English

The Doomsday Argument in Many Worlds

Popular Physics 2012-09-28 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

You and I are highly unlikely to exist in a civilization that has produced only 70 billion people, yet we find ourselves in just such a civilization. Our circumstance, which seems difficult to explain, is easily accounted for if (1) many other civilizations exist and if (2) nearly all of these civilizations (including our own) die out sooner than usually thought, i.e., before trillions of people are produced. Because the combination of (1) and (2) make our situation likely and alternatives do not, we should drastically increase our belief that (1) and (2) are true. These results follow immediately when considering a many worlds version of the "Doomsday Argument" and are immune to the main criticism of the original Doomsday Argument.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.6251,
  title  = {The Doomsday Argument in Many Worlds},
  author = {Austin Gerig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.6251},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

18 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:12:13.480Z