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spoonlessIt seems that top notch physicists have now discovered Nick Bostrom's ingenius "Doomsday Argument".
Eternal Inflation Predicts That Time Will End
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.4698
"If you accept that the end of time is a real event that could happen to you, the change in odds is not surprising: although the coin is fair, some people who are put to sleep for a long time never wake up because
they run into the end of time first. So upon waking up and discovering that the world has not ended, it is more likely that you have slept for a short time. You have obtained additional information upon waking—the information that time has not stopped—and that changes the probabilities. However, if you refuse to believe that time can end, there is a contradiction. The odds cannot change unless you obtain additional information. But if all sleepers wake, then the fact that you woke up does not supply you with new information."
Lending some weight to this theory is the fact that both Peter Woit and Lubos Motl think the paper is complete nonsense (Motl's rant on it is particularly entertaining and vacuous), since both of them are idiots (although usually in polar opposite ways)!
I've always thought of Raphael Bousso as a better physicist than ex physicist Lubos Motl was, and certainly better than mathematics lecturer Peter Woit. I suppose that doesn't guarantee that it's right though.
Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to a headline like this, but Bousso is actually someone I have a lot of respect for. And to add to that, I have found Bostrom's Doomsday Arguments in the past fairly persuasive (at least more convincing than not), which have a similar flavor... although Bostrom's arguments were far less technical in nature. This may give a more solid, physical basis to the idea that being a good Bayesian entails believing we are all doomed.
Eternal Inflation Predicts That Time Will End
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.4698
"If you accept that the end of time is a real event that could happen to you, the change in odds is not surprising: although the coin is fair, some people who are put to sleep for a long time never wake up because
they run into the end of time first. So upon waking up and discovering that the world has not ended, it is more likely that you have slept for a short time. You have obtained additional information upon waking—the information that time has not stopped—and that changes the probabilities. However, if you refuse to believe that time can end, there is a contradiction. The odds cannot change unless you obtain additional information. But if all sleepers wake, then the fact that you woke up does not supply you with new information."
Lending some weight to this theory is the fact that both Peter Woit and Lubos Motl think the paper is complete nonsense (Motl's rant on it is particularly entertaining and vacuous), since both of them are idiots (although usually in polar opposite ways)!
I've always thought of Raphael Bousso as a better physicist than ex physicist Lubos Motl was, and certainly better than mathematics lecturer Peter Woit. I suppose that doesn't guarantee that it's right though.
Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to a headline like this, but Bousso is actually someone I have a lot of respect for. And to add to that, I have found Bostrom's Doomsday Arguments in the past fairly persuasive (at least more convincing than not), which have a similar flavor... although Bostrom's arguments were far less technical in nature. This may give a more solid, physical basis to the idea that being a good Bayesian entails believing we are all doomed.
