Proof of Immortality III

[JayUtah]

But what is different about the awarenesses? In what way are they different from each other?

If we make certain presumptions about the setup of the cloning lab, the Original Jabba might wake up facing east and the Clone Jabba might wake up facing west. Beginning at that specific instant, each version will begin to subjectively encounter the world differently, eastward vs. westward until death do they part. But at that instant, each version will have every memory and sense of awareness that the sole original had prior, a full sense of awareness of himself as Jabba, and a firm conviction that he is the original Jabba (having no basis to judge otherwise).

As you're probably already aware, Jabba has seized upon your volunteered concept as the latest equivocation of his expression of a soul, regardless of what "subjective perception" really means.

 

[Loss Leader]

- Whatever, it seems to me that any bit of consciousness would inherently bring with it a "self" of some kind... And different entities will naturally have different selves -- different awarenesses.

Jabba -

Forget different entities. Think about one entity. Is Jabba today the same as Jabba of 30 years ago? Do you have the same likes and dislikes, hobbies, favorite foods? Do you share the same memories? Chances are you've forgotten many of what Jabba-30 would consider important memories. And, of course, you have thirty years more memories than he did? Did Jabba-30 have the same love for his grandchildren as you do? Did he have the same diet? Balance of hormones? Energy level?

You are not the same person you were 30 years ago. You won't be the same person tomorrow. Your subjectively experience of continuity is an illusion.

So when you say, "We have no way of knowing who that person would be," you might as well say, "I have no way of knowing who I will be." What are the characteristics of a soul that went unchanged from 30 years ago to today?

If we make certain presumptions about the setup of the cloning lab, the Original Jabba might wake up facing east and the Clone Jabba might wake up facing west. Beginning at that specific instant, each version will begin to subjectively encounter the world differently, eastward vs. westward until death do they part

That's idiotic. It's well known that all cloning labs are oriented north-to-south to avoid exactly this problem.

 

[Toontown]

It is not my fault that Toontown circles around the notion that while he/she refuses point blank to identify what it might be that he/she believes whatever he/she believes, it is somehow everyone else's responsibility to disprove the ideas that Toontown declines to identify.

One is left with guessing alone.

Thanks for demonstrating why I shouldn't bother trying to explain that to you.

At any rate, I only mentioned once that I may have had a thought or two. Nothing to get hung about. Strawberry fields forever.

You don't need to guess anything about what I think. You can read my posts. What the posts say is all you have to worry about. You don't need to worry about what I might think that isn't contained in my posts.

You don't need to disprove any ideas that I decline to identify. You don't need to disprove anything. It would be sufficient to stop accusing me of committing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre every two minutes on flimsy, simplistic pretexts.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is getting tedious.

People are splitting more and more hairs in order to get further and further away from the outrageous claim they are making.

No one is immortal. No one is going to live forever. There's no soul. Special pleading the nested argument about the dice metaphor about the 3rd hijack to the left on Bayesian statistics won't change that.

You can't prove trees exist by showing how improbable forests are.

 

[Aepervius]

False. It is you who do not understand what is being said to you. And now you appear to have completely forgotten (if you ever knew) what our little discussion about the dice was about.

And this, after you've already demonstrated that you are probabilistically challenged by arguing that I'm wrong because it isn't an absolute certainty that the (3) was rolled with the 6 sided die...

...in a discussion about probability.

Clue: If there is enough information to establish absolute certainty, then you don't need probability.

And when you do need probability, you use the information you have. You don't refuse to use the information you have simply because you don't know everything. You are using probability in the first place because you don't know everything.

Are you getting a sense of deja vu here? If not, then you have not been reading with comprehension.

For your second clue, see the post above.

Hint: Think before you post. Read before you think.

When reading people post write about what you sso not understand 4rather than assuming a strawman and making look like a fool when the strawman turn out false.

I never argued the above, I argued that your reasoning is useless for the purpose of the thread there is no two vastly different dice for two persons. So your argument about d6 and drilling is useless a nice statistic demonstration that one cannot assume to go back to a dice from a value alone. But the case which interest us similar dice are used so from your example the d6 can be eliminated because the other draw exclude it. What could not be eliminated is a draw ten trillion against trillion.

Read again carefully I never argued that you are wrong that with a 3 a d6 is more probable, I argued that this example has nothing whatsoever to do with the op. I also argued that similar dice are used for all persons, but since your example cannot be used to use d6 everywhere then your example exclude the d6 if all dice must be of similar order of magnitude.

