Re:A Primer on the Doomsday Argument
by livingparadox on Monday August 18, 2014 @03:53PM
(#8194264)
The premises in the argument can abstracted into the following:
if doom_soon, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 1-10 is 100%;
if doom_soon, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 11-100 is 0%;
if doom_late, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 1-10 is 10%;
if doom_late, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 11-100 is 90%;
???
Therefore if I am the cubicles 1-10, the probability of doom soon is 81%;
In any logic class, this argument would quickly be pointed out as a fallacy. The statement of "if p, then q" says nothing about the truth of p, given q. Which is exactly what this argument seems to do, reason backwards from the conclusion when none of the premises are able to be logically inferred from the conclusion.
if doom_soon, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 1-10 is 100%; if doom_soon, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 11-100 is 0%;
if doom_late, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 1-10 is 10%; if doom_late, then the probability of myself being in cubicles 11-100 is 90%;
???
Therefore if I am the cubicles 1-10, the probability of doom soon is 81%;
In any logic class, this argument would quickly be pointed out as a fallacy. The statement of "if p, then q" says nothing about the truth of p, given q. Which is exactly what this argument seems to do, reason backwards from the conclusion when none of the premises are able to be logically inferred from the conclusion.