the doomsday argument
07 Dec 2016, 3:41 pm
what are your thoughts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
my simplistic run-down would be that if you assume you're born into an arbitrary point in the history of humanity in terms of total number of people born, which would be somewhere near the middle, we have another 1,000 years until we should start expecting the world to end at any day going forward, with the chance increasing drastically over time, because that's when it's expected that the number of people born before us will be matched with people born after us.
according to other people's calculations, it'll be at around a 90% chance when we're 10,000 years into the future.
i've never heard of a good refutation honestly, and i think the logic is perfectly sound.
it makes more sense when you see what's going on in the world as well, with the problems of global warming and overpopulation in particular, but also increasingly dangerous technology that requires fewer people to operate it, the possibility of a massive superbug virus outbreak due to increasing antibiotic resistance with all the antibiotics we've been callously using, AI takeover etc.
it makes it tremendously unlikely that we'll ever colonize the galaxy and end up having even trillions of people spread out, because otherwise we'd more likely be in one of the colonies.
Last edited by schopenhauer with a keyboard on 07 Dec 2016, 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
07 Dec 2016, 4:47 pm
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
07 Dec 2016, 5:29 pm
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
techstepgenr8tion
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07 Dec 2016, 5:57 pm
I just think a lot of things can be done with numbers and the assumption that we have all factors accounted for. Heck, Steven C Meyer makes a great argument for Intelligent Design in his book Signature in the Cell - *if* you believe the soundness of the criteria that he's coming up with his ideas on such as very short-lived half-lives of the four basic amino acids when they aren't bound in some kind of chain format or his estimations of the odds of random assembly of a cell based on an assumption of 10^83 atoms in the universe and his 1/10 raised to perhaps half as many exponents presenting the likelihood that this number of atoms could create the first cell by chance.
One of the problems I have with the doomsday argument, for what I understand of it, is that I keep hearing that the moment a group of people start obtaining western standards of living their birthrate drops toward a little more or less than replacement rate. I have more concerns perhaps about what we could do to ourselves when most nations have nuclear capacity, I'm still not sure about gray goo or AI artilect vs. human holocaust idea because both of these seem to look at a worst case scenario (that and with the gray goo for instance - nature's making nanobots all the time, couldn't a bacteria that eats absolutely anything have already evolved and turned the entire crust of the earth to a swamp of itself? That risk has been looming for over 4 billion years).
Even if it were true that we'd succeed in wiping ourselves out in the next 1,000 years I doubt we'd be creative enough to dream up the cause right now. The idea might be food for reflection and speculation but its tough for me to take it all that seriously beyond that.
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The loneliest part of life: it's not just that no one is on your cloud, few can even see your cloud.
07 Dec 2016, 6:14 pm
techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I just think a lot of things can be done with numbers and the assumption that we have all factors accounted for. Heck, Steven C Meyer makes a great argument for Intelligent Design in his book Signature in the Cell - *if* you believe the soundness of the criteria that he's coming up with his ideas on such as very short-lived half-lives of the four basic amino acids when they aren't bound in some kind of chain format or his estimations of the odds of random assembly of a cell based on an assumption of 10^83 atoms in the universe and his 1/10 raised to perhaps half as many exponents presenting the likelihood that this number of atoms could create the first cell by chance.
One of the problems I have with the doomsday argument, for what I understand of it, is that I keep hearing that the moment a group of people start obtaining western standards of living their birthrate drops toward a little more or less than replacement rate. I have more concerns perhaps about what we could do to ourselves when most nations have nuclear capacity, I'm still not sure about gray goo or AI artilect vs. human holocaust idea because both of these seem to look at a worst case scenario (that and with the gray goo for instance - nature's making nanobots all the time, couldn't a bacteria that eats absolutely anything have already evolved and turned the entire crust of the earth to a swamp of itself? That risk has been looming for over 4 billion years).
Even if it were true that we'd succeed in wiping ourselves out in the next 1,000 years I doubt we'd be creative enough to dream up the cause right now. The idea might be food for reflection and speculation but its tough for me to take it all that seriously beyond that.
