Proof of Immortality II

[Akhenaten]

Dave,
- No – since it’s 2 sets of grandparents, the random probability of your parent’s existence would be the original probability squared -- at least. That is, so far, we are not taking into account the random probabilities that your parents would ever meet, and that they would ever share reproductive cells -- nor, that your 2 sets of grandparents would ever meet (Robert would meet Susan, and Margaret would meet Joseph (just guessing at names)) and, in each case, eventually, share reproductive cells, themselves.

Are you still unable to differentiate between really big numbers and infinity?

Have you learned nothing?

And when are you going to return to the topic of immortality?

- And this is just the tip of an unimaginably large iceberg...

Icebergs are neither infinite nor immortal.

The only thing here that's jaw-dropping is your refusal to acknowledge either.

- Probability isn't easy.

In the infinite Jabbaverse it is. The probability of everything is 1.

The difficulties from which your pathetic excuse for an argument suffers only arise when you attempt to introduce Jabbesian statistics into the real Universe.

 

[Jabba]

I meant for each parent.



Jabba, I already know the probability of me existing is very small, because of all the variables in the system. Any system with a large number of variables is going to have many possible outcomes, each one individually unlikely. You are not telling me anything I don't already know and haven't already stated on this thread.

I objected to the use of the word "unimaginably" because it's not a precise term. Like Han Solo, I can imagine quite a bit.

Starting from the beginning the universe, or even from the beginning of life on earth, the likelihood of my existence is very small. So is the likelihood of the existence of the rock on Trebor's desk. We all understand this.

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist? Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring? (The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)
- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?
- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

- I'll get to Trebor's rock as soon as possible -- though starting tomorrow, we begin a trip and I'll be even slower than usual until the 18th.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist? Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring? (The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)

- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?

A lot. Although many of those events are connected causally, making the calculation more difficult but also making the likelihood not as small.

- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

So what?

 

[Akhenaten]

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist?

Several.

Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring?

1/several.

(The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)

Has immortality only existed since the beginning of mankind?

If so, why?

- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?

Less than an infinity.

- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

It does, actually. Quite succinctly.

- I'll get to Trebor's rock as soon as possible -- though starting tomorrow, we begin a trip and I'll be even slower than usual until the 18th.

Your argument hasn't progressed at all since you made the OP.

Slower is impossible.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist? Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring? (The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)
- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?
- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

- I'll get to Trebor's rock as soon as possible -- though starting tomorrow, we begin a trip and I'll be even slower than usual until the 18th.

Let me save you the time and effort: "rocks don't have souls." Have you got any evidence that people do?

 

[trebor]

Trebor is talking about one specific piece of rock.

Yep, the special bit of rock sitting right on my desk here....
The weight is about 30 grams if that is any use in calculating the exact odds of all the atoms in it being arranged exactly as they are.

 

[pakeha]

Where are you going with this?

It's a very big number. It's not infinity.

Where does immortality come in?

My question as well, Jabba.
What does immortality have to do with probabilities calculated from the big bang?

[ . . . ]

Has immortality only existed since the beginning of mankind?

If so, why? [ . . . ]

An excellent question, O glorious Pharaoh.

 

[Giordano]

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist? Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring? (The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)
- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?
- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

- I'll get to Trebor's rock as soon as possible -- though starting tomorrow, we begin a trip and I'll be even slower than usual until the 18th.

Is that the new question, rather than the question you actually asked, which referred specifically to events once Dave's grandparent's met? Okay then, how many events had to occur since the big bang to create Dave's "self" according to your theory? Did Dave's "self" always exist even before the big bang, and it took billions of years for people to evolve that could house it? Or was Dave's "self" one of the ones that were newly minted at his birth, as you have also suggested? How can he tell the difference, and if the later, then wasn't it also unlikely Dave got his current "self" given all the possible "selfs" you have postulated? Or, third possibility, was Dave's "self" created recently some time between the big band and the 1900's?

Yes, it seems unlikely that the Universe would have a Dave, or a you, or a me, in particular if we go back billions of years, unless, of course, something or someone early on pre-determined the outcome and engineered it all to make Dave, Jabba, and me in specific. This is separate from our "selfs": lets just talk about Dave's fingerprints and facial features. Aren't those unlikely by random chance for the same reanons? Is that what you really are saying?

 

[Giordano]

- I'll get to Trebor's rock as soon as possible -- though starting tomorrow, we begin a trip and I'll be even slower than usual until the 18th.

Have a good trip! Don't forget about the rock, please.

 

[Loss Leader]

Dave,
- How many events have had to occur since the big bang in order for you to currently exist? Then, what is the random likelihood of each of those events occurring? (The random likelihood of all your ancestors existing back to the beginning of mankind being (again) just the tip of the iceberg.)
- How many zeros would have to follow the decimal point before the 1?
- "Very small" just doesn't begin to express the teenyness of your random likelihood of currently existing.

