X-Message-Number: 14681 From: Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 09:47:51 EDT Subject: Doomsday There is the abstract of a paper some may find interesting: >> Paper: gr-qc/0009081 From: Ken D. Olum <> Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 19:14:23 GMT (19kb) Title: The doomsday argument and the number of possible observers Authors: Ken D. Olum Comments: 23 pages, latex, 1 figure with epsf Subj-class: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology; Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability; Physics and Society \\ If the human race comes to an end relatively shortly, then we have been born at a fairly typical time in history of humanity. On the other hand, if humanity lasts for much longer and trillions of people eventually exist, then we have been born in the first surprisingly tiny fraction of all people. According to the Doomsday Argument of Carter, Leslie, Gott, and Nielsen, this means that the chance of a disaster which would obliterate humanity is much larger than usually thought. Here I argue for the principle, originally discussed by Dieks, that the case of a long-lived race provides a much greater chance to exist at all, and this cancels the Doomsday Argument, so that the chance of a disaster is only what one would ordinarily estimate. \\ >> If you want the full text, go to http://xxx.lanl.gov, clic on abs in the gr-qc line and choose your file form (teX, ps, or PDF) at the screen bottom. Yvan Bozzonetti. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14681