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.

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