That is why your example ids stupid.


But again, similar draw are used for persons, and those thread is about pretending one can prove immortality from stats and bayesian alone. Your little dice stuff us fluff which does not advance the problem

 

[JoeMorgue]

1. It is extremely unlikely that my parents could have produced me, given the almost impossible odds of genetic combinations combined with congenital conditions.

2. My existence would be much more easily explained if there were a vat in the basement of Dow Pharmaceuticals where I was purpose-grown. Then I would be guaranteed to come out exactly the way I am now.

3. Thus, I was grown in a vat in the basement of Dow Pharmaceuticals..

Dr. Foreman: Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is always the best.
Dr. House: And you think one is simpler than two?
Dr. Cameron: I'm pretty sure it is, yeah.
Dr. House: Baby shows up. Chase tells you that two people exchange fluids to create this being. I tell you that one stork dropped the little tyke off in a diaper. Are you going to go with the two or the one?
Dr. Foreman: I think your argument is specious.
Dr. House: I think your tie is ugly.

 

[Toontown]

I see your point about the special snowflake. Toontown’s argument still doesn’t seem to make sense unless there is something different about the specific brain. If the point is that everyone with a brain seems to have won the lottery (odds wise) then it seems like Loss Leader’s point about running multiple lotteries every day for a few billion years comes into play. After all, it seems that once you start getting brains, it’s going to be somebody’s brain pretty much every time.

Toontown, I genuinely have been trying to follow your argument. If you can help me see where I’m missing it I really would be interested.

Sorry. Can't help you. I'm using a perspective you refuse to take.

You don't accept the validity of your subjective perspective, or mine, so there is no use talking about it. I just talk about it sometimes for practice, in a sense. Nothing will come of it.

Nor is there any simple analogy or math I can think of to clarify what I see as your categorization error when you lump yourself in with all the other brains and lose critical specific information in the bargain.

It isn't about being a "special snowflake". It is all about the fact that the lumping strategy loses information. The information loss is real, and I can explain the probabilistic side of it:

Probalistically, It is akin to trying to calculate your chance of winning the lottery by lumping yourself in with all other lottery players. All you can come up with is a near certainty that someone will win, and you are a someone, so there is a non-zero chance you will win. But that's very nearly meaningless. If you want to know what your specific chances are, you have to take the subjective perspective and calculate your individual odds. Or read the individual odds printed on the ticket. But those odds are relative to the narcissistic, verboten subjective perspective, so you will presumably become a thread heretic if you do so.

However, should you choose to become a thread heretic and look at the prior probability of someone winning the lottery versus the prior probability of you winning, you will see that those probabilities are nearly as different as they can get. Further thought will reveal that the two probabilities are derived from fundamentally different perspectives. Further thought will reveal that both perspectives, though fundamentally different, are equally valid. Further thought will reveal that "equally valid" and 'equally informative' are not equivalent. The subjectively derived probability gives you the useful information.

But even if you do heretically determine your individual chance of winning, you will still need to have a feel for probability to understand just how daunting a proposition it is for you specifically. You have to understand that those odds stacked against you are mountainous and real, they don't like you at all, and they are telling you they don't give a rat's ass about your pitiful little non-zero chance of winning. They are going to slap that out of your hand and make you eat it. Nothing at all like the near certainty that someone else will win. I can confidently predict that you won't be the someone else that wins. But some other someone else will. That's for sure.

I can tell you how the conversation might go if, for example, someone told me that the only reason eternal darkness has not prevailed is because my particular brain has come into existence.

I would reply, "But the prior odds against this particular brain coming into existence are giganogargantuan, and yet eternal darkness has not prevailed, as your hypothesis assures me it should have, with a giganogargantuanly high confidence. Therefore your hypothesis has failed miserably to account for my current sentient experience. If you are correct, then I shouldn't be here, now or ever. Someone, certainly, but not me. Not ever me. Effectively, that is what you're saying."

To which the claimant replies that no, that isn't what they're saying, perspective doesn't matter in probability, I have committed the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, and besides I already exist, so it's too late to question my existence.

To which I would reply, "I see. You would have me believe perspective matters when you are condemning me to eternal darkness, but not when I point out that your condemnation has failed miserably. Nor have I committed any Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nor am I questioning the absence of eternal darkness. On the contrary, I'm using the absence of eternal darkness to question your explanation of it's absence. I find myself starting to doubt you."

