Monton, Bradley (2001) The Doomsday Argument Without Knowledge of Birth Rank. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The Carter-Leslie Doomsday argument, as standardly presented, relies on the assumption that you have knowledge of your approximate birth rank. I demonstrate that the Doomsday argument can still be given in a situation where you have no knowledge of your birth rank. This allows one to reply to Bostrom's defense of the Doomsday argument against the refutation based on the idea that your existence makes it more likely that many observers exist.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Monton, Bradley
Keywords:	Doomsday argument, anthropic reasoning, observational selection effects, problem of old evidence
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Depositing User:	Bradley Monton
Date Deposited:	08 Mar 2002
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:10
Item ID:	577
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Date:	September 2001
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/577

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