This is indeed a confusing post. Why are we talking about utility at all, when this is just a question of fact? Shouldn’t we be concerned with the number of sentients that our Earth-derived lineage will contain, not the total number of sentients that will ever exist anywhere? How does “believing that Xs matter less” imply “it is less likely that you are an X”? How can the Doomsday Argument become an “argument that we’re not going to die”?
Shouldn’t we be concerned with the number of sentients that our Earth-derived lineage will contain, not the total number of sentients that will ever exist anywhere?
I thought it would end up working out the same. I just added that part, and I was wrong. It’s still somewhat close.
How does “believing that Xs matter less” imply “it is less likely that you are an X”?
It’s not proof, but it’s evidence. I guess it’s pretty weak, so I deleted that part.
As a completely unrelated justification for that, if you ran a human brain slower, you’d be less likely to be that person at a given time. For instance, if it was half as fast, you’d be half as likely to be it at 5:34, since, to it, 5:34 only lasts 30 seconds. Animals are less intelligent than humans, so they might act similar to a slowed human brain.
This is indeed a confusing post. Why are we talking about utility at all, when this is just a question of fact? Shouldn’t we be concerned with the number of sentients that our Earth-derived lineage will contain, not the total number of sentients that will ever exist anywhere? How does “believing that Xs matter less” imply “it is less likely that you are an X”? How can the Doomsday Argument become an “argument that we’re not going to die”?
I thought it would end up working out the same. I just added that part, and I was wrong. It’s still somewhat close.
It’s not proof, but it’s evidence. I guess it’s pretty weak, so I deleted that part.
As a completely unrelated justification for that, if you ran a human brain slower, you’d be less likely to be that person at a given time. For instance, if it was half as fast, you’d be half as likely to be it at 5:34, since, to it, 5:34 only lasts 30 seconds. Animals are less intelligent than humans, so they might act similar to a slowed human brain.