Proof of Immortality III

[Loss Leader]

Serial failure to distinguish between the general and the specific noted. Keep doing that, you might as well not even know probability exists.

"Some number" didn't come up. The required number came up.

"Some number" would have been anything from 2 to 10 ^80!. The required number was (1). That's what came.

Not the case. You yelled the required number after it appeared. There's nothing at all special about that number because you didn't predict it. I'm reminded of the SNL sketch where Jerry Seinfeld tries to teach a social studies class. And, because the internet, here it is.

"Mr. Thompson, I was about to say Britain."

 

[Toontown]

Oh, I understand what you mean.

I also understand that your concept of "entirely possible" is deeply misguided. You think the zero-hugging possibility means you could rationally assume chance accounts for rolling the (1) on that die.

Well, yes. Because it can. Assuming that the system is truly random, any number could have come up.

1. Fallacy: circular argument. You assume your default assumption as a conclusion, then argue that "any number could have come up", given your default assumption/conclusion. Except "any number" didn't come up.

2. What numbers could have come up was not even the question anyway. Your captors' question was what accounts for that particular number coming up, (chance or a rigged game), the only number out of 10 ^80! numbers that would have allowed you to be alive to answer the question you refused to answer.

3. Any number could have come up (given your default assumption), or the game could have been rigged (not assuming your default conclusion). But you refused to consider that possibility, clammed up, stonewalled, and died with your horse shoes on when the evidence suggested your default conclusion, circularly derived from your default assumption, might not be correct.

If you want to call the integrity of the system into question (and it seems that you do), no result would matter. Examining the system would matter.

You don't always have all the information and options you would like to have (which is what probability is for).

Your captors did not allow you to examine the system. They asked you a question, which you were required to answer correctly or be post-judicially terminated. And you had physical evidence in the form of a 10 ^80! -sided die sitting there in front of you with the (1) on top.

But you ignored the evidence and it's implication and chose to clam up and die with your horse shoes on. Presumably based on the faulty reasoning that "any number could have come up."

I could give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you thought being stubbornly uncooperative might impress your captors with your 'pluckiness'.

But I wouldn't have gone the plucky-clam-up-and-stonewall way. Even if I had bought a bill of goods about how it would be a fallacy to use the die roll result as evidence, I would have simply made a random guess. The choice was binary, so a random guess would have given me a 0.5 probability of guessing right, no matter how counterintuitive the truth of the matter was.

But I haven't bought any bill of goods about how it would be a fallacy to use the die roll result as evidence, so I wouldn't have needed to gamble like that.

 

[Nonpareil]

1. Fallacy: circular argument. You assume your default assumption as a conclusion

No, I don't. I point out that it is one of two possibilities: either the system is random, or the system is not. In neither case is the die coming up on a one evidence.

Your captors' question was what accounts for that particular number coming up, (chance or a rigged game)

And the point that you continually ignore is that chance can account for that.

Any number could have come up (given your default assumption), or the game could have been rigged (not assuming your default conclusion). But you refused to consider that possibility

No, I pointed out, quite simply, that there is no evidence either way, unless you count the asking of the question itself and your captors' general behavior. The die result indicates nothing.

 

[Mojo]

1. Fallacy: circular argument. You assume your default assumption as a conclusion, then argue that "any number could have come up", given your default assumption/conclusion. Except "any number" didn't come up.

2. What numbers could have come up was not even the question anyway. Your captors' question was what accounts for that particular number coming up, (chance or a rigged game), the only number out of 10 ^80! numbers that would have allowed you to be alive to answer the question you refused to answer.

3. Any number could have come up (given your default assumption), or the game could have been rigged (not assuming your default conclusion). But you refused to consider that possibility, clammed up, stonewalled, and died with your horse shoes on when the evidence suggested your default conclusion, circularly derived from your default assumption, might not be correct.



You don't always have all the information and options you would like to have (which is what probability is for).

Your captors did not allow you to examine the system. They asked you a question, which you were required to answer correctly or be post-judicially terminated. And you had physical evidence in the form of a 10 ^80! -sided die sitting there in front of you with the (1) on top.

But you ignored the evidence and it's implication and chose to clam up and die with your horse shoes on. Presumably based on the faulty reasoning that "any number could have come up."

I could give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you thought being stubbornly uncooperative might impress your captors with your 'pluckiness'.

But I wouldn't have gone the plucky-clam-up-and-stonewall way. Even if I had bought a bill of goods about how it would be a fallacy to use the die roll result as evidence, I would have simply made a random guess. The choice was binary, so a random guess would have given me a 0.5 probability of guessing right, no matter how counterintuitive the truth of the matter was.

But I haven't bought any bill of goods about how it would be a fallacy to use the die roll result as evidence, so I wouldn't have needed to gamble like that.

