Daily Archives: September 21, 2022

Doomsday argument

The Doomsday argument, attributed to Brandon Carter, was described by John Leslie (1993, 1996). It is worth recalling preliminarily its statement. Consider then proposition (A):

(A) The human species will disappear before the end of the XXIst century

We can estimate, to fix ideas, to 1 on 100 the probability that this extinction will occur: P(A) = 0.01. Let us consider also the following proposition:

(Ā) The human species will not disappear at the end of the XXIst century

Let also E be the event: I live during the 2010s. We can also estimate today to 60 billion the number of humans that ever have existed since the birth of humanity. Similarly, the current population can be estimated at 6 billion. One calculates then that one human out of ten, if event A occurs, will have known of the 2010s. We can then estimate accordingly the probability that humanity will be extinct before the end of the twenty-first century, if I have known of the 2010s: P(E, A) = 6×109/6×1010 = 0.1. By contrast, if humanity passes the course of the twenty-first century, it is likely that it will be subject to a much greater expansion, and that the number of human will be able to amount, for example to 6×1012. In this case, the probability that humanity will not be not extinct at the end of the twenty-first century, if I have known of the 2010s, can be evaluated as follows: P(E, Ā) = 6×109/6×1012 = 0,001. At this point, we can assimilate to two distinct urns – one containing 60 billion balls and the other containing 6,000,000,000,000 – the total human populations that will result. This leads to calculate the posterior probability of the human species’ extinction before the end of the XXIst century, with the help of Bayes’ formula: P'(A) = [P(A) x P(E, A)] / [P(A) x P(E, A) + P(Ā) x P(E, Ā )] = (0.01 x 0.1) / (0.01 x 0.1 + 0.99 x 0.001) = 0.5025. Thus, taking into account the fact that I am currently living makes pass the probability of the human species’ extinction before 2150 from 1% to 50.25 %. Such a conclusion appears counter-intuitive and is in this sense, paradoxical.


(excerpt from) Franceschi P. An Introduction to Analytic Philosophy: Paradoxes, Arguments and Contemporary Problems, 2nd edition, March, 2010


Ambiguous images Arbitrary focus Bistable perception Complementarity relationship Conflict resolution Conflict resolution with matrices of concepts Conflict types relating to matrices of concepts Contrary relationship Courage Dialectical contextualism Dialectical monism Dialectical monism in Aztec philosophy Dialectical monism in Heraclitus Dichotomic analysis Dichotomic analysis applied to paradox resolution Dichotomous reasoning Disqualification of one pole Disqualification of the positive Doctrine of the mean Doomsday argument Dualities Dual poles Extreme opposition General cognitive distortions Instance of one-sidedness bias Liar paradox Matrix of concepts Maximization Mental filter Minimization Bistable cognition Omission of the neutral One-sidedness bias One-sided viewpoint Opposition relationship Principle of dialectical indifference Requalification into the other pole Reference class Reference class problem Reference class problem in philosophical paradoxes Reference class problem in the Doomsday argument Reference class problem in Hempel’s paradox Reference class problem in the surprise examination paradox Selective abstraction Sorites paradox Specific cognitive distortions Surprise examination paradox System of taxa Two-sided viewpoint Viewpoint of a duality Viewpoint of a pole

Surprise examination paradox

The classical version of the surprise examination paradox goes as follows: a teacher tells his students that an examination will take place on the next week, but they will not know in advance the precise date on which the examination will occur. The examination will thus occur surprisingly. The students reason then as follows. The examination cannot take place on Saturday, they think, otherwise they would know in advance that the examination would take place on Saturday and therefore it could not occur surprisingly. Thus, Saturday is eliminated. In addition, the examination can not take place on Friday, otherwise the students would know in advance that the examination would take place on Friday and so it could not occur surprisingly. Thus, Friday is also ruled out. By a similar reasoning, the students eliminate successively Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. Finally, every day of the week is eliminated. However, this does not preclude the examination of finally occurring by surprise, say on Wednesday. Thus, the reasoning of the students proved to be fallacious. However, such reasoning seems intuitively valid.

The paradox lies here in the fact the students’ reasoning is apparently valid, whereas it finally proves inconsistent with the facts, i.e. that the examination can truly occur by surprise, as initially announced by the professor.


Franceschi, P., Une analyse dichotomique du paradoxe de l’examen surprise, Philosophiques, vol. 32-2, 2005, pp. 399-421, A dichotomic analysis of the surprise examination paradox (English translation).

Franceschi, P., “Éléments d’un contextualisme dialectique” (in english), in Liber Amicorum Pascal Engel, J. Dutant, G. Fassio & A. Meylan (éd.), Université de Genève, 2014, pp. 581-608.


Ambiguous images Arbitrary focus Bistable perception Complementarity relationship Conflict resolution Conflict resolution with matrices of concepts Conflict types relating to matrices of concepts Contrary relationship Courage Dialectical contextualism Dialectical monism Dialectical monism in Aztec philosophy Dialectical monism in Heraclitus Dichotomic analysis Dichotomic analysis applied to paradox resolution Dichotomous reasoning Disqualification of one pole Disqualification of the positive Doctrine of the mean Doomsday argument Dualities Dual poles Extreme opposition General cognitive distortions Instance of one-sidedness bias Liar paradox Matrix of concepts Maximization Mental filter Minimization Bistable cognition Omission of the neutral One-sidedness bias One-sided viewpoint Opposition relationship Principle of dialectical indifference Requalification into the other pole Reference class Reference class problem Reference class problem in philosophical paradoxes Reference class problem in the Doomsday argument Reference class problem in Hempel’s paradox Reference class problem in the surprise examination paradox Selective abstraction Sorites paradox Specific cognitive distortions Surprise examination paradox System of taxa Two-sided viewpoint Viewpoint of a duality Viewpoint of a pole