Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

[Fudbucker]

I'd prefer "jsfisher".



It is a philosophical argument, not one of statistics.

"In addition, a major branch of statistics, Bayesian statistics, is based on Bayesian principles...

"B. The problem of old evidence. On a Bayesian account, the effect of evidence E in confirming (or disconfirming) a hypothesis is solely a function of the increase in probability that accrues to E when it is first determined to be true. This raises the following puzzle for Bayesian Confirmation Theory discussed extensively by Glymour: Suppose that E is an evidentiary statement that has been known for some time — that is, that it is old evidence."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/

In other words, the problem of old evidence applies to both statistics (specifically Bayesian statistics) AND philosophy.

 

[jaydeehess]

Well, I agreed, but I thought these problems would show up.

Still, I doubt we have many professional philosophers posting in the philosophy forum, so the outcome probably would have been the same.

Well at least Maartenn did not find it.

 

[jsfisher]

I accept some responsibility for it being here. Fudbucker suggested the Philosophy section, a suggested it stay in math & science.

Well, that may have been flavored by where you expected the argument to go. I think I would have favored SMM&T, also. So far, though, the argument is stuck at "the probabilities of extra-terrestrial life and of ESP are both unknown, and therefore must be equal." I doubt that was the direction nor destination you had in mind.

The rest of the thread seems to be attempts to spin-doctor.

 

[jsfisher]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/

Did you miss the fact that you are again citing a reference from philosophy?

 

[Fudbucker]

That is not required for the OP, instead it concerns relative probability.

True, but how are you going to do a comparison between two probabilities when you don't know what one is?

You can't do Pr(X) vs Pr(Y) unless you have some idea both values. If Pr(x) (alien life) is totally unknown, then it's impossible to say that Pr (X) is equal, greater then, or less than Pr(Y) (ESP), as long as Pr(Y) is non-zero. I don't see how a comparison can be made.

If a comparison can't be made, then I don't need to show what Pr(Y) is. Only that's it not zero.

Basically, can you solve X is > Y when X is unknown? No.

 

[Slowvehicle]

This is true, however, you're still not getting it. The claim isn't that the two-tailed coin IS a two-headed coin. The claim is that the two-tailed coin WAS a two-tailed coin, prior to the toss. Just like the married man ISN'T a bachelor when he lands, but he WAS a bachelor before he landed.

If a bachelor can land a married man, then a two-headed coin can land tails. There's no way around it. It is impossible for a bachelor to BE a married man, it's not impossible for a bachelor to LAND a married man. It is impossible for a two-headed coin to BE a two-tailed coin. It is not impossible for a two-headed coin to LAND a two-tailed coin.

For any X, before X lands, X can turn into Y.

...Welcome back from the politics forum!

Where you do err is in your obdurate dismissal of the fact that, if the man that lands is a "married man", he is not a "bachelor"; if the coin that lands has at least one face showing a "tails:, it is not a "two-headed coin".

The issue is not, has not been,that the probability of finding an ace-of-spades in a deck of cards that does, in fact,have an ace-of spades is not equal to zero; you actually got that trivial bit correct.

Where you continue to err is in your ongoing insistence that

...If there is no ace of spades in the deck you were handed, then the probability of you finding one is almost zero...

.

Notice the tense of the verb, "is".

If there

...is no ace of spades in the deck...

then the probability of finding an ace of spades is not "almost zero", but, in fact, zero. There is no chance of finding an ace of spades (do pay attention, Fud) where there is no ace of spades.

The only way for there to be a non-zero chance of finding an ace of spades is for there to be, in fact, an ace of spades in the deck. If there is, in fact, an ace of spades in the deck, than your condition,

...there is no ace of spades in the deck you were handed...

is not true.

The probability of finding an ace of spades, in a deck of cards where it is true that

...there is no ace of spades...

is not (repeat not) "almost zero", but in fact, zero.

