Proof of Immortality II

[Toontown]

Ignoring the lady actually hit by the meteorite, I see.

Can't distinguish the difference between yourself and the lady who got hit, I see.

My prediction stands. Your toe will never be lopped off by a meteor, and you will never win the lottery. I can make predictions like this all day, and I never will be wrong. And if you bet against any of my predictions, you'll lose every time.

Go ahead, if you think you've proved something. Bet me that your toe will get lopped off by a meteor.

It's not a matter of you arguing over it; it's a matter of you not understanding it's monumental importance.

The monumental importance of 1 chance in 10^80! ?

Well, if that's all you've got, go ahead and worship at the alter of it's monumental importance. If you can find it. Don't breathe too hard while you're worshipping at it. You'll blow it away.

Partly. More importantly it depends on when that question is asked. You're asking too late. No specific or significant brains because of that.

Which boils down to you thinking an event can only be specific or significant if someone predicted for it or against it. Which is dead bust, cleaned-down-to-the-felt wrong.

If you are hit by a meteor, the strike will, after the fact, prove to have quite specific and significant effects on you, even though you never predicted or foresaw the strike.

If we are playing poker and a 3 comes on the river, making trips of my pocket 3's, which then beat your pocket aces, that 3 will prove, after the fact, to have had a specific, significant effect on the size of your chip stack, even though you would have no way to suspect a 3 would do anything at all to you.

Not to mention the fact that the Unique Brain Assumption did predict, before my brain ever existed, that my specific brain should never exist, with a certainty converging on 1.

I could go on. All day long.

The sample size is the question. How many sides must there be on the dice before I determine that the number that comes up is specific and/or significant?

Oh, you're doing that. I thought we were talking about how many rolls it would take for me to decide a die was loaded.

I like this. Easy answer: It is irrelevant how many sides the die has. Unless one of the sides does something specific for me personally, none of them are significant to me. If I don't have skin in the game, you can roll it all day long. I don't care what it does. It doesn't matter to me.

But if one of the sides potentially does something for me, then that specific side is significant if it comes up. If it doesn't come up, it doesn't achieve significance, because it hasn't done anything for me - once again demonstrating the falsity of your implication that an event cannot be significant after it happens. In this case it can only be significant if it does happen.

 

[Mojo]

Go ahead, if you think you've proved something. Bet me that your toe will get lopped off by a meteor.

How do you plan to collect on the bet?

 

[Garrette]

Ignoring the lady actually hit by the meteorite, I see.

Can't distinguish the difference between yourself and the lady who got hit, I see.

My prediction stands. Your toe will never be lopped off by a meteor, and you will never win the lottery. I can make predictions like this all day, and I never will be wrong. And if you bet against any of my predictions, you'll lose every time.

Go ahead, if you think you've proved something. Bet me that your toe will get lopped off by a meteor.

Juxtapose that bit with the following:

That encapsulates your error perfectly in two ways:

1. You make a specific prediction to prove a point then say that the prediction isn’t necessary.

2. You continue to insist that an after-the-fact personal feeling of significance has bearing on a before-the-fact probability.

It’s right there in front of you, Toontown, and you’re smart enough to get it. Read closely what you said here.

 

[Garrette]

These comments are on the remainder of the post I quoted previously.

It's not a matter of you arguing over it; it's a matter of you not understanding it's monumental importance.

The monumental importance of 1 chance in 10^80! ?

Yes, combined with the monumental importance that absolutely everything has the same chance of 1 in 10^80!.

Well, if that's all you've got, go ahead and worship at the alter of it's monumental importance. If you can find it. Don't breathe too hard while you're worshipping at it. You'll blow it away.

So it seems too small to you therefore it could not happen? Sorry, but your personal incredulity is neither a probabilistic factor nor a rhetorical convincer.

If you are hit by a meteor, the strike will, after the fact, prove to have quite specific and significant effects on you, even though you never predicted or foresaw the strike

If we are playing poker and a 3 comes on the river, making trips of my pocket 3's, which then beat your pocket aces, that 3 will prove, after the fact, to have had a specific, significant effect on the size of your chip stack, even though you would have no way to suspect a 3 would do anything at all to you.

Absolutely. “After the fact.”

Not to mention the fact that the Unique Brain Assumption did predict, before my brain ever existed, that my specific brain should never exist, with a certainty converging on 1.

No, it did not, not in the sense that has an impact on conditional probability. You are errantly mixing conversational English with terms of probability.

Here is your (broken) chain of logic in regard to this

1. There are 10^80! things that might happen
2. Some of those things must happen
3. Only a few of those things will happen
4. The thing that actually happens is therefore pre-specified

4 does not follow just because you think 10^80! is too large. It doesn’t follow for that number anymore than it follows for 1 in 20.

I could go on. All day long.

I’ve no doubt, but neither duration nor repetition have bearing on reality.

The sample size is the question. How many sides must there be on the dice before I determine that the number that comes up is specific and/or significant?

I like this. Easy answer: It is irrelevant how many sides the die has. Unless one of the sides does something specific for me personally, none of them are significant to me. If I don't have skin in the game, you can roll it all day long. I don't care what it does. It doesn't matter to me.

But if one of the sides potentially does something for me, then that specific side is significant if it comes up. If it doesn't come up, it doesn't achieve significance, because it hasn't done anything for me - once again demonstrating the falsity of your implication that an event cannot be significant after it happens. In this case it can only be significant if it does happen.

Which gets nicely back to my last post. All the significance you are ascribing is, by your own admission, after the fact.

Texas Sharp Shooter, regardless how often or strongly you deny it.

 

[Jabba]

Toon,
- Coincidentally, I started reading about "Leaf by Niggle" the same day (or, thereabouts) that you started using the word "niggle." As far as I can remember, I had never encountered that word before. Are you familiar with "Leaf by Niggle"?

