>> And it gets even more so when you run it in terms of persons or person years (as I believe you should). i.e. measure time with a clock that ticks as each lifetime ends, rather than one that ticks each second. e.g. about 1/20th of all people who have ever lived are alive now, so the next century it is not really 1⁄2,000th of human history but more like 1/20th of it.
And if you use person-years, you get something like 1⁄7 − 1/14! [1]
>> I doubt I can easily convince you that the prior I’ve chosen is objectively best, or even that it is better than the one you used. Prior-choice is a bit of an art, rather like choice of axioms.
I’m pretty confused about how these dramatically different priors are formed, and would really appreciate it if somebody (maybe somebody less busy than Will or Toby?) could give pointers on how to read up more on forming these sort of priors. As you allude to, this question seems to map to anthropics, and I’m curious how much the priors here necessarily maps to your views on anthropics. Eg, am I reading the post and your comment correctly that Will takes an SIA view and you take an SSA view on anthropic questions?
In general, does anybody have pointers on how best to reason about anthropic and anthropic-adjacent questions?
>> And it gets even more so when you run it in terms of persons or person years (as I believe you should). i.e. measure time with a clock that ticks as each lifetime ends, rather than one that ticks each second. e.g. about 1/20th of all people who have ever lived are alive now, so the next century it is not really 1⁄2,000th of human history but more like 1/20th of it.
And if you use person-years, you get something like 1⁄7 − 1/14! [1]
>> I doubt I can easily convince you that the prior I’ve chosen is objectively best, or even that it is better than the one you used. Prior-choice is a bit of an art, rather like choice of axioms.
I’m pretty confused about how these dramatically different priors are formed, and would really appreciate it if somebody (maybe somebody less busy than Will or Toby?) could give pointers on how to read up more on forming these sort of priors. As you allude to, this question seems to map to anthropics, and I’m curious how much the priors here necessarily maps to your views on anthropics. Eg, am I reading the post and your comment correctly that Will takes an SIA view and you take an SSA view on anthropic questions?
In general, does anybody have pointers on how best to reason about anthropic and anthropic-adjacent questions?
[1] https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2018/10/09/the-funnel-of-human-experience/