There is another independent aspect to anthropic reasoning too, which is how you assign probabilities to ‘indexical’ facts. This is the part of anthropic reasoning I always thought was more contentious. For example, if two people are created, one with red hair and one with blue hair, and you are one of these people, what is the probability that you have red hair (before you look in the mirror)? We are supposed to use the ‘Self-Sampling Assumption’ here, and say the answer is 1⁄2, but if you just naively apply that rule too widely then you can end up with conclusions like the Doomsday Argument, or Adam+Eve paradox.
I think that a complete account of anthropic reasoning would need to cover this as well, but I think what you’ve outlined is a good summary of how we should treat cases where we are only able to observe certain outcomes because we do not exist in others.
I think that makes sense!
There is another independent aspect to anthropic reasoning too, which is how you assign probabilities to ‘indexical’ facts. This is the part of anthropic reasoning I always thought was more contentious. For example, if two people are created, one with red hair and one with blue hair, and you are one of these people, what is the probability that you have red hair (before you look in the mirror)? We are supposed to use the ‘Self-Sampling Assumption’ here, and say the answer is 1⁄2, but if you just naively apply that rule too widely then you can end up with conclusions like the Doomsday Argument, or Adam+Eve paradox.
I think that a complete account of anthropic reasoning would need to cover this as well, but I think what you’ve outlined is a good summary of how we should treat cases where we are only able to observe certain outcomes because we do not exist in others.