Really? If they assume a uniform distribution, wouldn’t that be unrealistic? If the assumptions result in different predictions for how an observer should update, how do they avoid making any?
The DA assumes a prior probability distribution for the number of people that will ever exist; beyond that, it doesn’t matter for updating purposes when these people come into existence.
Are you sure? If the population of observers are uniformly distributed over a time interval, I calculate that they should each multiply their observation of the age of their civilization by root 2 in order minimize their collective error. However, I don’t see this estimate on the Wikipedia page and assume they have more complex assumptions about the distribution of observers.
… I also assume that the civilization lifetime is uniformly distributed over an unknown interval. I suppose it would be more reasonable to assume it is normally distributed over an unknown interval or—even more accurately—extremely right tailed.
The doomsday argument makes no assumptions about the rate of population growth.
Really? If they assume a uniform distribution, wouldn’t that be unrealistic? If the assumptions result in different predictions for how an observer should update, how do they avoid making any?
The DA assumes a prior probability distribution for the number of people that will ever exist; beyond that, it doesn’t matter for updating purposes when these people come into existence.
Are you sure? If the population of observers are uniformly distributed over a time interval, I calculate that they should each multiply their observation of the age of their civilization by root 2 in order minimize their collective error. However, I don’t see this estimate on the Wikipedia page and assume they have more complex assumptions about the distribution of observers.
… I also assume that the civilization lifetime is uniformly distributed over an unknown interval. I suppose it would be more reasonable to assume it is normally distributed over an unknown interval or—even more accurately—extremely right tailed.