Technologos comments on Avoiding doomsday: a "proof" of the self-indication assumption - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 23 September 2009 02:54PM

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Comment author: Technologos 24 September 2009 09:00:17PM 0 points [-]

I agree that it's a different claim, and not the one I was trying to make. I was just noting that however one defines "observer," the SIA would suggest that such observers should be many. Thus, I don't think that the SIA is inserting a hidden assumption about the type of observers we are discussing.

Comment author: SilasBarta 24 September 2009 09:05:53PM 1 point [-]

Right, but my point was that your definition of observer has a big impact on your SIA's plausibility. Yes, universes with observers in the general sense are more likely, but why universes with more human observers?

Comment author: Technologos 24 September 2009 09:51:56PM 0 points [-]

Why would being human change the calculus of the SIA? According to its logic, if a universe only has more human observers, there are still more opportunities for me to exist, no?

Comment author: SilasBarta 24 September 2009 10:01:42PM 0 points [-]

My point was that the SIA(human) is less plausible, meaning you shouldn't base conclusions on it, not that the resulting calculus (conditional on its truth) would be different.

Comment author: Technologos 25 September 2009 04:59:06AM 0 points [-]

That's what I meant, though: you don't calculate the probability of SIA(human) any differently than you would for any other category of observer.