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Originally Posted by Madalone
First, as the urn/ball example shows, exponential grow is not a necessary prerequisite for the basic argument; it just lets The End draw closer to the present point in time.
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You're right. I was trying to explain the particular urgency in Baxter's scenario, and didn't make that properly clear.
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Originally Posted by Madalone
But, heck, why am I arguing with you anyway? Probably you dont even exist! I know that Switzerland is roughly 200km across. The fact that I'm Swiss would be very, very unlikely if the World was seizably bigger than, say, 1000km.
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But it's not a great argument against the Carter calculation, since you
do have access to counter-information. Whereas we
don't have any knowledge of "how big the world really is" with reference to the total number of humans that will ever exist. Carter's calculation is therefore probabilistic from limited information, and can't be undermined by analogy with other situations in which information is more complete.
Grant Hutchison