One of the problems I have with the doomsday argument, for what I understand of it, is that I keep hearing that the moment a group of people start obtaining western standards of living their birthrate drops toward a little more or less than replacement rate. I have more concerns perhaps about what we could do to ourselves when most nations have nuclear capacity, I'm still not sure about gray goo or AI artilect vs. human holocaust idea because both of these seem to look at a worst case scenario (that and with the gray goo for instance - nature's making nanobots all the time, couldn't a bacteria that eats absolutely anything have already evolved and turned the entire crust of the earth to a swamp of itself? That risk has been looming for over 4 billion years).
Even if it were true that we'd succeed in wiping ourselves out in the next 1,000 years I doubt we'd be creative enough to dream up the cause right now. The idea might be food for reflection and speculation but its tough for me to take it all that seriously beyond that.
right, but i think it's unfair to compare this to stephen meyer's nonsense when it doesn't suffer from the same obvious gaps like not taking into account vast numbers of trials happening at once, the possibility of a much larger universe, a cyclic universe or multiverse which offers more and probably infinite probabilistic resources, our ignorance about how life DID form and how simple it was, the ridiculousness of a god seeding the earth with a single celled organism and then supposedly tinkering with it along the way until he came up with us.
and i get your point with the birthrate thing, but really it's not going to decrease to a point where 100 billion births are delayed THAT long.
the method in which we perish is largely irrelevant to the argument as it's a more a priori thing based on anthropic reasoning, but it's definitely something to start thinking about.
it's hard to see how we can beat the odds somehow though, otherwise the argument is meaningless.
for the argument to work, we're gunna die at some point in the near future regardless of what we do because it's determined already.
not sure what the gray goo thing you mentioned is.
i take the argument very seriously because i don't see any plausible objections.
one is that observers in themselves aren't necessarily 'anthropic observers', but that doesn't help because the doomsday argument is really recent lol.. so us being early players in the doomsday argument proponents or opponents would make us even more special.
Last edited by schopenhauer with a keyboard on 07 Dec 2016, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
techstepgenr8tion
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07 Dec 2016, 6:24 pm
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
not sure what the gray goo thing you mentioned is.
Its the idea that a strain of nanobots will mutate and reproduce themselves until they've consumed the entire face of the earth - thus turning it to gray goo.
The handful of things people cite that are IMHO very risky
- Global warming, if we aren't able to innovate our way out of that fast (there seems to be some evidence that we will though)
- Nuclear capable theocracies or possibly an increasingly dictatorial Russia and China vs. a destabilized US
- Global pandemic could happen but we've rarely seen a situation in history that modern medicine and research couldn't get to the core of; it would just about need to be man-made and deliberately for the sake of human depopulation to get the job done.
I can't think of a lot else aside from the AI scenario and what makes me think that's less likely than some might think is that there will probably be enough of a time margin to get that right between the time of people taking the threat seriously and the threat actualizing.
_________________
The loneliest part of life: it's not just that no one is on your cloud, few can even see your cloud.
08 Dec 2016, 3:13 am
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
08 Dec 2016, 3:34 am
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
08 Dec 2016, 7:32 am
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
08 Dec 2016, 7:46 am
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
when dealing with these kind of numbers, a factor of a bit more than two isn't saying much lol.. but i guess when you go from 10,000 years to ~30,000 it's pretty relevant as that's relatively a lot of time.
like i said though, 95% is way overkill, and also we could just as easily be AHEAD of this somewhat arbitrary reference point too, like take it in the other direction and half it instead of double it and you get like 450 billion till the 95% point, which would be a few thousand years.
08 Dec 2016, 7:54 am
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
when dealing with these kind of numbers, a factor of a bit more than two isn't saying much lol.. but i guess when you go from 10,000 years to ~30,000 it's pretty relevant as that's relatively a lot of time.
like i said though, 95% is way overkill, and also we could just as easily be AHEAD of this somewhat arbitrary reference point too, like take it in the other direction and half it instead of double it and you get like 450 billion till the 95% point, which would be a few thousand years.
You could go to when there had been only 1 billion humans born. Then you'd have 20*1 billion, and get a 95% chance that humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans. And we're now at 60 billion, if you use Leslie's figure. So the Doomsday argument doesn't seem reliable. At least not to me.
