Re: poly: What probabilities?

 bostrom@ndirect.co.uk ("Nick Bostrom") writes:
>Peter C. McCluskey wrote:
>
>> >"Here's a scenario which I would guess has a 0.1 to 10% chance of
>> > happening: 1) a self-replicating molecular assembler becomes able to
>> > manufacture...",
>
>> Can you produce 2 reasonable interpretations of my statement which
>> have nontrivially different implications?
>
>Interpretation 1: You say something about the objective probability
>of the scenario in question, i.e. that if we prepared a large number
>of systems in states indistinguishable from the present state of
>civilization here on earth (modulo our knowledge thereof) then the
>fraction of them which would develop in accordance with the scenario
>is between 0.1 and 10%.

 The hypothesis that I have information which would justify this
interpretation seems very far from reasonable.

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