Proof of Immortality II

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Jabba said:
If we want to determine the posterior probability of an existing hypothesis after new relevant info becomes available, don't we need to know the likelihood of the new info given the old hypothesis?
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I wrote extensively about this several months ago in your shroud thread. You ignored it then. Maybe you should have read it, then you'd know the answer.
 
Jabba said:
Jay,
- If we want to determine the posterior probability of an existing hypothesis after new relevant info becomes available, don't we need to know the likelihood of the new info given the old hypothesis?
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You need to determine the prior probability of the existing hypothesis first. This assists you to assess the probability of the new information being true.
 
Mojo said:
You need to determine the prior probability of the existing hypothesis first. This assists you to assess the probability of the new information being true.
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But, IS there any information? We live this life, that's certain (barring the simulation scenario, see relevant thread), but is there any other information?

Hans
 
Mojo said:
You need to determine the prior probability of the existing hypothesis first.
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True, and the result you get from any Bayesian analysis is only as good as your prior. Pulling a prior probability out of your kiester is one of the most common ways of misusing Bayes. There is no formulation of Bayes that looks at a posterior probability and interprets it as the probability that some hypothesis is true -- given or not given "new relevant information." And you will find many Bayesian experts who say as much, as often as they can. Bayes simply tells you how your belief is affected by information. It does not validate or even test that belief.

"New relevant information" in Jabba's formulation is ostensibly evidence, but Jabba wants the cart before the horse. He wants to dictate the rates of true and false outcomes, which is a major no-no. There is absolutely no correct formulation of Bayes that isn't based on evidence.
 
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jsfisher said:
He needs to make the hypothesis clear and explicit first.
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And not change it when it becomes apparent that no evidence supports it, or that much evidence contradicts it. You and others have asked Jabba several times to make his hypothesis explicit and to answer questions regarding ambiguities that others see it in. His unwillingness to do so is revealing of his intent and belief.
 
The Sparrow said:
What would classify as 'direct evidence'? What would you accept as evidence we have only 1 life? What would you consider 'proof'?
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Jabba, shall I interpret your lack of response to mean there is nothing you would accept as evidence or proof we have only 1 life?
And if so, why are you here?
 
Jabba was still being hotly pursued after...how many years has it been? Nothing has changed. I already knew what Jabba is right and wrong about, and what his inquisitors are right and wrong about. And I already knew of the futility of trying to tell any of them anything.

So I decided to play a low stakes online holdem poker tournament.

I was quickly dealt a not great but playable hand in a playable position and made a small raise, satisfied to take the blinds. Immediately a player on my left came over the top, all in. My hand wasn't that good, so I folded.

Soon after, I got another playable hand and limped in without raising. Immediately the same player on my left went all in again.

"Really"? I thought. "Am I believing this? Am I to believe that twice I get a playable hand, and both times the same guy has a hand worth going all in with? Or am I to believe that I folded the first time after raising, so now he thinks I'll certainly fold again after limping, and he doesn't really care if I don't fold, because he doesn't think the first two cards mean much anyway, plus he's still steamed because I didn't pay off his big hand before?"

I decided the second possibility was more likely in a small stakes tournament.
I also knew that most random poker hands, (which I strongly suspected he probably had rather than a carefully selected hand), are pieces of crap not even worth playing, let alone going all in with. I also knew that even if I was wrong about the probable weakness of Stanley The Steamer's hand, in a third of universes my hand still lucks out and wins.

So I called. Turns out I was right. Stanley The Steamer had no cards. And I got all his chips.

But if I was a follower of Agatha's "Once it's happened, the probability that it happened is 1" tautolosophy, i wouldn't have called, and Stanley could have kept bluffing me. Because I would think nothing is unlikely after it's happened. So Stanley's consecutive all in raises wouldn't have meant anything to me.

It would have seemed merely a meaningless series of (formerly) unlikely events that already happened, rendering them no longer unlikely, therefore bereft of meaningful implication. Easily explained by the assumption that Stanley was the beneficiary of a run of hot cards that just happened to coincide with my playable cards after he coincidentally saw me fold after raising.
 
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Toontown said:
But if I was a follower of Agatha's "Once it's happened, the probability that it happened is 1" tautolosophy, i wouldn't have called, and Stanley could have kept bluffing me. Because I would think nothing is unlikely after it's happened. So Stanley's consecutive all in raises wouldn't have meant anything to me.
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What? Agatha doesn't say that what happened doesn't mean anything. Just that it's certain that it happened.
 
Toontown said:
Jabba was still being hotly pursued after...how many years has it been? Nothing has changed. I already knew what Jabba is right and wrong about, and what his inquisitors are right and wrong about. And I already knew of the futility of trying to tell any of them anything.

So I decided to play a low stakes online holdem poker tournament.

I was quickly dealt a not great but playable hand in a playable position and made a small raise, satisfied to take the blinds. Immediately a player on my left came over the top, all in. My hand wasn't that good, so I folded.

