The flip side is that, of course, it can be meaningful - not scientifically, but emotionally - to talk about probabilities after the fact. If a meteorite falls and smashes a car next to you, the first thing to your mind wouldn't be that it's not that special because the probability of its happening is 1.
My issue is that the author doesn't really give a good reason for stopping at the probability that two human beings will reproduce and reproduce until they eventually create you.
Some interesting further probabilities to factor in:
- Chance that two human beings evolved from single-celled organisms
- Chance that life came into existence on Earth
- Chance that Earth formed at all
- Chance that the laws of the universe among all the possible universes were conducive to the creation of Earth
I should hope by this point I've made a reasonable claim that the probability of my own existence is 0.
My issue is that the author doesn't really give a good reason for stopping at the probability that two human beings will reproduce and reproduce until they eventually create you.
Some interesting further probabilities to factor in:
- Chance that two human beings evolved from single-celled organisms
- Chance that life came into existence on Earth
- Chance that Earth formed at all
- Chance that the laws of the universe among all the possible universes were conducive to the creation of Earth
I should hope by this point I've made a reasonable claim that the probability of my own existence is 0.