Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

Let me help you again.
You were citing philosophy papers while talking about old evidence. If you want to throw around philosophical arguments it would fit nicely in R&P.

I hope this makes it clearer for you.
 
Daylightstar said:
Let me help you again.
You were citing philosophy papers while talking about old evidence. If you want to throw around philosophical arguments it would fit nicely in R&P.

I hope this makes it clearer for you.
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He didn't get it when I said it either.
 
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.

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.
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The man exists the adjective describing him changes, are you aware there are different parts of speech?
 
Daylightstar said:
Of what?

Of this:


So, what is the prior probability?
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1 or more. You keep forgetting we have 1 data point on advanced life. While we can not assign a value to the total numbers of planets containing advanced life, we know that value will be greater than or equal to 1. The value of ESP is 0. There are no data points.

While both 0 data points and 1 data point are insufficient to calculate the probability of finding future examples accurately. 1 is always greater than 0. Thus the probability given the limited data we have, is that there is a higher probability for finding alien life than to find someone with ESP.

As for that one data point, we can assign a prior probability because we have one advanced civilization out of a few planets we have checked. The calculation may be inaccurate because of lack of data, but it at least has SOME limited data to work with.
 
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Red Baron Farms said:
1 or more. You keep forgetting we have 1 data point on advanced life. While we can not assign a value to the total numbers of planets containing advanced life, we know that value will be greater than or equal to 1. The value of ESP is 0. There are no data points.

While both 0 data points and 1 data point are insufficient to calculate the probability of finding future examples. 1 is always greater than 0. Thus the probability given the limited data we have, is that there is a higher probability for finding alien life than to find someone with ESP.
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Hilite by Daylightstar
To whom do you refer with the hilited "you"?
 
jsfisher said:
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, your claim; your burden.



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:
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JS, I don't know what your hang up is. The problem of old evidence in Bayesian theory is so well established, that asking me to "defend" it, is like asking to defend the assertion the Earth goes around the Sun.

If you don't believe it's a problem, just say so and we'll have at it.

And as for me not mentioning odds, did you actually read the title of the thread? I'll remind you:

"Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?"

In the opening post, I mention "probability" (which is synonymous with "odds") at least half a dozen times.

And I've told you repeatedly, I admit I was unclear and I was referring to the denominator of the fraction .01 to the 12th. That number is about the same as the number of planets in the universe (oops, I also didn't say "observable universe" in the OP either. OMG!!!! :eek:).

What the hell happened to this forum? Did disassociating from Randi cause this much damage?
 
Daylightstar said:
Let me help you again.
You were citing philosophy papers while talking about old evidence. If you want to throw around philosophical arguments it would fit nicely in R&P.

I hope this makes it clearer for you.
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Did you not read the part where I WANTED this to go in the philosophy forum, and another member wanted it to be posted HERE, in Science?

When you talk about an epistemological issue there's going to be some overlap with philosophy. It can't be helped.

Does philosophy make some of you break out in hives or something? You CAN'T do a Bayesian calculus with old evidence without addressing the problem of old evidence. The way I handle it is to consider the evidence counterfactually.

Is there so little intellectual rigor left here that the words I'm using are too big?
 
Fudbucker said:
Did you not read the part where I WANTED this to go in the philosophy forum, and another member wanted it to be posted HERE, in Science?

When you talk about an epistemological issue there's going to be some overlap with philosophy. It can't be helped.

Does philosophy make some of you break out in hives or something? You CAN'T do a Bayesian calculus with old evidence without addressing the problem of old evidence. The way I handle it is to consider the evidence counterfactually.

Is there so little intellectual rigor left here that the words I'm using are too big?
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You already should know that I know because I have quoted it earlier. There appears to be no overlap but mostly philosophy.
Everything you write says philosophy.

You don't do evidence, you do fantasy.
 
John Jones said:
This has been one colossal train-wreck of a thread.
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It is indeed. Like the fine-tuning thread, many of you have no idea when to use fallacies, how to apply probabilities, or even construct proper arguments.

It's just a bunch of sniping from the sidelines and irrelevant comments now. I'm sorry to see it turn into that.
 
Fudbucker said:
I don't know what your hang up is. The problem of old evidence in Bayesian theory is so well established, that asking me to "defend" it, is like asking to defend the assertion the Earth goes around the Sun.
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I didn't ask you to defend it. I asked that you not defend it using arguments from Philosophy in the SMM&T forum.

If you don't believe it's a problem, just say so and we'll have at it.
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I believe I have been very clear regarding this. Why do you continue to twist it into something else?

And as for me not mentioning odds, did you actually read the title of the thread? I'll remind you:

"Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?"

In the opening post, I mention "probability" (which is synonymous with "odds") at least half a dozen times.
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Yes, and how is the relevant to your bogus statement about planet counts?

And I've told you repeatedly, I admit I was unclear
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Oh, but you were not unclear. You were very clear...and very wrong. Saying you were unclear is a lie. You were wrong.

...and I was referring to the denominator of the fraction .01 to the 12th.
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No, you were not. There is no such reference in what you posted. You may have meant there to be such a reference, but you did not include it. To say otherwise would be at odds with the obvious facts.

That number is about the same as the number of planets in the universe (oops, I also didn't say "observable universe" in the OP either. OMG!!!! :eek:).
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Yes, so? Why is 0.0112 at all interesting in this context? Oh, wait. Were you conflating your invented 1% tolerance across your invented 12 factors as a probability? Oh, my!! How far down the rabbit hole are you?

What the hell happened to this forum? Did disassociating from Randi cause this much damage?
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Do you seriously believe Randi would support you in this nonsense?
 
Daylightstar said:
Hilite by Daylightstar
To whom do you refer with the hilited "you"?
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To whomever might think that we can't calculate a higher probability for an alien civilization than for ESP. I haven't really ever seen you claim that, but the post you made asked the question.

Simple calculation we know of 3 planets in the goldilocks zone around this star. So the probability is approx 1 in 3 +/-. Highly inaccurate, but it is something. Or we could calculate based on total known planets surrounding our star. That gives us a probability of 1 in 13 +/-. Also highly inaccurate but it is a calculation. ESP we get 0 in a few billion or so? Or calculated by using those rigorously tested for ESP, 0 in a few thousand or so?

Notice that in the above examples whatever factors we include, advanced life is always greater than ESP given the current information. That's because 1/X possible places for advanced life to evolve is always greater than 0. If in the future we check every planet comet moon etc..around every star in our galaxy and still find no advanced life, the probability of finding advanced alien life will still be a positive number, very small but still positive. And so far ESP probability is still 0.
 
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