Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

Slowvehicle said:
Or, of course, it is logically possible that it is, physically, a "one-headed, one-tailed coin"

It is not, however, logically possible that a coin, physically showing a "tails", is a "two-headed coin".

I agree with the substance of your clarification.
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Slow, you lost the argument when you claimed the bachelor "ceases to exist" when he gets married. A bachelor simply means an unmarried man. An unmarried man certainly doesn't "cease to exist" when he's married.

Everything after that post has been an equivocation (by you) between "is" and "was". In any scenario where time is involved, X can be defined as one thing at the beginning of the scenario, and then turn into another, at the end.

That really is all that I'll say on this.
 
Daylightstar said:
Exceptionally well, I think.
You are demonstrating how you apriori define the probability for alien life exceedingly small by equating alien life with gods and zeus :jaw-dropp
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I didn't do that at all. I said comparing alien life to god coming down has to result in an equal comparison.

On the other hand, comparing alien life to the sun coming up tomorrow also results in an equal comparison.

Since the probability of alien life can't be determined, it's constantly in a state of flux.
 
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Fudbucker said:
Slow, you lost the argument when you claimed the bachelor "ceases to exist" when he gets married. ...
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Hilite by Daylighstar
I can find several instances of you making that statement assigning that claim to Slowvehicle ... several times.
I can find no such statements from Slowvehicle .....
 
Fudbucker said:
Post 491.

Aridas can answer the question himself though. I don't want to put words into his mouth.
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Aridas calls your coin flip scenario doable in a few ways, without specifying how.
Later in that post, he mentions tricks although he says they were not part of your description.
Then he states that it's not wrong to invoke the chances of something unexpected happening.

Unexpected things can be so many things, there however is a clear difference between unexpected events with and without prior probability.

I see no real support for your position in Aridas' post, even if it was intended as such.
 
Fudbucker said:
Ummm, I wasn't "defending" anything.
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Sure you were. You have a position you wanted to argue regarding "old evidence." You chose to defend that position by citing a paper in Philosophy, not Statistics. When that defect in your defense was pointed out to you, you further tried to defend your position by trying to tie it to statistics, but again you used a paper in Philosophy.

On second thought, no, you really weren't defending your position, were you?

I was explaining about the problem of old evidence, which is indeed a problem when you're using Bayes Theorem.
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Explaining? Another lexical quibble to escape being again wrong?

Did you have a substantive point to make?
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Yes. Mathematics is a weakness for you. I recall mentioning that earlier regarding your estimate of the number of planets and your misunderstanding of the less-than-or-equal relation.

Logic is a part of Mathematics, too, by the way.
 
Fudbucker said:
Look harder.
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Alright, thanks.
In the context of what Slowvehicle wrote, it clearly refers to the bachelor status of the man.
That status ceases to exist while the man acquires another status.
When landing, that man is still the same man as a person, bit his status has changed into a married man.
Which is what you yourself refer to as well with the titles bachelor and married man.
You create your own context but act outside it.
 
Fudbucker said:
I didn't do that at all. I said comparing alien life to god coming down has to result in an equal comparison.
...
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Sure you did.

Fudbucker said:
...
On the other hand, comparing alien life to the sun coming up tomorrow also results in an equal comparison.
...
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Sure, why not, go crazy.

Fudbucker said:
...
Since the probability of alien life can't be determined, it's constantly in a state of flux.
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However, there is prior probability and accompanying data for life in the universe.
Can you say which prior probability?
 
jsfisher said:
Sure you were. You have a position you wanted to argue regarding "old evidence." You chose to defend that position by citing a paper in Philosophy, not Statistics. When that defect in your defense was pointed out to you, you further tried to defend your position by trying to tie it to statistics, but again you used a paper in Philosophy.

On second thought, no, you really weren't defending your position, were you?
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There's nothing to defend. Old evidence is a problem in a Bayesian Statistics. You can't seriously be claiming it's not a problem.

Are you claiming that?


Explaining? Another lexical quibble to escape being again wrong?
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Again, there's nothing to defend. If you want to argue that the problem of old evidence doesn't exist, THEN I'll have something to defend, because you will be dead wrong.

By all means, proceed with your argument that old evidence is not a problem for Bayesian Statistics.


Yes. Mathematics is a weakness for you. I recall mentioning that earlier regarding your estimate of the number of planets and your misunderstanding of the less-than-or-equal relation.
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I recall explaining that I was comparing the denominator of a fraction to the number of planets in the universe.

Logic is a part of Mathematics, too, by the way.
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What kind of logic are you referring to?
 
Fudbucker said:
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By all means, proceed with your argument that old evidence is not a problem for Bayesian Statistics.
...
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How about you start a thread in R&P and discuss your philosophy there, as it is entirely off topic.
 
