The logic of existence

If archaeologists claim they’ve uncovered traces of a fire lit by some guy half a million years ago, then following my own logic—assuming every one of my ancestors lived to be 100—I should technically have two out of every 5,000 ancestors. In a decimal system, that works out to about 10 out of 1,500.

Anthropologists suggest that only about 10 out of every 11 people actually existed on Earth. By those numbers, I'm missing roughly 10 out of 1,489 of my ancestors. Does that mean I don't actually exist?

Perhaps the answer lies in the existence of parallel universes? I'd love to hear what you all think.

Look, family trees don't just stay thin when you're looking back—they expand exponentially. If you were staring down a lineage stretching back 500,000 years, you'd see all these branches constantly widening and narrowing out.
And I think your math is a bit off—if you take 10^1500 and subtract 10^11, you’re still looking at something in the ballpark of 10^1500 or maybe 10^1499, but definitely not 10^1489. That’s a massive, massive gap.

Benjamin Stewart53 said:Look, family trees don't just expand linearly when you look backward; it’s an exponential explosion. If you tried to map out a lineage stretching back 500,000 years, you wouldn't see a straight line. You’d see a massive, sprawling web of branches constantly widening and narrowing.
Plus, your math is a bit off. If you subtract 10^11 from 10^1500, you're still left with something in the neighborhood of 10^1500 or maybe 10^1499. It certainly isn't 10^1489. That is a massive discrepancy.

That logic doesn't hold up mathematically.