“Why not limit the set of people who could reason like me to “people who are using anthropic reasoning” and just assume people will stop using anthropic reasoning in the next hundred years?”
That’s known as the Doomsday argument, as far as I can tell.
My point, in a bit simplifying way, is that anthropic reasoning is only applicable to beings are capable of anthropic reasoning. If you know that there are billion agents, of which one thousand are capable of anthropic reasoning, and you know that of anthropic reasoners 950 are on island A and 50 are on the B, and all the non-anthropic reasoners are on island B, you know, based on anthropic reasoning, that you’re on the island A 95% certainly. The rest of the agents simply don’t matter. You can’t conclude anything about those beyond that they’re most likely not capable of anthropic reasoning
What happens if we replace “capable of anthropic reasoning” to “have considered the anthropic doomsday argument”? As far as I can tell, it becomes a tautology.
I’m not sure, but it seems that your tautology-way of putting it is simply more accurate, at the cost that using it requires more accurate a priori knowledge.
That’s known as the Doomsday argument, as far as I can tell.
My point, in a bit simplifying way, is that anthropic reasoning is only applicable to beings are capable of anthropic reasoning. If you know that there are billion agents, of which one thousand are capable of anthropic reasoning, and you know that of anthropic reasoners 950 are on island A and 50 are on the B, and all the non-anthropic reasoners are on island B, you know, based on anthropic reasoning, that you’re on the island A 95% certainly. The rest of the agents simply don’t matter. You can’t conclude anything about those beyond that they’re most likely not capable of anthropic reasoning
What happens if we replace “capable of anthropic reasoning” to “have considered the anthropic doomsday argument”? As far as I can tell, it becomes a tautology.
I’m not sure, but it seems that your tautology-way of putting it is simply more accurate, at the cost that using it requires more accurate a priori knowledge.