Your scenario is irrelevant to Jabba's argument because it involves a particular number being specified before the die is rolled. Jabba's existence wasn't specified before it happened. You revealed that you understand the difference when you said that you wouldn't take Stan's bet.

 

[Toontown]

Not the case. You yelled the required number after it appeared.

The required number is precisely what makes it possible for me to yell. Just as the (1) coming up in the analogy is precisely what allowed Nonpareil the squandered opportunity to answer the subsequent question correctly.

There's nothing at all special about that number because you didn't predict it.

A random event need not have been predicted by me or anyone before it can be suggestive.

 

[Toontown]

No, I don't. I point out that it is one of two possibilities: either the system is random, or the system is not. In neither case is the die coming up on a one evidence.

Oh. Right. The necessary (1) coming up by one roll of a 10 ^80! -sided die could not possibly be evidence that the game was rigged.

Nevermind the fact that the only number that could have saved your bacon was unlikely to be seen before the extinction of humanity, or the heat death of the universe, unless the game was rigged.

And your only explanation for this blindness is that you think a possibly random event cannot be significant because it might be random. Which, if true, would invalidate statistical testing altogether...

...and explains the aquittal of OJ Simpson.

 

[carlitos]

Add me to the list of people who do understand statistics, but do not understand Toontown's point. In the scenario above, (1) is "unlikely to be seen" in the same way that every number on the die is "unlikely to be seen." This is so basic, I can't at all understand what the point is. All numbers on the die are equally unlikely, yet some "unlikely" number has to come up. Someone in New Jersey won the Powerball last night. Therefore, what exactly?

 

[abaddon]

Add me to the list of people who do understand statistics, but do not understand Toontown's point. In the scenario above, (1) is "unlikely to be seen" in the same way that every number on the die is "unlikely to be seen." This is so basic, I can't at all understand what the point is. All numbers on the die are equally unlikely, yet some "unlikely" number has to come up. Someone in New Jersey won the Powerball last night. Therefore, what exactly?

It was a "special" person. Or something.

 

[ComfySlippers]

Add me to the list of people who do understand statistics, but do not understand Toontown's point. In the scenario above, (1) is "unlikely to be seen" in the same way that every number on the die is "unlikely to be seen." This is so basic, I can't at all understand what the point is. All numbers on the die are equally unlikely, yet some "unlikely" number has to come up. Someone in New Jersey won the Powerball last night. Therefore, what exactly?

This is hardly the stuff of rocket science is it?
The dogged determination to endlessly repeat something that is so obviously wrong is weird.

I'm fairly sure academic qualifications aren't even necessary to understand something so incredibly simple.

 

[Nonpareil]

Oh. Right. The necessary (1) coming up by one roll of a 10 ^80! -sided die could not possibly be evidence that the game was rigged.

You insist upon using the word "necessary" when the entire point is that you have not established that the result was so.

To do that, you have to look at the die.

Nevermind the fact that the only number that could have saved your bacon was unlikely to be seen before the extinction of humanity, or the heat death of the universe, unless the game was rigged.

So was any other given number.

And your only explanation for this blindness is that you think a possibly random event cannot be significant because it might be random. Which, if true, would invalidate statistical testing altogether...

...and explains the aquittal of OJ Simpson.

This is gibberish. I don't know what point you think you're making, or what you think you're arguing against, but it seems to have nothing to do with my position or the discussion in hand.

 

[I Am The Scum]

There are conceivable mechanisms for a conscious entity altering the odds on a game of chance (loaded dice, trick shuffles, etc.)

There are no conceivable mechanisms for a conscious entity altering the laws of physics.

May we move on now?

 

[Toontown]

Add me to the list of people who do understand statistics, but do not understand Toontown's point. In the scenario above, (1) is "unlikely to be seen" in the same way that every number on the die is "unlikely to be seen." This is so basic, I can't at all understand what the point is. All numbers on the die are equally unlikely, yet some "unlikely" number has to come up. Someone in New Jersey won the Powerball last night. Therefore, what exactly?

I find it difficult to add you to the list of people who do understand probability when you don't understand that any of those other numbers would have quite reasonably killed any suspicion that the game was rigged.

Only the (1), which was the only reason Nonpareil analogically survived long enough to hear the captors' easily answered question, could possibly give rise to a quite reasonable suspicion that the game was rigged.

And yet you of supposedly great understanding of probability are unable to see the difference.

 

[AdMan]

Nonpareil exists, therefore Nonpareil' side came up on the die and therefore the game was rigged.

Well, yes, if 13.7 billion years ago you had correctly predicted that the incredibly improbable mass of atoms would come together that we would call Nonpareil, that would indicate the game was rigged, or that something at least equally strange was going on.

Buy you didn't. You're coming at it after the fact, when Nonpareil already exists. At that point you cannot claim the game or die was rigged because Nonpareil's number (obviously) came up.