08 Dec 2016, 9:25 am
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
when dealing with these kind of numbers, a factor of a bit more than two isn't saying much lol.. but i guess when you go from 10,000 years to ~30,000 it's pretty relevant as that's relatively a lot of time.
like i said though, 95% is way overkill, and also we could just as easily be AHEAD of this somewhat arbitrary reference point too, like take it in the other direction and half it instead of double it and you get like 450 billion till the 95% point, which would be a few thousand years.
You could go to when there had been only 1 billion humans born. Then you'd have 20*1 billion, and get a 95% chance that humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans. And we're now at 60 billion, if you use Leslie's figure. So the Doomsday argument doesn't seem reliable. At least not to me.
that's not how it works though.. you're failing to realize that we are born in this time for a reason, and we are by definition NOT one of those first 1 billion.
those 1 billion were in an extremely 'lucky' time to exist so to speak.
hopefully this helps you understand why that objection fails, and actually bolsters the argument if anything.
08 Dec 2016, 9:50 am
If you strip away the math, and state the argument in plain language its:
there is a predestined finite number of every entity that ever appears. And therefore the bigger the population of that entity grows the less time that entity will be around because that thing/entity will get used up faster. God preordained that X number of humans will ever be born-ergo the bigger our population gets the sooner that humans will get used up. 
If you strip away the math how is that not ludicrous and laughable?
08 Dec 2016, 10:20 am
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
when dealing with these kind of numbers, a factor of a bit more than two isn't saying much lol.. but i guess when you go from 10,000 years to ~30,000 it's pretty relevant as that's relatively a lot of time.
like i said though, 95% is way overkill, and also we could just as easily be AHEAD of this somewhat arbitrary reference point too, like take it in the other direction and half it instead of double it and you get like 450 billion till the 95% point, which would be a few thousand years.
You could go to when there had been only 1 billion humans born. Then you'd have 20*1 billion, and get a 95% chance that humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans. And we're now at 60 billion, if you use Leslie's figure. So the Doomsday argument doesn't seem reliable. At least not to me.
that's not how it works though.. you're failing to realize that we are born in this time for a reason, and we are by definition NOT one of those first 1 billion.
those 1 billion were in an extremely 'lucky' time to exist so to speak.
hopefully this helps you understand why that objection fails, and actually bolsters the argument if anything.
And what reason is that? Just because we are in this time, it doesn't mean it's any more important than a past time. There's nothing in the mathematics of the Doomsday argument that states this time is more important than another time. The mathematics would still work back when there had only been one billion people born; so why couldn't those people use it, and predict that there's a 95% chance humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans? As Naturalplastic said, the Doomsday argument is ludicrous and laughable.
08 Dec 2016, 3:56 pm
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
schopenhauer with a keyboard wrote:
81855306715th wrote:
Please note that i'm not entirely sure i understood it correctly.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
"If Leslie's figure is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion." Let's use the 95% chance again, but let's go ahead 800 years, assume that the average life is 80 years long, and that the population stabilises at 10 billion. In 800 years, there would of been an additional 800 billion people born. 20*(800 billion + 60 billion) =
17 trillion 200 billion. So according to that calculation, in 800 years, there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans born will be lower than 17.2 trillion. This is quite different to the result you get now. 800 billion additional humans born in the next 800 years is slightly more than what i'd expect the actual amount to be, but it's sufficient for my point. The further ahead in time you do the calculation, the higher the total amount of people born you'll get. It doesn't appear reliable to me.
i'm confused at all those numbers you threw around there, but based on some calculations i did assuming the population growth stabilizes at around 10 billion people showed that there'll be another 100billion humans (which is the figure i was working with.. not sure about his 60billion figure) born within 1,000 years.
that's all you need to get to the point where we're statistically likely to suffer an extinction event.
i'm not an expert in statistics or anything, but this much is pretty simple.