Soon after, I got another playable hand and limped in without raising. Immediately the same player on my left went all in again.

"Really"? I thought. "Am I believing this? Am I to believe that twice I get a playable hand, and both times the same guy has a hand worth going all in with? Or am I to believe that I folded the first time after raising, so now he thinks I'll certainly fold again after limping, and he doesn't really care if I don't fold, because he doesn't think the first two cards mean much anyway, plus he's still steamed because I didn't pay off his big hand before?"

I decided the second possibility was more likely in a small stakes tournament.
I also knew that most random poker hands, (which I strongly suspected he probably had rather than a carefully selected hand), are pieces of crap not even worth playing, let alone going all in with. I also knew that even if I was wrong about the probable weakness of Stanley The Steamer's hand, in a third of universes my hand still lucks out and wins.

So I called. Turns out I was right. Stanley The Steamer had no cards. And I got all his chips.

But if I was a follower of Agatha's "Once it's happened, the probability that it happened is 1" tautolosophy, i wouldn't have called, and Stanley could have kept bluffing me. Because I would think nothing is unlikely after it's happened. So Stanley's consecutive all in raises wouldn't have meant anything to me.
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If Stanley had offered you a bet that he was holding the hand he was holding, would you have accepted it?
 
Toontown said:
But if I was a follower of Agatha's "Once it's happened, the probability that it happened is 1" tautolosophy, i wouldn't have called, and Stanley could have kept bluffing me. Because I would think nothing is unlikely after it's happened. So Stanley's consecutive all in raises wouldn't have meant anything to me.
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:crazy:

Once it's happened, it's happened, however unlikely it was; that doesn't mean the same thing is guaranteed to happen again.
 
Toontown said:
Saying that what happened did happen certainly does not mean anything. It's like, "OK, that happened."
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But you can say "Okay, that happened" because you have evidence that it happened. That renders any probabilistic argument moot. Agatha's approach to Jabba's attempt to argue multiple lives from a probabilistic standpoint is to drag the argument back to one of evidence. See, for example, the Prosecutor's Fallacy.
 
zooterkin said:
:crazy:

Once it's happened, it's happened, however unlikely it was; that doesn't mean the same thing is guaranteed to happen again.
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Is that what you think? You think Jabba is saying that if an event is sufficiently unlikely it is guaranteed to happen again? And that's how you're justifying calling me crazy?

If that's what you still think after all these years, then I'm not the one who is crazy here. Little wonder this argument has been going on for years.

What Jabba is saying is very nearly the opposite of what you're saying he's saying. He's saying that if hypothesis A gives a ridiculously low probability for the occurrence of specific event x, and yet the first thing you observe is specific event x, when according to hypothesis A you should not be observing anything at all with a certainly converging on 1, then it might be prudent to consider the possibility that event x is not actually as improbable as hypothesis A implies, which of course would mean you might want to consider ruling out hypothesis A.

Which of course you will never, ever consider until hell freezes over. Even if you have to go on for years pretending Jabba is saying things he isn't saying. Which you don't even need to do, BTW.

Jabba has one point. It's only one point. Acknowledging that one point does not mean the Jabba entity is immortal. Nor does it mean you will have to go on being that same old "you" forever. So relax and acknowledge Jabba's one and only point, and get it over with already. After...how many years has it been?
 
JayUtah said:
But you can say "Okay, that happened" because you have evidence that it happened. That renders any probabilistic argument moot. Agatha's approach to Jabba's attempt to argue multiple lives from a probabilistic standpoint is to drag the argument back to one of evidence. See, for example, the Prosecutor's Fallacy.
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And, as I just finished explaining, the occurrence of the event that did in fact happen is the evidence.
 
Jabba, is H the scientific model of consciousness, where souls do not exist? Or is it some model of consciousness where souls exist but are mortal?
 
Toontown said:
And, as I just finished explaining, the occurrence of the event that did in fact happen is the evidence.
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And to continue Agatha's first argument, if Jabba could show evidence of additional lives then he could argue it happens. He has alluded to various claims -- out-of-body and near-death experiences, and reincarnation -- but provides no applicable evidence. Instead he's playing a numbers game.

Here and in other threads he's trying a bastardization of Bayesian analysis to show that what he believes as a matter of faith must also somehow follow as a matter of mathematics. And to make the numbers come out the way he wants them, he's just making up prior probabilities. One of those is the notion that the probability of "having one life" is 1 in 7 billion. Some of his critics have shown the numerical fallacy of such a claim. Others such as Agatha have argued that such a number, even if correct, could not be used to argue that a particular life didn't happen when it is observed to happen. This is to emphasize the evidentiary nature of such questions over the wrong-headed practice of arguing them probabilistically. Again, see the Prosecutor's Fallacy. That doesn't diminish an argument you might make which is to revisit the computation of probability of the event indeed improbably occurs. That too is valid because it makes the numbers come out differently for Jabba. He carefully choses his inputs to produce the desired output, so any disruption of that would affect his claim.
 
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