  The doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the
total lifetime of the human race. By examining the case of an individual
lifetime, I conclude that the argument is fundamentally related to
consciousness. I derive a reformulation stating that an infinite conscious
lifetime is not possible even in principle. By considering a hypothetical
conscious computer, running a non-terminating program, I deduce that
consciousness cannot be generated by a single set of deterministic laws.
Instead, I hypothesize that consciousness is generated by a superposition of
brain states that is simultaneously associated with many quasi-classical
histories, each following a different set of deterministic laws. I generalize
the doomsday argument and discover that it makes no prediction in this case.
Thus I conclude that the very fact of our consciousness provides us with
evidence for a many-worlds interpretation of reality in which our future is not
predictable using anthropic reasoning.
