argument but at first glance it only
seems to apply to isolated, inanimate objects.
Peter Passaro
ocsrazor@cablecomm-pa.com
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