Actually, if we consider that you could have been an observer-moment either before or after the killing, finding yourself to be after it does increase your subjective probability that fewer observers were killed. However, this effect goes away if the amount of time before the killing was very short compared to the time afterwards, since you’d probably find yourself afterwards in either case; and the case we’re really interested in, the SIA, is the limit when the time before goes to 0.
I just wanted to follow up on this remark I made. There is a suble anthropic selection effect that I didn’t include in my original analysis. As we will see, the result I derived applies if the time after is long enough, as in the SIA limit.
Let the amount of time before the killing be T1, and after (until all observers die), T2. So if there were no killing, P(after) = T2/(T2+T1). It is the ratio of the total measure of observer-moments after the killing divided by the total (after + before).
If the 1 red observer is killed (heads), then P(after|heads) = 99 T2 / (99 T2 + 100 T1)
If the 99 blue observers are killed (tails), then P(after|tails) = 1 T2 / (1 T2 + 100 T1)
For example, if T1 = T2, we get P(after|heads) = 0.497, P(after|tails) = 0.0099, and P(after) = 0.497 (0.5) + 0.0099 (0.5) = 0.254
So here P(tails|after) = P(after|tails) P(tails) / P(after) = 0.0099 (.5) / (0.254) = 0.0195, or about 2%. So here we can be 98% confident to be blue observers if we are after the killing. Note, it is not 99%.
Now, in the relevant-to-SIA limit T2 >> T1, we get P(after|heads) ~ 1, P(after|tails) ~1, and P(after) ~1.
In this limit P(tails|after) = P(after|tails) P(tails) / P(after) ~ P(tails) = 0.5
I just wanted to follow up on this remark I made. There is a suble anthropic selection effect that I didn’t include in my original analysis. As we will see, the result I derived applies if the time after is long enough, as in the SIA limit.
Let the amount of time before the killing be T1, and after (until all observers die), T2. So if there were no killing, P(after) = T2/(T2+T1). It is the ratio of the total measure of observer-moments after the killing divided by the total (after + before).
If the 1 red observer is killed (heads), then P(after|heads) = 99 T2 / (99 T2 + 100 T1)
If the 99 blue observers are killed (tails), then P(after|tails) = 1 T2 / (1 T2 + 100 T1)
P(after) = P(after|heads) P(heads) + P(after|tails) P(tails)
For example, if T1 = T2, we get P(after|heads) = 0.497, P(after|tails) = 0.0099, and P(after) = 0.497 (0.5) + 0.0099 (0.5) = 0.254
So here P(tails|after) = P(after|tails) P(tails) / P(after) = 0.0099 (.5) / (0.254) = 0.0195, or about 2%. So here we can be 98% confident to be blue observers if we are after the killing. Note, it is not 99%.
Now, in the relevant-to-SIA limit T2 >> T1, we get P(after|heads) ~ 1, P(after|tails) ~1, and P(after) ~1.
In this limit P(tails|after) = P(after|tails) P(tails) / P(after) ~ P(tails) = 0.5
So the SIA is false.