Over the last several years I have become more confident about my worldview and my beliefs. To clarify my thinking about matters that I'm less sure about, I find it helpful to make explicit statements and then try to quantify the likelihood that the statement is true. (I also find it interesting to ask the same questions a year or two later and watch how my answers change over time.) Here are a few examples:
- Life exists elsewhere in our universe: 92%
- Life of at least human-level intelligence exists elsewhere in our universe: 88%
- Human civilization will survive (that is, remain at or above its current level of technological capability) at least another 100 years: 85%
- ...at least another 1000 years: 25%
- Within 100 years, some form of international federation or global governmental structure will emerge that can exercise sovereign authority over world affairs: 40%
- The world's per capita GDP (currently around $8,000) will increase at least tenfold in inflation-adjusted dollars within 50 years: 50%
- A machine intelligence will have passed the Turing test within the next 25 years: 15%
- ... within the next 100 years: 60%
- My quality of life will improve in the next 10 years: 75%
- My life will have a net positive impact (whether small or large) on the world: 80%
- In old age I'll rate how I lived my life as very well or better: 60%
- I'll live to be more than 100 years old: 35%
- I'll live to be more than 200 years old: 1%
- Someone currently alive will live to be more than 200 years old: 25%
- I (that is, my consciousness) will survive my biological death: 3%
- Our observable universe will eventually stop expanding: 40%
- Our observable universe represents a vanishingly small fraction (let's say less than 1/10^100) of all that exists: 60%
- Everett's Many Worlds Hypothesis is correct and essentially complete: 15%
- Earth life originated via panspermia: 40%
- Earth life originated through directed panspermia: 20%
If you disagree about any of these, I'd like to hear your rationale, so that it might help me improve my estimates.
- Life exists elsewhere in our universe: 92%
- Life of at least human-level intelligence exists elsewhere in our universe: 88%
- Human civilization will survive (that is, remain at or above its current level of technological capability) at least another 100 years: 85%
- ...at least another 1000 years: 25%
- Within 100 years, some form of international federation or global governmental structure will emerge that can exercise sovereign authority over world affairs: 40%
- The world's per capita GDP (currently around $8,000) will increase at least tenfold in inflation-adjusted dollars within 50 years: 50%
- A machine intelligence will have passed the Turing test within the next 25 years: 15%
- ... within the next 100 years: 60%
- My quality of life will improve in the next 10 years: 75%
- My life will have a net positive impact (whether small or large) on the world: 80%
- In old age I'll rate how I lived my life as very well or better: 60%
- I'll live to be more than 100 years old: 35%
- I'll live to be more than 200 years old: 1%
- Someone currently alive will live to be more than 200 years old: 25%
- I (that is, my consciousness) will survive my biological death: 3%
- Our observable universe will eventually stop expanding: 40%
- Our observable universe represents a vanishingly small fraction (let's say less than 1/10^100) of all that exists: 60%
- Everett's Many Worlds Hypothesis is correct and essentially complete: 15%
- Earth life originated via panspermia: 40%
- Earth life originated through directed panspermia: 20%
If you disagree about any of these, I'd like to hear your rationale, so that it might help me improve my estimates.
4 Comments:
This post has been removed by the author.
By Ludovico Capuzzo, at 10:02 AM
Just for thought...
If the universe as we know it originated with the big bang and all matter was released in a massive explosion condensed in a tiny space, where did that matter originate? There's more than what meets the eye in life.
By Anonymous, at 12:29 AM
I wish I could believe that human civilization was going to survive another 1,000 years, but I don't. I've been reading Elizabeth Kolbert's cool review of the current state of the climate crisis, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, followed by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and think there's a lot of data that would suggest in a matter of a few decades, we will be suffering a worldwide eclipse. There is hope - but the window of opportunity is closing.
-Benjamin Chambers
www.kingsenglish.blogspot.com
By Benjamin Chambers, at 7:44 PM
The prospects are bleak if we pace around forever, or as long as it supports us, on our planetary prison. Prospects for a good life for the (future)masses improve if we grow up and let go of Mother Earth's apron strings. More at www.starlarvae.org
By Heresiarch, at 5:33 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home