From all the above and much more, I conclude that perspective does matter in probability. There are those who trot blithely forward, secure in the knowledge that "perspective is irrelevant in probability", and thread bias has attracted a crew of them. And they can't even calculate their chance of winning a lottery without taking the perspective they say is irrelevant in probability.

 

[Toontown]

Read again carefully I never argued that you are wrong that with a 3 a d6 is more probable, I argued that this example has nothing whatsoever to do with the op. I also argued that similar dice are used for all persons, but since your example cannot be used to use d6 everywhere then your example exclude the d6 if all dice must be of similar order of magnitude.

And I explained to you and a couple of others that the hypothetical with the dice was solely to demonstrate that Nonpareil's simplistic attributions of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy are bogus.

I've also explained that the hypothetical accomplishes my goal by presenting a simple, calculable case in which recognizing that one data point (the 3 in the hypothetical) is fundamentally different from the others is not the TS fallacy.

It was like a straight hand-off buried in your gut. And yet you and several others still managed to fumble the ball, and you're still fumbling and bumbling about.

Think before you post. Read before you think.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You don't accept the validity of your subjective perspective, or mine, so there is no use talking about it.

This is meaningless twaddle. You're simply saying "I get to make stuff up and you can't say anything because of 'perspective.'"

 

[Loss Leader]

Probalistically, It is akin to trying to calculate your chance of winning the lottery by lumping yourself in with all other lottery players. All you can come up with is a near certainty that someone will win, and you are a someone, so there is a non-zero chance you will win. But that's very nearly meaningless. If you want to know what your specific chances are, you have to take the subjective perspective and calculate your individual odds. Or read the individual odds printed on the ticket. But those odds are relative to the narcissistic, verboten subjective perspective, so you will presumably become a thread heretic if you do so. .

This is very nearly the most meaningless paragraph I've ever read. The odds of winning the lottery do not change based on who is asking.

 

[wollery]

Toontown, how surprised should I be by my brother winning the lottery?

Assume I have a brother and he buys one ticket a week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Garrette]

--snip--

It isn't about being a "special snowflake". It is all about the fact that the lumping strategy loses information. The information loss is real, and I can explain the probabilistic side of it:

It is, though; your subjective perspective is just another label for it, except when it's another label for "predictable."

Probalistically, It is akin to trying to calculate your chance of winning the lottery by lumping yourself in with all other lottery players. All you can come up with is a near certainty that someone will win, and you are a someone, so there is a non-zero chance you will win. But that's very nearly meaningless. If you want to know what your specific chances are, you have to take the subjective perspective and calculate your individual odds. Or read the individual odds printed on the ticket. But those odds are relative to the narcissistic, verboten subjective perspective, so you will presumably become a thread heretic if you do so.

The highlighted bit is nonsense. If I want to know anyone's specific chances I use the same math. Not to mention that phrasing it as you have simply confirms that you are mixing predictability and probability.

However, should you choose to become a thread heretic and look at the prior probability of someone winning the lottery versus the prior probability of you winning, you will see that those probabilities are nearly as different as they can get.

Fortunately, no one here has conflated the two except in your straw man.

Further thought will reveal that the two probabilities are derived from fundamentally different perspectives. Further thought will reveal that both perspectives, though fundamentally different, are equally valid. Further thought will reveal that "equally valid" and 'equally informative' are not equivalent. The subjectively derived probability gives you the useful information.

Point in Time = Just after the Big Bang.
My Action #1 = Compute the probability of my brain coming into existence
My Action #2 = Compute the probability of Toontown's brain coming into existence
My Action #3 = Compute the probability of Jabba's brain coming into existence
My Action #4 = Compare the results of Actions 1, 2, and 3.

Ta da! They are identical even without invoking subjective perspective cum special snowflake.

But even if you do heretically determine your individual chance of winning, you will still need to have a feel for probability to understand just how daunting a proposition it is for you specifically. You have to understand that those odds stacked against you are mountainous and real, they don't like you at all, and they are telling you they don't give a rat's ass about your pitiful little non-zero chance of winning. They are going to slap that out of your hand and make you eat it. Nothing at all like the near certainty that someone else will win. I can confidently predict that you won't be the someone else that wins. But some other someone else will. That's for sure.

