I’m confused. I thought the distribution of each factor that is considered in the paper is just subjective probabilities for the possible values of the factor in our universe. Is this not the case?
If the distributions considered are those of some random process that creates new universes—how can one possibly reason over them in any useful way?
We don’t know for sure what universe we live in, since we don’t have enough information about it. The distribution they construct is over infinitely many possible universes, of which ours is one, just not clear which one. They calculate the odds that our universe has only us and no ETIs, based on this distribution.
(I haven’t read the entire paper)
I’m confused. I thought the distribution of each factor that is considered in the paper is just subjective probabilities for the possible values of the factor in our universe. Is this not the case?
If the distributions considered are those of some random process that creates new universes—how can one possibly reason over them in any useful way?
We don’t know for sure what universe we live in, since we don’t have enough information about it. The distribution they construct is over infinitely many possible universes, of which ours is one, just not clear which one. They calculate the odds that our universe has only us and no ETIs, based on this distribution.