On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 06:43:11PM -0800, Jack Mallah wrote: > > --- On Mon, 2/9/09, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Also I still don't understand how I could be 30 years old and not 4, there > > are a lot more OM of 4 than 30... it is the argument you use for 1000 years > > old, I don't see why it can hold for 30 ? > > Quentin, why would the measure of 4 year olds be "a lot more" than the > measure of 30 year olds? I have already explained that the effect of > differentiation (eg by learning) is exactly balanced by the increased number > of versions to sum over (the N/N explanation) and the effect of child > mortality is small. > > Is there some third factor that you think comes into play? Can you estimate > quantitatively what you think the measure ratio would be? >
In my book (page 146) I make the comment: "The Doomsday argument with selection of observer moments made according to a monotonically declining function of age would predict the youngest of observer moments to be selected. By this argument, it is actually mysterious why we should ever observe ourselves as adults, a reductio ad absurdum for the Mallah argument." Jacques has convinced me that the measure in question may be sufficiently slowly declining over (say) the first 80 years of human life that anthropic arguments becomes blunt. Particularly when the categories concerned are things like childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and old age, rather than specific ages. Of course, infant mortality is still very high in many parts of the world, so the overall measure of babies is much higher than other age groups, but one could argue that infants are not conscious until after the brain reorganisation that occurs in the second year of life, so it is possible that high infant mortality doesn't count. Of course my major problem with the argument depending on the ASSA still stands, but I'm willing to grant that this particular objection may be overegged. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---