And this is your problem. What you are doing is saying this to every single one of those possible-brains. Go back to the point in time just after the Big Bang and apply this. All the vast possible brains are lined up expectantly. You are telling yourself: I won't come into existence. Then you tell me, then Jabba, then JayUtah, then Vladimir Putin, then Marilyn Monroe, then every single one of those possibilities. You tell absolutely every one of them that they won't come into existence. Yet billions upon billions of them do, and it turns out they do so in quantities commensurate with the math.

It's like lining up at the sea turtle nest to point at every hatchling as it begins its ocean-bound scuttle and tell us that there is no way it will be the one to survive, and yet some do.

I can tell you how the conversation might go if, for example, someone told me that the only reason eternal darkness has not prevailed is because my particular brain has come into existence.

I would reply, "But the prior odds against this particular brain coming into existence are giganogargantuan, and yet eternal darkness has not prevailed, as your hypothesis assures me it should have, with a giganogargantuanly high confidence. Therefore your hypothesis has failed miserably to account for my current sentient experience. If you are correct, then I shouldn't be here, now or ever. Someone, certainly, but not me. Not ever me. Effectively, that is what you're saying."

To which the claimant replies that no, that isn't what they're saying, perspective doesn't matter in probability, I have committed the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, and besides I already exist, so it's too late to question my existence.

To which I would reply, "I see. You would have me believe perspective matters when you are condemning me to eternal darkness, but not when I point out that your condemnation has failed miserably. Nor have I committed any Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nor am I questioning the absence of eternal darkness. On the contrary, I'm using the absence of eternal darkness to question your explanation of it's absence. I find myself starting to doubt you."

And yet you are misstating the argument of those here, particularly in the highlighted bit. You are now accusing those who disagree with you of attempting to predict YOU, when in fact you are the one relying upon prediction in an attempt to prove your point.

From all the above and much more, I conclude that perspective does matter in probability. There are those who trot blithely forward, secure in the knowledge that "perspective is irrelevant in probability", and thread bias has attracted a crew of them. And they can't even calculate their chance of winning a lottery without taking the perspective they say is irrelevant in probability.

Whether perspective matters in probability or statistics is something I will leave to others, but your misuse of it here requires no special knowledge to point out.

 

[Toontown]

Sorry. Can't help you. I'm using a perspective you refuse to take.

You don't accept the validity of your subjective perspective, or mine, so there is no use talking about it.

This is meaningless twaddle. You're simply saying "I get to make stuff up and you can't say anything because of 'perspective.'"

I don't see where I said that. Looks more like you posted some meaningless twaddle to me.

 

[Toontown]

This is very nearly the most meaningless paragraph I've ever read. The odds of winning the lottery do not change based on who is asking.

The point was you won't be able to calculate the odds by lumping yourself in with all other lottery players, indeed everything in the universe, and concluding that someone will win. As JimOfAllTrades, who I was talking to, did.

The paragraph also proves the point that perspective matters in probability. The probability that "someone" will win the lottery is very nearly 1. The probability that "you" will win is very nearly 0.

 

[The Sparrow]

Jabba, do you think that if someone here actually agrees with one of your points, it then immortality will be proven?

 

[John Jones]

Jabba, do you think that if someone here actually agrees with one of your points, it then immortality will be proven?

If you agree with him on any small point, he will take that as a win against the skeptics. He will then likely quote you out of context on his web site.

 

[Toontown]

It is, though; your subjective perspective is just another label for it, except when it's another label for "predictable."

No, it's far more complicated than that.

If you tell me a story that requires me to believe I've beaten giganogargantuan odds if I accept your story, I don't accept your story. That story gives prior odds approaching certainty that brains will exist (check). That story also assures me that this brain inside my skull should never be among them, with a certainty closely approaching 1 (uncheck).

"Special Snowflake" has nothing to do with it.

Except in the sense that you may think your story is a "special snowflake" that is to be believed against any odds, no matter how ridiculous.

The highlighted bit is nonsense. If I want to know anyone's specific chances I use the same math. Not to mention that phrasing it as you have simply confirms that you are mixing predictability and probability.

The highlighted bit is not nonsense. It is plain fact. It doesn't become less factual if the same math applies to other individuals' chances . If anything, it becomes more factual by virtue of it's universality.

Fortunately, no one here has conflated the two except in your straw man.

False. The person I was posting to did it. As have numerous others in various instances.