Texas sharpshooter fallacy is all it is. You haven't convinced this (mostly) lurker your "argument" (in quotation marks because of your obfuscation in even defining what exactly you mean) is anything but that.

 

[Toontown]

Your scenario is irrelevant to Jabba's argument because it involves a particular number being specified before the die is rolled.

...

My scenario was not intended to support Jabba. It was intended to counter you - and other thread denizens.

More specifically, It was intended to counter the automated hurling of bogus fallacy charges against anyone who does not agree that a possibility of chance justifies an assumption of chance.

The hypothetical rolling of the (1) was intentionally an event which is likely to be preceded by the heat death of the universe. This was to make it easy for Nonpareil to provide the logically and probabilistically correct answer to the captors' question.

But NonPareil, supported by the herd, continued to stonewall, even unto analogic death, rather than drop the cherished bogus fallacy charges.

It's not that I agree with Jabba. Rather, I disagree with all of you, including Jabba, for different reasons.

 

[abaddon]

My scenario was not intended to support Jabba. It was intended to counter you - and other thread denizens.

More specifically, It was intended to counter the automated hurling of bogus fallacy charges against anyone who does not agree that a possibility of chance justifies an assumption of chance.

The hypothetical rolling of the (1) was intentionally an event which is likely to be preceded by the heat death of the universe. This was to make it easy for Nonpareil to provide the logically and probabilistically correct answer to the captors' question.

But NonPareil, supported by the herd, continued to stonewall, even unto analogic death, rather than drop the cherished bogus fallacy charges.

It's not that I agree with Jabba. Rather, I disagree with all of you, including Jabba, for different reasons.

Reasons which you decline to provide.

 

[pharphis]

I find it difficult to add you to the list of people who do understand probability when you don't understand that any of those other numbers would have quite reasonably killed any suspicion that the game was rigged.

Only the (1), which was the only reason Nonpareil analogically survived long enough to hear the captors' easily answered question, could possibly give rise to a quite reasonable suspicion that the game was rigged.

And yet you of supposedly great understanding of probability are unable to see the difference.

I would argue that a (2) or (3) would also make the game appear to be "rigged" because it's "oh so close!"

I agree with I_am_the_scum

 

[Toontown]

Well, yes, if 13.7 billion years ago you had correctly predicted that the incredibly improbable mass of atoms would come together that we would call Nonpareil, that would indicate the game was rigged, or that something at least equally strange was going on.

For starters, I don't find the existence of Nonpareil's brain any more informative to me than a random mote of dust somewhere in interstellar space. In the analogy I simply invited Nonpareil to acknowledge his/her conditional perspective and use it.

Buy you didn't. You're coming at it after the fact, when Nonpareil already exists. At that point you cannot claim the game or die was rigged because Nonpareil's number (obviously) came up.

There is no other way to come at evidence, probabilistic or otherwise. Nothing exists until it exists. Nor is there any mystical rule requiring that any event must first be "predicted" by someone before it's existence can reasonably bring into question the nature of it's genesis. OTC, if all that were the case, we could know absolutely nothing about anything.

Because we predicted none of this. We look at the universe after the fact of it's emergence, and draw conclusions about it's nature and genesis.

Again, I don't consider Nonpareil's existence, or Jabba's, or yours, or anyone else's existence as evidence of anything. I use a subjective, conditional perspective which applies only to myself.

Texas sharpshooter fallacy is all it is. You haven't convinced this (mostly) lurker your "argument" (in quotation marks because of your obfuscation in even defining what exactly you mean) is anything but that.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about, and I can tell you how I know you don't:

The sharpshooter fallacy occurs when a random cluster of data is randomly chosen and then used to try to prove something that is designed only to fit that one random cluster of data.

Which I have not done. The data I use is subjective and conditionally dependent, not randomly chosen. And I haven't even offered a possible explanation of it, and will not.

 

[Toontown]

I would argue that a (2) or (3) would also make the game appear to be "rigged" because it's "oh so close!"

The fact that you admit that you would argue that doesn't bode well for the possibility of your knowing what you're talking about.

 

[ComfySlippers]

I would argue that a (2) or (3) would also make the game appear to be "rigged" because it's "oh so close!"

I agree with I_am_the_scum

If 3 had come up, there'd be a bunch of 12-legged, 6-armed mwaglanjikzoids trying to convince another, rather silly, 12-legged, 6-armed mwaglanjikzoid that 3 wasn't rigged.

 

[pharphis]

The fact that you admit that you would argue that doesn't bode well for the possibility of your knowing what you're talking about.

Why is that? We're talking about human perception of whether or not a game is rigged. All of which is wholly irrelevant to immortality but as long as we're making arguments about which numbers would make people think a game is rigged I'd say anything close to (1) would make a human go "oh my god, they're just toying with me!"