Proof of Immortality III

[Belz...]

The probability of the emergence of a particular brain is not estimated by any conditionally dependent information. That comes from the standard cosmological model, quantum mechanics, and probability theory.

That's silly.

If I roll a billion twenty-sided dice, the exact pattern of results, in order, is excessively unlikely. What does it mean?

Nothing.

 

[AdMan]

Since you continuously take it upon yourself to raise objections towards people who disagree with him, it would seem so. But I really don't know, because that would require you to have presented any sort of coherent idea at some point in this thread.

Thus far, the entirety of the discussion has been:

JABBA: My existence is highly unlikely.
ME: So what?
YOU: You're an idiot.
ME: Could you explain?
YOU: It has to do with conditional probability.
ME: How? Conditional probability is entirely unrelated to Jabba's argument.
YOU: You're an idiot.
ME: Could you explain?
YOU: I refuse, because reasons.

And, as I said before, it's not a particularly compelling form of argumentation. You came in to this discussion ostensibly to defend Jabba, raised a point which is apparently entirely unrelated to the discussion in hand, talked about having some hypothesis of your own which you explicitly refuse to share, and accused everyone of being stupid for not being able to read your mind and figure out what this incoherent stew of vitriol and disconnected ideas is supposed to mean.

Why are you here, Toontown?

Speaking as a lurker in this thread, who nevertheless has tried to keep up with the discussion and read everything, I think this is a very good summary of what's been going on. I am flummoxed by Toontown's intentions, if he has any beyond insulting people and proclaiming how much smarter than everyone else he is.

 

[Jabba]

What if I propose that a powerful, intelligent entity designed it to have precisely that shape?

- I gotta admit that these are interesting questions...

- Try this.

- Your explanation doesn't really rule out the scientific explanation.
- And, for your hypothetical to be analogous to my question of individual consciousness, it has to do that...

- Your powerful entity could have used, or installed, the scientific explanation in order to get the specific mountain shape that It did.
- And then, the likelihood of that particular shape not involving the laws of science and being, instead, the whim of a powerful entity, mathematically has to be smaller than the likelihood of either stipulation by itself.
- In other words, your explanation of a powerful entity building this mountain without the use of the scientific explanation, has to be less probable than the scientific explanation itself. In this case, your explanation cannot be potentially more probable than the scientific explanation.

 

[Jabba]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.
- I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.
- It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.
- Obviously, you guys are quite knowledgeable and erudite, but probability is not your strong suits...

- The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.
- This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.
- Anyone agree with these two claims?

 

[Toontown]

Since you continuously take it upon yourself to raise objections towards people who disagree with him, it would seem so.

And red apples are red. Do any of you not disagree with Jabba?

I've disagreed with all of you, Jabba included. And you've all disagreed with me, often in a patronizing, insulting manner. And I've answered in kind.

But I really don't know, because that would require you to have presented any sort of coherent idea at some point in this thread.

Do you mean like pretending to roll a die and exclaming "so what"? Heck, I could do that all day, just like you. It's not difficult. And everyone (except Jabba) would nod sagely, and come to my defense, because I would be in complete agreement with them.

Or do you mean like you just did, with your highly coherent 'red apples are red' observation above?

 

[godless dave]

- I gotta admit that these are interesting questions...

- Try this.

- Your explanation doesn't really rule out the scientific explanation.
- And, for your hypothetical to be analogous to my question of individual consciousness, it has to do that...

- Your powerful entity could have used, or installed, the scientific explanation in order to get the specific mountain shape that It did.
- And then, the likelihood of that particular shape not involving the laws of science and being, instead, the whim of a powerful entity, mathematically has to be smaller than the likelihood of either stipulation by itself.
- In other words, your explanation of a powerful entity building this mountain without the use of the scientific explanation, has to be less probable than the scientific explanation itself. In this case, your explanation cannot be potentially more probable than the scientific explanation.

