Proof of Immortality II

[Toontown]

Isn't the heart of probability to try to predict the probability of certain events occurring before they happen?

Not really. It's about estimating the probabilities. It can be just as useful to know the probability of an event after it has happened.

During WWII, Allied intelligence accurately estimated the total number of German tanks based solely on the serial numbers of 10 captured tanks. That's post-diction. Those tanks had already been built. Very useful to have that information. It told Roosevelt how many tanks to give Patton.

 

[Giordano]

The formula doesn't calculate the chances of anything happening. The formula can do no more than serve as a guide about what to believe, based on what has happened.

At any rate, that would make as much sense as calculating your wife's chance of winning the poker hand if she were at the table with the same cards, instead of you. Why would you do that? She's not there. You are. You're the one who needs to know what your chances are. Yours. Not someone else's.

Actually my wife is the one at a poker table, not me. So can I now calculate her odds of drawing a full house? I would like to do so because she is very busy playing the hand, too busy to make the calculation herself, and I am concerned about our joint savings if she bets wrong.

I find it interesting (that word again) that you think that calculating the "chances of anything happening" is different from "serving a a guide about what to believe." Could you explain that a bit more?

 

[Toontown]

And before I existed, it was no more special than any other number. After I exist it isn't either, it only seems special to me because it's mine.

It is special to you, precisely because it is yours. And it was always the only way you were ever going to exist. Given hypothesis A, of course.

But it isn't special to me.

Conditional probability.

 

[godless dave]

It is special to you, precisely because it is yours.

But it isn't special to me.

Conditional probability.

I don't think conditional probability means what you think it means.

My specialness to myself has no bearing on any probability calculation.

 

[tsig]

Wrong. The formula can only conceivably apply to the user. Of course, anyone could use the formula, but only on themselves.

It is entirely conditional probability, nothing else, and nothing but. Not unlike the probability you might estimate on your chances of winning a poker hand, based on your cards. Such a probability would apply to no one else at the table.

Individual poker hands are individual.

 

[Giordano]

Not really. It's about estimating the probabilities. It can be just as useful to know the probability of an event after it has happened.

How is estimating the probabilities different in your mind from predicting the probabilities? Probability implies uncertainty as to what the actual event will be when it happens, but it provides a number that tells you the chances of each event happening. Are you just talking about statistic significance?


I would submit that it is more useful to know which events actually occurred after they have happened. If the casino allowed me to bet on the roulette wheel after the ball came to a stop, I would do much better than the way they force me to bet now, before the event. By the way, I think the casinos have very good knowledge of the probability of a given ball/number combination in advance, and adjust the payouts appropriately. They sure seem to make a lot of money over time, even without knowing in advance the outcome of each roll of the wheel (which does not happen until it happens).

 

[Toontown]

Actually my wife is the one at a poker table, not me. So can I now calculate her odds of drawing a full house? I would like to do so because she is very busy playing the hand, too busy to make the calculation herself, and I am concerned about our joint savings if she bets wrong.

You don't play much poker, do you. If you correctly believe she needs a full house to win, she should probably fold. Because the player who has the hand that will require a full house to beat is going to make her pay dearly to probably miss it.

It doesn't matter how your wife arrives at the information, whether she does the calculation herself or you whisper it to her (which would be illegal, BTW). The point is, she needs to know her chances of winning the pot. She's playing the hand. Not you. Not some guy at another table with different cards.

 

[Giordano]

Not unlike the probability you might estimate on your chances of winning a poker hand, based on your cards. Such a probability would apply to no one else at the table.

Wouldn't the same probability calculation of me drawing a full house also apply to anyone else at the table? (assuming this is a poker game with no cards showing).

 

[Toontown]

Individual poker hands are individual.

Well, at least you figured that out, in between your various congratulatory exclamations to your ideological brothers.



Now, if you can figure out how that is conditional probability, and how Jabba's formula is also conditional probability, you will have gotten the point.

 

[Giordano]

You don't play much poker, do you. If you correctly believe she needs a full house to win, she should probably fold. Because the player who has the hand that will require a full house to beat is going to make her pay dearly to probably miss it.

It doesn't matter how your wife arrives at the information, whether she does the calculation herself or you whisper it to her (which would be illegal, BTW). The point is, she needs to know her chances of winning the pot. She's playing the hand. Not you. Not some guy at another table with different cards.

1. How do you know she should fold if "events don't happen until they happen?" What if she already has two pair and can draw a new card, versus having nothing special. Is it always foolish to draw toward a full house when you already have two pair and would keep the two pair at minimum? Doesn't it depend on what the other players might have, how they have bet, and the amount of the raise?

2. You stated that I could not calculate my wife's chances, not if I could legally communicate the results to her or that just me knowing would be important or not (perhaps I would want to put a hold on our joint checking account by the way).

3. What if my wife uses a Ouija Board rather than a statistics formula to obtain the information; does it not matter how she arrives at figuring out the odds? If you are saying that it doesn't matter if I or her do the statistics calculation, then that is my whole point.