Hi, Jabba. I'm glad you had no trouble finding the forum's new home. Listen, by the way, I just wanted to really quickly mention that YOU CAN'T GET TO INFINITY BY COUNTING. Anyway, it's been great catching up.

- LL

 

[jsfisher]

Yep, the special bit of rock sitting right on my desk here....
The weight is about 30 grams if that is any use in calculating the exact odds of all the atoms in it being arranged exactly as they are.

I know what you are up to. You are just trying to use Bayesian Statistics to prove you have no desk.

 

[Loss Leader]

Yep, the special bit of rock sitting right on my desk here....
The weight is about 30 grams if that is any use in calculating the exact odds of all the atoms in it being arranged exactly as they are.

1 mole of iron is 56 grams. So, 30 grams is 30/56 or 0.5357 moles.

1 mole has 6.0221415×10²³ atoms. So a 30 gram piece of iron would have 3.226 x10²³ atoms.

So, conservatively, there would be at least 3.226x10²³! arrangements just of those atoms in 2-dimensional space. That's the smallest number it could be.

 

[Giordano]

1 mole of iron is 56 grams. So, 30 grams is 30/56 or 0.5357 moles.

1 mole has 6.0221415×10²³ atoms. So a 30 gram piece of iron would have 3.226 x10²³ atoms.

So, conservatively, there would be at least 3.226x10²³! arrangements just of those atoms in 2-dimensional space. That's the smallest number it could be.

Unimaginable! Indeed, impossible! Are we sure it exists? Is it special? I mean, I think therefore i-ron.

 

[Giordano]

Jabba,

When you get back perhaps you can explain why, in your theory, any of these "random" events that took place did so in such a rare, special way as to yield "us" (the big bang forming just this particular Sun, the Sun forming just this particular Earth, etc). It would appear to me that your concept of soul reincarnation wouldn't begin to explain why any of this non-biological stuff happened the exact way it happened.

I realize that one "explanation" given by some theologians is that there is a god, and "he" directed all of this (I am not certain why he went to all this effort to make me in particular, but it would make me feel very special indeed). Jabba, is this what you really believe? If this is true, and everything is directed or pre-determined, then wouldn't that also make your argument of reincarnation unnecessary?

 

[Toontown]

Would you be kind enough to explain, in a universal sense, how a brain coming into existence is different from a rock coming into existence? I'm not seeing it. Why are you calling the rock "random," but the brain of Jabba "prerequisite" and "specific?"

You're not trying hard enough.

This is a rock ---->

This is your brain----->

Now. Which one is special to you? Which one, according to hypothesis A, determines whether you see the light of day or not?

That's right. Your brain is special. To you. Not to me. My brain is special to me. But not to you. The rock isn't special to either of us. Neither is Jabba's brain. But Jabba's brain is special to him.

It is also incredible that you seem to think "random" and "special" are mutually exclusive.

 

[Toontown]

So is everyone else - to themself. Being special to yourself doesn't make you special.

Stark contradictions highlighted in blue and red.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Dave,
- No – since it’s 2 sets of grandparents, the random probability of your parent’s existence would be the original probability squared -- at least. That is, so far, we are not taking into account the random probabilities that your parents would ever meet, and that they would ever share reproductive cells -- nor, that your 2 sets of grandparents would ever meet (Robert would meet Susan, and Margaret would meet Joseph (just guessing at names)) and, in each case, eventually, share reproductive cells, themselves.
- And this is just the tip of an unimaginably large iceberg...
- Probability isn't easy.

Neither, evidently, is simply presenting yourevidence that the "soul" exists, and is "immortal"...

 

[jsfisher]

Stark contradictions highlighted in blue and red.

Yeah, good thing the un-highlighted text between them was there, otherwise Mojo would have posted in error.

 

[Mojo]

Stark contradictions highlighted in blue and red.

The words "to yourself" not highlighted, for some reason. Nor were the rest of the words that provided a context within which the highlighted passages are not contradictory.

ETA: Ninjaed by jsfisher.

 

[carlitos]

You're not trying hard enough.



This is a rock ---->



This is your brain----->



Now. Which one is special to you[/hilite/]? Which one, according to hypothesis A, determines whether you see the light of day or not? That's right. Your brain is special. To you. Not to me. My brain is special to me. But not to you. The rock isn't special to either of us. Neither is Jabba's brain. But Jabba's brain is special to him. It is also incredible that you seem to think "random" and "special" are mutually exclusive.

I found some of our communication problem. And why can't a rock be special to me? I chipped some of the Berlin Wall and have it in a little case. It's special to me.