 

[Akhenaten]

Toon,
- Coincidentally, I started reading about "Leaf by Niggle" the same day (or, thereabouts) that you started using the word "niggle." As far as I can remember, I had never encountered that word before. Are you familiar with "Leaf by Niggle"?

Any chance of you addressing the topic?

 

[Garrette]

"Leaf by Niggle" is a fine story, Jabba, and an indication that Tolkien's talents went beyond his impressive achievements with his Middle Earth creations. But as Akhenaten implies, it is interesting that after years of claiming to be just about to add some evidence to this thread while simultaneously complaining about your limited time you choose to spend that time on this new book and then talk about it instead of the topic.

 

[Agatha]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggle?s=t

Niggle is a very common word (at least in British English) and has been in use since the 17th century. I am surprised you have not encountered it prior to reading a Tolkien story.

 

[Garrette]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggle?s=t

Niggle is a very common word (at least in British English) and has been in use since the 17th century. I am surprised you have not encountered it prior to reading a Tolkien story.

Yep, though I have been familiar mostly with its variant "niggling," as in a niggling doubt.

 

[Giordano]

Any chance of you addressing the topic?

What is that again? I forgot. Poker? Dices?

 

[Slowvehicle]

What is that again? I forgot. Poker? Dices?

...Texans, with guns...

 

[Garrette]

...Texans, with guns...

Who, it seems, actually can hit the broad side of a barn.

 

[tsig]

Who, it seems, actually can hit the broad side of a barn.

In 10^80! attempts.

 

[Agatha]

A long time ago, probably in a galaxy far far away, the topic was immortality. I wonder if we'll ever get on to some evidence for it?

 

[Garrette]

...Texans, with guns...

Who, it seems, actually can hit the broad side of a barn.

In 10^80! attempts.

I must say, that was nicely done.

 

[Nonpareil]

All the significance you are ascribing is, by your own admission, after the fact.

Texas Sharp Shooter, regardless how often or strongly you deny it.

Exactly.

For those who have lost track, Jabba's argument (which he seems to have now handed over to Toontown for defense) is that the odds against his personal, specific existence are so absolutely staggering that the fact that he does exist must be taken as proof that he is somehow special. This is his offered "proof" of immortality.

The constant arguments about probability theory are an attempt to get it through to the two of them that this is the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. The topic is not being ignored. It's being expanded upon.

 

[Loss Leader]

Exactly.

For those who have lost track, Jabba's argument (which he seems to have now handed over to Toontown for defense) is that the odds against his personal, specific existence are so absolutely staggering that the fact that he does exist must be taken as proof that he is somehow special. This is his offered "proof" of immortality.

The constant arguments about probability theory are an attempt to get it through to the two of them that this is the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. The topic is not being ignored. It's being expanded upon.

I'm not even sure how probability theory enters into it. We have exactly one data point. There's no way to know how likely or unlikely such a chaotic event as the formation of a person might be. We can't run the universe again.

1. I exist
2. ...
3. Profit!

 

[Nonpareil]

I'm not even sure how probability theory enters into it. We have exactly one data point. There's no way to know how likely or unlikely such a chaotic event as the formation of a person might be. We can't run the universe again.

Jabba and Toontown have been arguing that it isn't the Texas sharpshooter fallacy to say that the formation of their specific brain was so unlikely, given the staggering number of other possible results, that it cannot be accepted as chance. Therefore, they must be somehow special, and therefore, they must have souls that are immortal and predestined to exist and go on existing after death.

At least, that's my understanding of Jabba's posts. Yes, it's all a giant non sequitur, but we may as well start at the beginning.

 

[Jabba]

What most makes for effective debate is for opponents to truly own up to their own doubts. I would urge you all to truly step back and admit of your own doubts -- to yourselves, if no one else.

1. The proper formula to use in determining the post-probability of “A”: P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P(me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A)).
1.1. “A”: the hypothesis that I have only one, finite, life to live.
1.2. “me”: my current existence.
1.3. “~A”: any hypothesis other than “A.”
I have very little doubt as to this being the appropriate formula for determining the post-probability of “A.”

2. If I can legitimately use 1/10⁸⁰! as P(me|A), I win. Variation re the other entries won’t make any difference as to the correct conclusion. Re this opinion, I have very little doubt.

3. In order for me to properly use 1/10⁸⁰! for P(me|A) [instead of 1.00] in the Bayes formula, my current existence needs to be somehow “set apart” from the 10⁸⁰! other potential selves in the bucket from which I was chosen. If I am just one of the crowd, P(me|A) is simply 1.00. I have very little doubt re this opinion also (though a bucket of potential selves seems to contradict something I had said previously...).

4. In addition, my current existence needs to be set apart in such a way as to suggest that there exists a more probable explanation than “A.” I also have very little doubt about this opinion.

5. At this point in the game, my only significant doubt that “A” is incorrect lies in my opinion that I can legitimately use 1/10⁸⁰! as P(me|A).

6. I’m pretty sure that such is how I perceive our current state of affairs. If I can show that my use of 1/10⁸⁰! as P(me|A) is legitimate, I win.

7. I think that most of you will not appreciate the above, and will fuss at me for saying that I will try to do something instead of just trying to do it. For now, I’m pretty sure that thusly stating my current position is, in fact, functional. We’ll see.

 

[carlitos]

What most makes for effective debate is for opponents to truly own up to their own doubts. I would urge you all to truly step back and admit of your own doubts -- to yourselves, if no one else.
...


I have very little doubt as to this being the appropriate formula for determining the post-probability of “A.”

...

Re this opinion, I have very little doubt.

...

. I have very little doubt re this opinion also .

....
I also have very little doubt about this opinion.

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence."​

Indeed.