Doomsday Argument - Rebuttals - Self-Indication Assumption: The Possibility of Not Existing at All

Self-Indication Assumption: The Possibility of Not Existing At All

One objection is that the possibility of your existing at all depends on how many humans will ever exist (N). If this is a high number, then the possibility of your existing is higher than if only a few humans will ever exist. Since you do indeed exist, this is evidence that the number of humans that will ever exist is high.

This objection, originally by Dennis Dieks (1992), is now known by Nick Bostrom's name for it: the "Self-Indication Assumption objection". It can be shown that some SIAs prevent any inference of N from n (the current population); for details of this argument from the Bayesian inference perspective see: Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal.

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