 

[Toontown]

Wouldn't the same probability calculation of me drawing a full house also apply to anyone else at the table? (assuming this is a poker game with no cards showing).

No. That depends on the starting cards. But what difference does it make? Your chances are what they are, irrespective of how many others may or may not have more or less the same chance. It is your chances that may inform you as to whether to call a raise. Not someone else's chances.

 

[tsig]

Well, at least you figured that out, in between your various congratulatory exclamations to your ideological brothers.



Now, if you can figure out how that is conditional probability, and how Jabba's formula is also conditional probability, you will have gotten the point.

That will be proof of immortality?

You'll have to explain that.

 

[Aepervius]

I can only conclude, then, that you would remain staunchly unastonished if a small meteor were to lop off one of your toes.

After all, you reason, the meteor had to go somewhere. Why not through your toe? And it isn't as if there is anything different between your toe and any other place in the universe. And once you realize that your toe's location has the same intrinsic value as any other toe-sized part of the universe, then your toe being lopped off by a meteor ceases to be surprising, and becomes as banal as a random spot on Mars being hit. They are both as likely to be hit. And surprise stops because the meteor had to go SOMEwhere.

Of course, the fact that it was your toe, and not some random location in the universe, would imbue the event with a conditional probability which would warrant surprise. However, it is apparent that you do not acknowledge the existence of conditional probability. Which, quite frankly, kind of makes me want to play poker with you.*

*But not talk to you. Especially about anything involving probability.

No you are again confusing event.

I am not surprised that a meteor land up on *any* side of earth once it has been set on a crashing trajectory. The place where it lands is not anymore a surprised because it HAS to land.

After that it is only a question of what number will be thrown. math does not care iof it is me or the ocean.

I on the other hand associate sentimental feeling to my toe and would be angry if they are lopped off. But that's because it is me. The meteor does not care.


And this is where you utterly fail to understand. The dice throw, the meteor, the fact we get born, is not some incredibly superb accident of the universe we should get incredibly astonished and prove unicorn, faery and souls exists. From the perspective of the statistic of physic and biology, it is just anotehr lottery ticket. it has no intrisinc value if you draw a 1-2-3-4-5-6 rathern than 12-45-12-6-34-23. And yet the winner will feel lucky and predestined and ****.

You sire utterly fail to understand what we are trying to tell you. You take the position of the guy with the name rather than the position of the dice. And Jabba is trying to pretend the dice is loaded. And we keep telling you is that once the dice have been thrown it is not astonishing a face with a number appeared on it. That number is not special.

 

[Toontown]

I don't think conditional probability means what you think it means.

My specialness to myself has no bearing on any probability calculation.

Well then. Lucky for me that there is no 'specialness' factor in my estimation of the probability that my particular brain would have come to exist.

I wasn't the one who brought 'surprise' and 'specialness' into it in the first place. You were all talking about 'surprise' and 'specialness' before I ever mentioned it. I originally took the words as metaphors for 'significance'.

I think in terms of significance. The various probability estimates are what they are. What significance they may have is a separate question. And that question will never be settled, in any form, in this thread. We both know that.

 

[Giordano]

All of you are wrong! About something.

 

[Giordano]

I asked several people about the probability of Jabba's unique sense of self versus the probability of Jabba's unique fingerprints. Someone just told me to look it up. I did, and the numbers look the same to me for both. Jabba has never replied when I asked him this question. Since this is very relevant to Jabba's argument for reincarnation, I would dearly like to know if I am wrong. Thanks!

 

[Toontown]

<snip>

You sire utterly fail to understand what we are trying to tell you. You take the position of the guy with the name rather than the position of the dice. And Jabba is trying to pretend the dice is loaded. And we keep telling you is that once the dice have been thrown it is not astonishing a face with a number appeared on it. That number is not special.

You, sir, utterly fail to understand that an event or sequence of events can be significant, or not, depending on the specificity of the event(s), the significance of which is not diluted or enhanced by the fact that the event(s) are but parts of a larger universe.

For example: From your conditional perspective, among the significant aspects of having your toe lopped off by a meteor is that it will make a material difference in your gait. But the meteor strike on your toe will have no effect whatsoever on my gait. Other specific sequences of events may be significant in other ways, perhaps to different observers, irrespective of the various activities of the rest of the universe.

 

[Toontown]

That will be proof of immortality?

You'll have to explain that.

Explain what I haven't claimed, to someone who refuses to attempt to grasp the very simple point about conditional probability, and hasn't sufficiently followed the thread of the discussion to grasp why the point came to be made?

I think I'll pass on that explanation. Thanks.

 

[John Jones]

Which means nothing.

It is, however, convenient that people who don't exist would have no cause to be surprised even if they could be surprised, since it is not nonexistence, but existence, which is surprising.



Why? That's not what Jabba was talking about.

Can you point to any evidence which supports your opinion of what Jabba was talking about?

 

[John Jones]

The formula doesn't calculate the chances of anything happening. The formula can do no more than serve as a guide about what to believe, based on what has happened.

[...].

Which formula is that? Please be precise. Making vague claims helps no ones position.