So you're saying if I did come up with an alternative hypothesis that ruled out the scientific explanation, we would have to accept that the scientific explanation is wrong because the result - the precise appearance of Mount Rainier at the time that photo was taken - is so improbable?

 

[godless dave]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.
- I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.

He really isn't.

- It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.
- Obviously, you guys are quite knowledgeable and erudite, but probability is not your strong suits...

I'll let the posters with actual backgrounds in probability respond to that.

- The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.
- This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.
- Anyone agree with these two claims?

I disagree with both of those claims. My mountain analogy should tell you why.

 

[The Don]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.

No, it's exceptionally easy to convey effectively through the means of mathematics. It only becomes difficult when people without an appropriate understanding of the concepts or the maths wade into the subject.

- I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.

How the heck can you tell if you don't understand a lot of it

That's like me watching a TV debate in Italian and claiming that I support one participant over the other due to the content of their argument based on my "restaurant" Italian

- It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.
- Obviously, you guys are quite knowledgeable and erudite, but probability is not your strong suits...

That's incredibly rich from someone who has demonstrated time and again that they have a tenuous grasp on the subject.

- The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.
- This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.
- Anyone agree with these two claims?

I'm sure you can find someone sufficiently mathematically illiterate to agree with you but like in "the other thread", you're not going to carry the field.

 

[Toontown]

The posts are begged questions and insults. That's not enough.

Not enough for who? I don't recall entering into any contract to serve you or anyone else.

So I return to my question. Will you lay out your line of reasoning connecting your posts to the topic of this thread?

And I return to my answer.

(---->No<----)

And now I have a rhetorical question for you: If it is this difficult to get a simple "No" through to you, what are the odds that a long, tedious explanation of how my posts connect to the topic will ever get through?

A rough estimate will do.

 

[Toontown]

The probability of the emergence of a particular brain is not estimated by any conditionally dependent information. That comes from the standard cosmological model, quantum mechanics, and probability theory.

That's silly.

If I roll a billion twenty-sided dice, the exact pattern of results, in order, is excessively unlikely. What does it mean?

Nothing.

Oh...well...now that you put it that way...

Screw it all. Don't mean nothin.

Well, not exactly. All that matters is, your only way to ever see the light of day came through with flying colors against giganogargantuan odds. Which proves you are a special snowflake. Because very nearly everything that might have happened after the main quantum shuffle began at t = 0 + 10 ^-43, did not happen, and never will. Heck, you're no special snowflake. You are a giganogargantuanly special snowflake.

And there is no other possible explanation, and no explaining to be done.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 12

 

[Toontown]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.
- I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.
- It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.
- Obviously, you guys are quite knowledgeable and erudite, but probability is not your strong suits...

It's attraction bias. This is what you get.

I've declined to respond to your subsequent question for fear of stirring up another huge row, after declining to respond to Jayutah's repeated demands.

 

[Toontown]

I disagree with both of those claims. My mountain analogy should tell you why.

And what does your mountain analogy mean?

Nothing.

Every bit of evidence that's ever been used always looked exactly like itself, and always was itself.

How about this, Nonpariel? Is this the kind of coherency you're looking for?

 

[Toontown]

No, it's exceptionally easy to convey effectively through the means of mathematics. It only becomes difficult when people without an appropriate understanding of the concepts or the maths wade into the subject.

Are you talking about statistics or probability theory?

Statistics are exceptionally easy to convey. Gather some numbers. Crunch them. Bingo. But wait. Now you have to figure out what the crunched numbers mean.

 

[Nonpareil]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.
- I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.
- It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.

Ahh, it is to laugh.

- The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.

So is the likelihood of literally everyone else's existence. So what?

- This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.

These implications are, exactly...?

Do you mean like pretending to roll a die and exclaming "so what"? Heck, I could do that all day, just like you. It's not difficult.

Well, no. It's not. Because it is an exceptionally obvious objection to Jabba's argument which, despite the fact that it has apparently stuck in your craw for no apparent reason, neither you nor he has managed to produce a coherent objection to.