To get the total number of humans born that there is a 95% chance we'll be extinct before we hit that number (we can change the percentage, but seeing as that was used in the example given, and it's effective for my point, i shall keep it at 95%), we use the inequality N < 20n. Where n is the position of the most recent human. I think we can both agree that there is nothing more special about now, than let's say 1000 years ago, or 800 years into the future. In my original post, i calculated a rough figure for the amount of humans ever born in 800 years time. I then plugged this number into the inequality, to get N < 20*860 billion. This then tells us, according to the Doomsday argument, that there is a 95% chance that the total amount of humans ever born wont reach 17.2 trillion, which is quite different from the 1.2 trillion you get if you use the total amount of humans born so far now.
oh okay, i think i get you.
i should've payed attention in math class lol, a lot of this stuff goes over my head and i just like working with the basic equations.
i don't know where you're getting your 800+ billion born in 800 years figure, but it's WAY off base unless we enter a new level of population boom and somehow survive until 800 billion may be born within that slim amount of time despite the drastic overpopulation that would ensue (unless we found very efficient methods of feeding ppl etc.).
if your assumption of 800 billion was correct, then we'd almost certainly be gone even within 800 years.
the thing is, 95% is a huge likelihood of extinction as well.
really all you need is 51% for it to be technically likely, and like i said this will not take too long to reach at all, probably a bit below 1,000 years when you consider the more conservative estimate of birthrates.
anyway when i see what's happening in the world i just can't see us lasting that long regardless of all these calculations to be honest.
I screwed my maths up with the 800 billion, sorry. XD I'm doing that often, i find it hard to focus. It would be 100 billion, assuming the average life span is 80 years and the population stays at 10 billion for the entire 800 years, which is what's used with the calculation for us having a 95% of being extinct within the next 10000 years or whatever it was. So let's swap out 800 billion for 100 billion. Then we get 20*160 billion = 3.2 trillion. That's still significantly more than the 1.2 trillion; so my point survives.
when dealing with these kind of numbers, a factor of a bit more than two isn't saying much lol.. but i guess when you go from 10,000 years to ~30,000 it's pretty relevant as that's relatively a lot of time.
like i said though, 95% is way overkill, and also we could just as easily be AHEAD of this somewhat arbitrary reference point too, like take it in the other direction and half it instead of double it and you get like 450 billion till the 95% point, which would be a few thousand years.
You could go to when there had been only 1 billion humans born. Then you'd have 20*1 billion, and get a 95% chance that humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans. And we're now at 60 billion, if you use Leslie's figure. So the Doomsday argument doesn't seem reliable. At least not to me.
that's not how it works though.. you're failing to realize that we are born in this time for a reason, and we are by definition NOT one of those first 1 billion.
those 1 billion were in an extremely 'lucky' time to exist so to speak.
hopefully this helps you understand why that objection fails, and actually bolsters the argument if anything.
And what reason is that? Just because we are in this time, it doesn't mean it's any more important than a past time. There's nothing in the mathematics of the Doomsday argument that states this time is more important than another time. The mathematics would still work back when there had only been one billion people born; so why couldn't those people use it, and predict that there's a 95% chance humans will be extinct before we reach 20 billion total humans? As Naturalplastic said, the Doomsday argument is ludicrous and laughable.
..you're just bolstering the argument yet again.
like you said, no time is special, so we'd expect to be somewhere near the middle as a random sample from a set of total observers, or at least not too far into the past or future.
don't just dismiss it as laughable because you lack an understanding in anthropic reasoning
08 Dec 2016, 4:01 pm
naturalplastic wrote:
If you strip away the math, and state the argument in plain language its:
there is a predestined finite number of every entity that ever appears. And therefore the bigger the population of that entity grows the less time that entity will be around because that thing/entity will get used up faster. God preordained that X number of humans will ever be born-ergo the bigger our population gets the sooner that humans will get used up.
If you strip away the math how is that not ludicrous and laughable?
there is a predestined finite number of every entity that ever appears. And therefore the bigger the population of that entity grows the less time that entity will be around because that thing/entity will get used up faster. God preordained that X number of humans will ever be born-ergo the bigger our population gets the sooner that humans will get used up.
If you strip away the math how is that not ludicrous and laughable?
that's why you don't strip away the math.
it's not just about the future lifespan of humanity obviously decreasing with time, but to what extent it's likely to considering our own existence as observers.
that's the inference we seek to make.
i don't know what god has to do with any of this either.
the important concept isn't that the further you are into time the more likely doomsday is (which is obvious either way), but that say you put all the humans in history into an urn as balls, you pick one out, where would you expect it to be in history?
you wouldn't expect it to be at either extreme of the scale at the least, although it's possible it's less likely than being anywhere else.