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Fudbucker said:
Slow, you lost the argument when you claimed the bachelor "ceases to exist" when he gets married. A bachelor simply means an unmarried man. An unmarried man certainly doesn't "cease to exist" when he's married.
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Fud, you make mighty free to declare yourself "right", and declare yourself "victorious", given that you are depending upon logical and physical impossibilities, and trying to bar others from fine distinctions.

Pay attention, this time, Fud:

A bachelor (a "man-who-is-not-married"; http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
jumps out of an airplane, and in midair, is joined in legal wedlock to his partner-of-choice by an aerial Elvis (skinny Elvis, not gross fat Elvis) impersonator.
A married man (a "man-who-is-not-a-bachelor"; http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/married)
lands, and walks away. No bachelor (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
lands; there is no longer a bachelor (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
involved; the office of bachelor (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
is not filled; the bachelor (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
no longer exists, having (do pay attention, Fud) been changed into "...something entirely else..." (that is, a married man: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/married) en passant et pedant le vol) while in the air.

We'll hae no moe bachelor ((http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor).

What pseudosemantic attempt at a pedantic quibble leads you to claim that a bachelor (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/bachelor)
still exists in the landing party?

You may be misusing the simple English phrase, "lost the argument", in the same careless ans unskilled way you are misusing "two-headed coin".

Fudbucker said:
Everything after that post has been an equivocation (by you) between "is" and "was".
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You appear to be misusing the technical term, "equivocation" (that is, the logica lfallacy of "calling by the same name". Here's a bit of help: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/equivocation,

It is, in fact, you who are pretending that "is" = "was"; in fact, both logically and physically (not to mention pedantically, semantically, and properly), "is =/= "was". No matter how often you try to call them the same.

A man who is married is not a bachelor; a deck of cards in which there is no ace of spades is not a deck of cards in which there is an ace of spades; a "two-headed coin" is a "coin-with-two-heads", and is not a "coin-with-at-least-one-"tails"-to-show".

No matter how often, or how sublty, you try to ignore, or deny, the differences between "is" and "is not" by equivocating "is"and "was", Fud.

Fudbucker said:
In any scenario where time is involved, X can be defined as one thing at the beginning of the scenario, and then turn into another, at the end.

That really is all that I'll say on this.
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I helpfully highlighted the spot where you are trying to palm that card. A thing that has been turned into something else is not the thing it was.

No matter how often you repeat your error, Fud.
 
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Slowvehicle said:
..
I helpfully highlighted the spot where you are trying to palm that card. A thing that has been turned into something else is not the thing it was.

No matter how often you repeat your error, Fud.
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2nd Hilite by Daylightstar

Oh oh, now Fudbucker is going to see that. He doesn't know it means "the thing it no longer is".
 
Daylightstar said:
How about you start a thread in R&P and discuss your philosophy there, as it is entirely off topic.
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Bayesian Statistics is off topic when discussing probability? :rolleyes:

Daylight, if you keep posting nonsense like this, I'm not going to bother responding.
 
Fudbucker said:
There's nothing to defend. Old evidence is a problem in a Bayesian Statistics. You can't seriously be claiming it's not a problem.

Are you claiming that?
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Your claim; your burden. My only claim has been you are arguing a point of Statistics from a perspective of Philosophy. I believe I have supported that claim adequately well.

Again, there's nothing to defend. If you want to argue that the problem of old evidence doesn't exist, THEN I'll have something to defend, because you will be dead wrong.

By all means, proceed with your argument that old evidence is not a problem for Bayesian Statistics.
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Again, your claim; your burden.

I recall explaining that I was comparing the denominator of a fraction to the number of planets in the universe.
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And yet, what you wrote in the opening post was nothing like that. You said, ".01 to the 12th power is pretty close to the number of planets in the universe." Seems clear enough. Totally wrong, but the sentence is clear. No mention of denominator. No mention of odds, either, which you also tried to back-pedal into your cover-up.

For that matter, why would anyone resort to such a circuitous route to something so simple? A straight-forward "the number of planets is approximately X" would have done nicely. This is a bizarre tale you are spinning, Fudbucker.

Tell you what. Rather than trying to tap-dance your way out of an obviously incorrect statement, how about you take a direct approach and rewrite this passage to clarify what you really meant by the part I highlighted:

Fudbucker said:
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2. The "narrowness" of the "goldilocks zone" is unknown.
What I mean by (2) is we don't know how many things have to fall into place just right for life to be even possible. Perhaps the ratio of the size of the moon to the planet has to be within a few hundreths of a decimal. Perhaps the planet has to be tilted just right, and the position and size of the closest gas giant can only vary by a small amount. In other words, there could be a dozen things that can't vary by more than 1%, and .01 to the 12th power is pretty close to the number of planets in the universe.
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Fudbucker said:
Bayesian Statistics is off topic when discussing probability? :rolleyes:

Daylight, if you keep posting nonsense like this, I'm not going to bother responding.
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You're applying your own brand of philosophy to it so philosophy is a reasonable suggestion.
 
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