The probability of a coin-with-two-heads landing with a "tails" showing is not almost zero, but zero; if a coin lands showing a "tails", it is not a "two-headed-coin".

 

[Fudbucker]

Did you miss the fact that you are again citing a reference from philosophy?

This is why I gave up on this thread so many times.

 

[Slowvehicle]

A follow-up:

Ellery Ells, the author of the paper, was part of the Philosophy department faculty at the University of Wisconsin until his untimely death in 2006. Branden Fitelson created the link Fudbucker provided for students in his course, Philosophy 148: Probability and Induction, in 2008. Dr. Fitelson is a professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

This thread belongs in a different forum.

...Humor?

 

[The Norseman]

Do you agree we can't assign a probability to the existence of alien life?

I disagree; we can assign a probability to the existence of alien life.

Nor was it meant to. Just that both are logically possible (i.e., both have a non-zero chance of happening).

There's your prior that you've been studiously ignoring, by the way.

But, anyway, use a 50% prior probability for arguments' sake and then work the Baye's Theorem as intended and we can see if ESP is approximately equally probable with advanced alien life.

 

[jsfisher]

This is why I gave up on this thread so many times.

The problem is entirely yours. If you want to defend a statement in science, support it with science, not philosophy.

 

[The Norseman]

True, but how are you going to do a comparison between two probabilities when you don't know what one is?

You can't do Pr(X) vs Pr(Y) unless you have some idea both values. If Pr(x) (alien life) is totally unknown, then it's impossible to say that Pr (X) is equal, greater then, or less than Pr(Y) (ESP), as long as Pr(Y) is non-zero. I don't see how a comparison can be made.

If a comparison can't be made, then I don't need to show what Pr(Y) is. Only that's it not zero.

Basically, can you solve X is > Y when X is unknown? No.

Again, how did you come to the conclusion that both ESP and advanced alien life are approximately equally probable as you've been saying since the OP?

 

[Pixel42]

True, but how are you going to do a comparison between two probabilities when you don't know what one is?

I don't know what the probability is of seeing a meteor if I look up at the sky at 10 pm tonight (though I imagine it can be calculated). I don't know what the probability is of seeing an alien spacecraft if I look up at the sky at 10 pm tonight., nor do I know any way of calculating it. I still know that the probability of seeing a meteor is greater than the probability of seeing an alien spacecraft.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Quoting Darat's response out of several.

I did enquire at the start of the thread but Fudbucker did not supply his definition so I've been using the "usual" Rhine definition which includes clairaudience, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance and the like.

Obviously all of the above do not exist - or rather do not exist outside fiction. We have extensively checked and looked and there is zero evidence they do exist plus over the last couple of decades we have explored the physics at the scales they would have to interact and we now know there is simply no gap left for them.

Except for precognition I wouldn't say those necessarily violate known physics. We can and have established they don't exist and aren't happening based on known physics but they really could exist in a way compatible with known physics. If they weren't possible within known physics then telephones, radio and television would also be outside known physics.

If non trivial precognition is included though, then it violates known physics.

By non trivial I mean something that can't be derived from an extrapolation of mechanical laws like predicting where Pluto will be in a thousand years.

 

[jaydeehess]

Nor was it meant to. Just that both are logically possible (i.e., both have a non-zero chance of happening).

And one is demonstrated to have occurred at least once while the other has not. Therefore it is KNOWN that a mechanism by which life, even advanced life as we narcissistically refer to it, can come about.
In addition relevant research steadily gets closer to discovering planets habitable by life as we know it.
I am unaware of ESP having experienced research that gets closer to discovering even a mechanism by which it could be possible, nor does there appear to be any that puts it above anecdotal.

Why does this not indicate a greater probability for advanced life beyond Earth's atmosphere than a human facility that allows knowledge not garnered via the data input mechanisms we refer to as our senses?

 

[The Norseman]

Except for precognition I wouldn't say those necessarily violate known physics. We can and have established they don't exist and aren't happening based on known physics but they really could exist in a way compatible with known physics. If they weren't possible within known physics then telephones, radio and television would also be outside known physics.

