Lemma: notes !! Chance branching alone might suffice to avoid extinction. : join @ `^*\(a\) Could the decline of.+p.+be sustained by chance\?$` @ 20_lemma.brec : join @ `^*\(b\)` - The branching rate would, however, have to surpass some threshold. ∵ Branches would themselves branch independently of each other. ∵ They could not plausibly (by mere chance) react appropiately to news (via branch intercommunication) of another branch’s extinction. - To learn the threshold rate, I would need a model based on a branching process. : see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_process + Dismiss ∵ chance branching has limits, at least one of which defeats it entirely. / This perhaps in conjunction with a sister remedy or two herein. - The limits of chance branching are: i) It does not (for us) operate at present. ii) It could not plausibly work indefinitely, at least not in our universe. - It would be stopped by the ultimate existential hazards. - But so might deliberate branching, we know of no plausible way to circumvent those ultimate hazards. / Though here the case does seem a little more hopeful, and I think we *must* hope for this. wrong!! : see @ `^*iii\) It could not work for all plausible lines of agent.$` iii) It could not work for all plausible lines of agent. - It is plausible there could exist (at some time, place) agents whose line-branching probability would fall below the threshold that could sustain chance branching. - Such a line would certainly go extinct if chance branching were its only means of *p* decay / Indeed *p* would not decay at all over the long run. wrong!! - For agents who choose to will their own survival, *p* reduction is technical knowledge (know-how) to that end, which would itself be stabilized against loss (know-how extinction, so to speak) by branching. - For agents who do *not* choose to will their own survival, it makes no sense to expect a principle of reason dedicated that purpose to come to their rescue. chart the thresholds+ for a range of *p* rates - It is not implausible that we ourselves are such a line or that (by some change) we will become one in future. - If we knew that we were, then we would have to conclude there exists a lineal-autotelic principle of reason. : e.g. `^*- It follows there exists a lineal-autotelic principle of reason.$` @ 40_law.brec - Else reason would be auto-destructive for us. - But the principles of reason are universal and timeless. - Therefore the conclusion holds already. ? So might I want to reorder the argument between these two files? : sc. 20_lemma.brec : sc. 40_law.brec - An isolated argument for an initial lemma might no longer make sense. - The reader might need the context of the argument up front. ? What does the *argument* need, what *premises*? axiom: Just that set of principles that all rational agents could [together] agree to constitutes practical reason. - As reason is the author of its own content, this seems beyond dispute. axiom: The principles of practical reason are universal and timeless. ?+ How reorder the argument in order dismiss chance branching *by these axioms* on account of its failure (for plausible agents) in the present case (iii). | state the conclusion I argue for up front try this+ iv) It could not work at all in all possible universes. - This one (at least) seems to enter only when I infer of the principle, for it would make reason auto-destructive wherever the (empirical) physical properties of a universe did not happen to be favourable to it. wrong!! : see @ `^*iii\) It could not work for all plausible lines of agent.$` (a) I dismissed the possibility of chance being sufficient to the task. / The task being to keep existential risk *p* on a downward trend. : see `^*\(a\) Could the decline of.+p.+be sustained by chance\?$` @ 20_lemma.brec (b) Finish dismissing the possibility of a law of nature sufficient to the task. / The task being to keep existential risk *p* on a downward trend. : see `^*\(b\) Could the decline of.+p.+be sustained by physical necessity\?$` @ 20_lemma.brec i) First for a line of ideally rational agents. - By the lack of adequate purchase for nature to coerce their wills into branching. - Nature cannot provide a reason for that, short of physical force, and a law that physically forces branching is implausible. ii) Then for any line, more-or-less rational. - Given that (i) fails, (ii) depends on some irrational impulse to branch a line of rational agents. - I should be able to defeat this by the failure of nature in developed societies to push us, through such urges, to even replensish our own populations. - That it could neverthess drive us to populate the stars would then be absurd. - I think nature is done pulling our strings for us. - People now need a reason to reproduce. !! Chance branching alone might suffice to avoid extinction. : join - Viz. chance in the form of a stochastic law of nature in regard to branching. (c) Characterize the one remaining possibility, that of a principle of reason sufficient to the task. / The task being to keep existential risk *p* on a downward trend. : see `^*\(c\) Could the decline of.+p.+be sustained by rational necessity\?$` @ 20_lemma.brec - Dealing with the qualifier on necessity — namely ‘insofar as the line is rational’ — by treating subrationality (on some macro-measure) as extinction. - This requires that: i) *p* include the probability of going macro-subrational; ii) it too — inclusion (i) — decay by *δ*; and iii) each branch sees any macro-subrationality of another branch, as effective extinction of that branch. / Branch inter-communication would thus be crucial to this means of decreasing *p*.