No matter how unlikely any given result of that die roll is, one of them has got to come up.

Well, not exactly. All that matters is, your only way to ever see the light of day came through with flying colors against giganogargantuan odds. Which proves you are a special snowflake.

So are all those people who didn't get to ever see the light of day. (EDIT: For clarity's sake, while Jabba, Toontown, or anyone else who was actually born was the side the die came up on, there is no reason to believe that this is because their existence was any more or less likely than anyone else's. There is nothing special about you just because you exist, any more than there is anything special about the side of a die labeled "four" just because it happened to come up.)

So what?

 

[JayUtah]

- Probability is extremely interesting -- and difficult to convey effectively.

It's not difficult to convey effectively if one is proficient with it. You aren't, and this may be why it's difficult for you to convey it or understand when others try to correct you.

Further, as I and many others have tried to explain to you, probability is not good at answering questions that require evidence. I refer you constantly to the Prosecutor's Fallacy, but I get no impression that you have considered whether you're committing it or not.

I can't keep up with a lot of what Toon says, but mostly, he's right on.

You an Toontown can have whatever discussion you wish. However I don't think I'm alone in saying that what he's talking about and what you're talking about have nothing in common. He won't tell us whether or not his cosmology supports a proof for immortality, and you don't know what he's talking about.

It's the rest of you guys that don't have a good feel for the topic.

No, Jabba. "Feel" is irrelevant. Every single aspect of your claim has been appropriately questioned. The applicability of your model and method has been questioned on appropriate grounds. You have no answer. Your estimates of probability have been questioned. You have no answer. Telling us we don't "feel" your problem is just thin veneer over question-begging.

Obviously, you guys are quite knowledgeable and erudite, but probability is not your strong suits...

It's not your suit at all, Jabba. How many times have you attempted this same probabilistic argument and had your head handed to you? You wouldn't know, because you ignored all the well-considered explanations that came your way. You have egregiously misused Bayes. You're not even close to being in the same ballpark as the Bayesian methodology.

The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.

This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.

Anyone agree with these two claims?

Your first claim is simply a cosmological factoid. The field of probability is full of them, and they serve very little except to make interesting infographics. You have found a model that you think accurately computes a probability that relates to your problem. I disagree with the meaning you're trying to assign to that factoid.

Your second claim is too mealy-mouthed to matter. "Has mathematical implications" is handwaving. You promised us a mathematical proof. Do the math, don't vaguely allude to it. As to whether Bayes is appropriate to what you seem to want to do, it isn't -- asked and answered.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Really? I wasn't possible before time began?

You were undefined. The set of conditions for producing sentient mammals was not included automatically at the time of the BB owing to the fact that there was nothing inherent in matter and energy at that time that had to lead to you. Since you missed my subtle link to Anderson's More Is Different, here is a quote from a follow-up to that, More Really Is Different:

In 1972, P.W.Anderson suggested that `More is Different', meaning that complex physical systems may exhibit behavior that cannot be understood only in terms of the laws governing their microscopic constituents. We strengthen this claim by proving that many macroscopic observable properties of a simple class of physical systems (the infinite periodic Ising lattice) cannot in general be derived from a microscopic description. This provides evidence that emergent behavior occurs in such systems, and indicates that even if a 'theory of everything' governing all microscopic interactions were discovered, the understanding of macroscopic order is likely to require additional insights.

Basically, significant time had to pass before 'you' could even be a subject of speculation, assuming some timeless observer who cared about such things. The probability of humans was undefined for a long time, since the 'construction' from elementary particles to the cosmos today is several scales and orders of complexity beyond starting conditions. It would only make sense to speculate about a 'you' at least starting with the existence of the human species.

I imagine a super-determinist (SD) would not agree; i.e., that all uncertainty owes to a near infinity of causes/influences to any event, the bulk of which are vanishingly small in effect and so usually ignored. In that case, an SD might agree, assuming he/she had existed somehow close to the time of the BB, that he/she could crank the numbers and assign some value to p(you).

