I have seen various discussions of the doomsday argument on this site and have a number of questions about it. I may be missing something, so I am willing to read earlier discussions which address these questions.
Why doesn’t the lower probability of being born into a universe with fewer people balance the low probability of being born early in a universe with many people? To take one of Leslie’s metaphors If I know that a lottery has either 10 names or 10000 names, and my name gets pulled from a lottery, why should I assume that there are probably 10 names as opposed to reasoning that if there were only 10 names, my name would not have been there in the first place which indicates that there are 10000 names.
Doesn’t this argument depend on not having specific information about causes of destruction, but once we evaluate the various possible causes of existential risk, won’t our probability assessment depend on them and not this argument? (Hence the assumption I have seen some profess that if mankind survives to spread to the stars then we would not expect human extinction)
If the doomsday argument is correct, then doesn’t it imply that mankind will likely go extinct in the short term whether or not we take action about it, sInce we find ourselves at this place in history with the universe already taking into account anything we may do to stop existential risk (assuming the universe is deterministic, if not then the whole argument is questionable since future generations don’t exist yet and therefore we couldn’t have found ourselves there). If this is the case then the doomsday argument would indicate that the specific causes of risk are irrelevant, a troublesome conclusion, and maybe we should drop the doomsday argument in favor of evaluating the specific risks and possible solutions.
I am new to the site so I apologize if this is the wrong place on the site for this discussion, if so please point me to a better place.
I have seen various discussions of the doomsday argument on this site and have a number of questions about it. I may be missing something, so I am willing to read earlier discussions which address these questions.
Why doesn’t the lower probability of being born into a universe with fewer people balance the low probability of being born early in a universe with many people? To take one of Leslie’s metaphors If I know that a lottery has either 10 names or 10000 names, and my name gets pulled from a lottery, why should I assume that there are probably 10 names as opposed to reasoning that if there were only 10 names, my name would not have been there in the first place which indicates that there are 10000 names.
Doesn’t this argument depend on not having specific information about causes of destruction, but once we evaluate the various possible causes of existential risk, won’t our probability assessment depend on them and not this argument? (Hence the assumption I have seen some profess that if mankind survives to spread to the stars then we would not expect human extinction)
If the doomsday argument is correct, then doesn’t it imply that mankind will likely go extinct in the short term whether or not we take action about it, sInce we find ourselves at this place in history with the universe already taking into account anything we may do to stop existential risk (assuming the universe is deterministic, if not then the whole argument is questionable since future generations don’t exist yet and therefore we couldn’t have found ourselves there). If this is the case then the doomsday argument would indicate that the specific causes of risk are irrelevant, a troublesome conclusion, and maybe we should drop the doomsday argument in favor of evaluating the specific risks and possible solutions. I am new to the site so I apologize if this is the wrong place on the site for this discussion, if so please point me to a better place.