I don’t get the problem with octopuses here. What I am writing here is not causally connected with the number of my hands. Octopus-world-LW can have similar conversations. But as I find myself a biped, it a an argument that biped-world-LW are more often.
Sure, octopuses could write too. But you are not, in fact, an octopus (assuming reality is what it seems). So the evidence you have for evaluating cosmological theories does not favour universes/multiverses with large numbers of intelligent octopuses, since you have no evidence that intelligent octopuses exist. But you do know that you exist.
If you like, you can bump up the probability of cosmological theories that posit a universe with a large number of intelligent observers, whether octopuses or bipeds (SIA), but then you have to push down the probability of those theories in which most of these observers are octopuses, since you aren’t one (SSA). The net effect is to just favour cosmological theories that make it more likely that you exist.
I don’t get the problem with octopuses here. What I am writing here is not causally connected with the number of my hands. Octopus-world-LW can have similar conversations. But as I find myself a biped, it a an argument that biped-world-LW are more often.
Sure, octopuses could write too. But you are not, in fact, an octopus (assuming reality is what it seems). So the evidence you have for evaluating cosmological theories does not favour universes/multiverses with large numbers of intelligent octopuses, since you have no evidence that intelligent octopuses exist. But you do know that you exist.
If you like, you can bump up the probability of cosmological theories that posit a universe with a large number of intelligent observers, whether octopuses or bipeds (SIA), but then you have to push down the probability of those theories in which most of these observers are octopuses, since you aren’t one (SSA). The net effect is to just favour cosmological theories that make it more likely that you exist.
See my paper at http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~radford/anth.abstract.html for a more extended exposition.
Thanks for the link. I saw your article before, but this explanation helps me to understand FNC better.