But that lonely SD would have to assign extremely small probabilities to all things, given that the sensitivity to exact conditions leads to differing outcomes for same processes or events. The probability of 'crap happening' is p=1, but the likelihood of any specific outcome is small. That is true for all things, and is trivial, not profound.

 

[Garrette]

You were undefined. The set of conditions for producing sentient mammals was not included automatically at the time of the BB owing to the fact that there was nothing inherent in matter and energy at that time that had to lead to you. Since you missed my subtle link to Anderson's More Is Different, here is a quote from a follow-up to that, More Really Is Different:



Basically, significant time had to pass before 'you' could even be a subject of speculation, assuming some timeless observer who cared about such things. The probability of humans was undefined for a long time, since the 'construction' from elementary particles to the cosmos today is several scales and orders of complexity beyond starting conditions. It would only make sense to speculate about a 'you' at least starting with the existence of the human species.

I imagine a super-determinist (SD) would not agree; i.e., that all uncertainty owes to a near infinity of causes/influences to any event, the bulk of which are vanishingly small in effect and so usually ignored. In that case, an SD might agree, assuming he/she had existed somehow close to the time of the BB, that he/she could crank the numbers and assign some value to p(you).

But that lonely SD would have to assign extremely small probabilities to all things, given that the sensitivity to exact conditions leads to differing outcomes for same processes or events. The probability of 'crap happening' is p=1, but the likelihood of any specific outcome is small. That is true for all things, and is trivial, not profound.

And while I understand I am doing a bit of what you caution Toontown not to do, the bit I have highlighted is the crux of Jabba's error.

Assume for the moment that the scientific model were , in fact, that one has a soul and it is immortal. Assume further that there were as much evidence for it as there is for the current, actual model. If that were the case, the anti-Jabba could come to this forum and start a thread about how Bayes can be used to prove that immortality is so improbable that OOFLam is virtually proven.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

And while I understand I am doing a bit of what you caution Toontown not to do, the bit I have highlighted is the crux of Jabba's error.

Assume for the moment that the scientific model were , in fact, that one has a soul and it is immortal. Assume further that there were as much evidence for it as there is for the current, actual model. If that were the case, the anti-Jabba could come to this forum and start a thread about how Bayes can be used to prove that immortality is so improbable that OOFLam is virtually proven.

I'm not really sure how to get that; having a slow moment of sorts I guess. You are criticizing a flip form of Jabba's argument, right? Of the top of my head, I'd agree that the anti-Jabba would commit the same error of arguing without regard to evidence, in this case there being evidence that is ignored. But I still don't get how Bayesian statistics could be used to build the proof, so not sure if you are ahead of me here, or that is what you are saying... This is Mr. Utah's dept. (Me, I'm no statistician/mathematician, I'm hanging in here using, er, dead reckoning.)

 

[MRC_Hans]

- The "likelihood" of my current existence -- given OOFLam (Only One, Finite, Lifetime at most) is not 1.00. Given OOFLam, it's virtually zero.
- This fact has mathematical implications re the "posterior probability" of OOFLam.

Post hoc, the probability of your existence is 1.

A priori, it was small, but that is irrelevant.

Hans

 

[Garrette]

I'm not really sure how to get that; having a slow moment of sorts I guess. You are criticizing a flip form of Jabba's argument, right? Of the top of my head, I'd agree that the anti-Jabba would commit the same error of arguing without regard to evidence, in this case there being evidence that is ignored. But I still don't get how Bayesian statistics could be used to build the proof, so not sure if you are ahead of me here, or that is what you are saying... This is Mr. Utah's dept. (Me, I'm no statistician/mathematician, I'm hanging in here using, er, dead reckoning.)

I think we are saying the same thing. I am not saying anti-Jabba would be correct. I am saying that using the same incorrect methods that Jabba is using would lead to the opposite conclusion; as such, it is another way of demonstrating to Jabba why he is in error.