Isn't this point addressed directly by Sean Carroll? http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/02/18/telekinesis-and-quantum-field-theory/

Here's a short excerpt:

The deep lesson is that, although science doesn’t know everything, it’s not “anything goes,” either. There are well-defined regimes of physical phenomena where we do know how things work, full stop. The place to look for new and surprising phenomena is outside those regimes. You don’t need to set up elaborate double-blind protocols to pass judgment on the abilities of purported psychics. Our knowledge of the laws of physics rules them out. Speculations to the contrary are not the provenance of bold visionaries, they are the dreams of crackpots.

A similar line of reasoning would apply to telepathy or other parapsychological phenomena. It’s a little bit less cut and dried, because in the case of telepathy the influence is supposedly traveling between two human brains, rather than between a brain and a spoon. The argument is exactly the same, but there are those who like to pretend that we don’t understand how the laws of physics work inside a human brain. It’s certainly true that there is much we don’t know about thought and consciousness and neuroscience, but the fact remains that we understand the laws of physics in the brain regime perfectly well. To believe otherwise, you would have to imagine that individual electrons obey different laws of physics because they are located in a human brain, rather than in a block of granite. But if you don’t care about violating the laws of physics in regimes where they have been extensively tested, then anything does in fact go.​

 

[Fudbucker]

I disagree; we can assign a probability to the existence of alien life.

What is the probability?

 

[Fudbucker]

The problem is entirely yours. If you want to defend a statement in science, support it with science, not philosophy.

Ummm, I wasn't "defending" anything. I was explaining about the problem of old evidence, which is indeed a problem when you're using Bayes Theorem.

Did you have a substantive point to make?

 

[The Norseman]

What is the probability?

Again, how did you come to the conclusion that both ESP and advanced alien life are approximately equally probable as you've been saying since the OP? Is it just a faulty understanding of the null hypothesis?

 

[Aridas]

I did one for advanced alien life.

You do realize that you have to do one for ESP, too, for the comparison that you're trying to do to be evaluated? You've got a claim for half an argument. Without the rest, it really can't be anything but worthless, regardless of its validity.

Well, that may have been flavored by where you expected the argument to go. I think I would have favored SMM&T, also. So far, though, the argument is stuck at "the probabilities of extra-terrestrial life and of ESP are both unknown, and therefore must be equal." I doubt that was the direction nor destination you had in mind.

The rest of the thread seems to be attempts to spin-doctor.

In Fudbucker's OP, he engages in significantly different and, frankly, somewhat fallacious treatment for the ideas of advanced alien life and ESP and claims that given the obvious correctness of his assessments, the probabilities are unknown and therefore must be equal. That actually does seem to be his intended endgame, and he's stuck by it, regardless of the quality, or frequently lack thereof, of his arguments.

 

[Fudbucker]

Again, how did you come to the conclusion that both ESP and advanced alien life are approximately equally probable as you've been saying since the OP? Is it just a faulty understanding of the null hypothesis?

Oh, I thought you said you could assign a probability to the existence of alien life.

Anyway:

1. The probability of the existence of alien life (Pr(X)) cannot be determined to any degree (other than some number between zero and one) as there are too many missing variables: Pr(X) = ?

2. The probability that ESP exists (Pr(Y)) is between zero and one.

3. Pr(X) can only be considered lower than Pr(Y) if Pr(X) is assigned an arbitrary value. Likewise, Pr(X) can only be considered higher than Pr(Y) if Pr(X) is assigned an arbitrary value.

4. If Pr(X) cannot be greater or lower than Pr(Y) without being assigned an arbitrary value, then Pr(X) cannot be considered to be greater or lower than Pr(Y).

5. Pr(X) can only be considered to be greater, lower, or equal to Pr(Y).

6. If Pr(X) cannot be considered to be greater or lower than Pr(Y), Pr(X) must be considered to be equal to Pr(Y).