Proof of Immortality II

[Akhenaten]

xt,
- I don't understand. A simple factorial is expressed with an explanation mark. And 80!, for instance, would be 79X78X77 etc

So? What's to understand?

 

[Akhenaten]

I'm not sure which is called for in this case, O Pharaoh- Sickbay or the breakfast nook?

I had a look, in the breakfast nook,
To see what I could find.
Alas! I found no proofs in there
But oh well, never mind!

I had a look, in the breakfast nook,
And what there did I see?
No beer, no rocks, no Veedub cars
No sign of an infinity!

I'll try again, next week for sure!
For how hard can it be?
To find some toast (or last night's roast)
That's proof of immortality.

 

[Loss Leader]

Don't worry, he has others, for example the false dilemma his proof of immortality his proof relies on.

He's also recently defined his proof as only being valid from his frame of reference, because only he can know the universe and it doesn't exist for him if he's not there to know it. So, his entire proof is: a) unnecessary because he can believe whatever he wants to believe; and b) irrelevant because it cannot exist for anyone but him.

 

[Akhenaten]

The stone is as special and unique. It is about mathematical and physical *counting* which do not care about human feeling. Just because we have feeling , a counting of something finite about probability does not suddenly make it more improbable.

Planet earth is stone cold unliving, but the summation of all its atom and their placement is pretty much unique, far more unique than any human brain and yet nobody, absolutely nobody in science will pretend the prior probability of earth coming into existence is 1/infinite.

This is absolutely crucial to Jabba's argument. His misbegotten invocation of Bayes' either applies to everything (especially Tyrannosauruses) or it applies to nothing at all.

The argument of Jabba fails on its head because we can find enormous physical entity which have an even less probability of coming into existence and have obviously no soul or identity. The earth. Saturn. A red giant. A galaxy. All those have had prior incredibly low probability to come up, even lower than jabba's brain. None are counted as 1/infinite.

Indeed. How disappointing it would be if the most complex thing an infinite Universe could produce was a paltry human brain?

The problem for Jabba is that he is making an enormous error which makes his whole tower fall like a card castle.

Therefore is the name of it called Babble; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the Jabbanesh: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the breakfast nook.

- Genesis 11:9 (New Egyptian Version)​

 

[pakeha]

I had a look, in the breakfast nook,
To see what I could find.
Alas! I found no proofs in there
But oh well, never mind!

I had a look, in the breakfast nook,
And what there did I see?
No beer, no rocks, no Veedub cars
No sign of an infinity!

I'll try again, next week for sure!
For how hard can it be?
To find some toast (or last night's roast)
That's proof of immortality.

Pharaoh's wit illuminates the discussion.
I raise a cup of Year V's immortal vintage in homage to Your Majesty.

 

[Akhenaten]

I drink to the confusion of our enemies.

- Frank Sinatra

 

[godless dave]

Jabba, 10⁸⁰! is the kind of very large number I'm talking about. 1/10⁸⁰! would be a very small probability. It might not be the probability that applies to my existence, but it's the kind of small probability I think we're all talking about.

How about moving on and explaining what you mean by:

- Why I can be considered as a target prior to the shooting. I need to show that I can be legitimately “singled out,” or “set apart” from the “crowd.” I shouldn’t be counted as just someone/anyone.


3. But then, if I had never existed, there “might as well” have never been anything -- ever. It would be “as if” nothing had ever existed, or would ever exist.
4. In fact, if I didn’t exist now, there “might as well” have never been anything.

And also this:

5. And, in fact again, nothing makes sense! Nothing is the only thing that would make sense!

 

[tsig]

This is proof of immortality, is it?

I'd have thought it would have turned out to be more complicated than that.

Proof of immortality:

I don't wanna die, so the world must be arranged so I don't have to.

 

[tsig]

Oh, I get it now. The ace will stop being 'special' if you luck out and catch it. You have to know it's special before you catch it, or it's not special. And that's why Jabba isn't special, even to himself - he didn't know he was going to happen until he already happened. And after he happened it was too late for him to be special to himself. Because probability is mystical like that.

Yeah, right. Tell me another fairy tale.

Scenario: We have both checked all the way to the river because we both have weak hands. You don't figure you have much of a chance with your lowly 8,5. You are only in the hand because you are the big blind. I'm only in the hand because I have pocket 7's and everybody folded ahead of me. But I foolishly give you a free ride and a 8 comes on the river, giving you a pair of 8's, beating my pocket 7's. Until I showed my hand, you had no idea that the river 8 was 'special'. You only learned of the 8's 'specialness' after it was dealt. But that didn't make it any less special. You won the pot because of it. There was no other card that could have helped you. You had no other draws. If the 8 doesn't come, you can't win no matter what else comes. But you didn't know that until after the 8 came.

You don't have to know before the fact that a possible event is special in order for the event to be special. In fact, what you do or do not know or desire has nothing to do with it. The event is special if it is special.

Well, isn't that special.

 

[godless dave]

You have to know it's special before you catch it, or it's not special. And that's why Jabba isn't special, even to himself - he didn't know he was going to happen until he already happened.

Yes, that's correct.

 

[tsig]

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'd put the odds at one.

 

[tsig]

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?

Seems to me that Jabba has proved that none of us can exist so tsig vanishes in a puff of logic.

 

[Akhenaten]

Akhenaten grabs a fresh tsig from the infinite stockpile in the kitchen cupboard

All better!

 

[Jabba]

Jabba, 10⁸⁰! is the kind of very large number I'm talking about. 1/10⁸⁰! would be a very small probability. It might not be the probability that applies to my existence, but it's the kind of small probability I think we're all talking about.

Dave,
- Still not sure how the factorial comes in, but if we're talking about1/
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, we're going in the right direction.

 

[Pixel42]

No matter how far you go in that direction you will never get to infinity.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- Still not sure how the factorial comes in, but if we're talking about1/
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, we're going in the right direction.

10⁸⁰! is a much bigger number than 10⁸⁰ but it is still a number. Not infinity.

 

[Jabba]

10⁸⁰! is a much bigger number than 10⁸⁰ but it is still a number. Not infinity.

Mojo,
- How many zeros?

 

[jsfisher]

Mojo,
- How many zeros?

Oh, it's about 80! as in 80 factorial as in 80x79x78x...x1. No matter how you look at it, it's a metric butt-load of zeroes.

ETA: Never mind. I was on the 10^80! version. Still a big-ass number, though. And as zooterkin says in the following post, why does it matter.

 

[zooterkin]

Mojo,
- How many zeros?

What difference does it make?

 

[Agatha]

Whether it's a thousand, ten thousand, a million or ten million zeros (or more) it still won't get you to infinity, because you cannot get there by counting. Infinity is NOT a number.