  Probabilities in the multiverse can be calculated by assuming that we are
typical representatives in a given reference class. But is this class well
defined? What should be included in the ensemble in which we are supposed to be
typical? There is a widespread belief that this question is inherently vague,
and that there are various possible choices for the types of reference objects
which should be counted in. Here we argue that the ``ideal'' reference class
(for the purpose of making predictions) can be defined unambiguously in a
rather precise way, as the set of all observers with identical information
content. When the observers in a given class perform an experiment, the class
branches into subclasses who learn different information from the outcome of
that experiment. The probabilities for the different outcomes are defined as
the relative numbers of observers in each subclass. For practical purposes,
wider reference classes can be used, where we trace over all information which
is uncorrelated to the outcome of the experiment, or whose correlation with it
is beyond our current understanding. We argue that, once we have gathered all
practically available evidence, the optimal strategy for making predictions is
to consider ourselves typical in any reference class we belong to, unless we
have evidence to the contrary. In the latter case, the class must be
correspondingly narrowed.
