endoself comments on Pascal's Muggle: Infinitesimal Priors and Strong Evidence - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 May 2013 12:43AM

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Comment author: Yvain 06 May 2013 09:25:27PM *  14 points [-]

Imagine someone makes the following claims:

  • I've invented an immortality drug
  • I've invented a near-light-speed spaceship
  • The spaceship has really good life support/recycling
  • The spaceship is self-repairing and draws power from interstellar hydrogen
  • I've discovered the Universe will last at least another 3^^^3 years

Then they threaten, unless you give them $5, to kidnap you, give you the immortality drug, stick you in the spaceship, launch it at near-light speed, and have you stuck (presumably bound in an uncomfortable position) in the spaceship for the 3^^^3 years the universe will last.

(okay, there are lots of contingent features of the universe that will make this not work, but imagine something better. Pocket dimension, maybe?)

If their claims are true, then their threat seems credible even though it involves a large amount of suffering. Can you explain what you mean by life-centuries being instantiated by causal nodes, and how that makes the madman's threat less credible?

Comment author: endoself 07 May 2013 04:26:05PM 2 points [-]

If what he says is true, then there will be 3^^^3 years of life in the universe. Then, assuming this anthropic framework is correct, it's very unlikely to find yourself at the beginning rather than at any other point in time, so this provides 3^^^3-sized evidence against this scenario.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 May 2013 10:34:58PM 1 point [-]

I'm not entirely sure that the doomsday argument also applies to different time slices of the same person, given that Eliezer in 2013 remembers being Eliezer in 2012 but not vice versa.