Is Many Likelier than Few? A Critical Assessment of the Self-Indicating Assumption

Abstract

We analyze the arguments allegedly supporting the so-called Self-Indication Assumption (SIA), as an attempt to reject counterintuitive consequences of the Doomsday Argument of Carter, Leslie, Gott and others. Several arguments purportedly supporting this assumption are demonstrated to be either flawed or, at best, inconclusive. Therefore, no compelling reason for accepting SIA exists so far, and it should be regarded as an ad hoc hypothesis with several rather strange and implausible physical and epistemological consequences. Accordingly, if one wishes to reject the controversial consequences of the Doomsday Argument, a route different from SIA has to be found.