Point in Time = Just after the Big Bang.
My Action #1 = Compute the probability of my brain coming into existence
My Action #2 = Compute the probability of Toontown's brain coming into existence
My Action #3 = Compute the probability of Jabba's brain coming into existence
My Action #4 = Compare the results of Actions 1, 2, and 3.

Ta da! They are identical even without invoking subjective perspective cum special snowflake.

And those mental gymnastics improved my brain's chances how?

What you've hypothetically calculated is the prior probability of a specific brain coming into existence. I don't disagree with your calculations. I'm sure the identical odds you've calculated against each brain are giganogargantuan. I agree that the Big Bang odds against each brain are essentially equal.

Where I begin to doubt you is when you tell me that eternal darkness can only be staved off for a fleeting moment in the midst of eternity if, and only if, a particular, giganogargantuanly existentially disadvantaged one of these brains comes into existence. And here it is, right here, right on schedule. Wow. What a coincidence.

You seem to think the identicality of every brain's chances means I should believe that story, but you don't say why. If I don't believe the (Lone-Brainger That-Never-Rides-Again-And-Is-Giganogargantuanly-Unlikely-To-Ever-Ride-At-All-But-Does-Anyway) story, why would I worry that all possible brains are identically existentially disadvantaged, or if they all wear black masks?

 

[JayUtah]

Jabba, do you think that if someone here actually agrees with one of your points, it then immortality will be proven?

If you agree with him on any small point, he will take that as a win against the skeptics. He will then likely quote you out of context on his web site.

Essentially yes, Jabba's objective appears to be to win some sort of overall rhetorical victory against skepticism -- not necessarily to discover the truth about immortality or the Shroud of Turin or any of the other proxy topics. Gaining agreement by hook and crook suggests that skepticism is bunkum and that its adherents aren't sincere. Claiming allies such as Toontown or Hugh Farey create the illusion that it's not just him battling those dishonest and unfair skeptics.

 

[Toontown]

Toontown, how surprised should I be by my brother winning the lottery?

Assume I have a brother and he buys one ticket a week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That depends on how large the group of people you don't expect to win the lottery is. Of which your brother is presumably a member.

The larger the group, the less surprised you should be if one of them wins. You shouldn't be surprised at all if the usual "someone" wins. That's inevitable. You should be extremely surprised if you win. That's next to impossible.

Rule: the appropriate degree of surprise at the occurrence of an event should be inversely proportional to the magnitude of the probability of the event's occurrence.

This is the principle that is used in scientific statistical testing.

Why do you ask? Thinking about doing some statistical testing?

 

[Garrette]

No, it's far more complicated than that.

No, it's not. You are saying the odds prove impossibility, and your entire argument in support of that claim is that you perceive yourself.

If you tell me a story that requires me to believe I've beaten giganogargantuan odds if I accept your story, I don't accept your story. That story gives prior odds approaching certainty that brains will exist (check). That story also assures me that this brain inside my skull should never be among them, with a certainty closely approaching 1 (uncheck).

"Special Snowflake" has nothing to do with it.

Yes, it does, because you are still relying on your self-perception as if it is something that changes the odds.

Do you think Mt. Ranier's existence possesses the same significance that your brain's existence does?

Except in the sense that you may think your story is a "special snowflake" that is to be believed against any odds, no matter how ridiculous.

Don't presume to tell me the story I tell when you get it wrong. My story begins with "Toontown exists." To that point, we agree.

My story continues by saying that I did not predict your existence.
To this point, we still agree.

My story now says that despite me not predicting your existence, you exist.
We still agree.

My story now says that -- at a point in time just after the Big Bang -- we don't know what the odds were of your coming into existence.
We might disagree here.

My story concludes by saying that even if we decide the odds are equivalent to the possible combination of atoms in the universe, that it does not preclude your existence, even if we do not grant special status to it.
Here we definitely disagree, and the sole argument you provide is still simply that you perceive yourself.

It doesn't get more special snowflake than that.

The highlighted bit is not nonsense. It is plain fact. It doesn't become less factual if the same math applies to other individuals' chances . If anything, it becomes more factual by virtue of it's universality.

Yes, nonsense, and no, it does not become more factual. You are acting as if you applying it to yourself imbues it with signficance; you have in fact stated so. That is the very embodiment of special snowflake.

False. The person I was posting to did it. As have numerous others in various instances.

No, as evidence by the sentence he wrote which you left out of your quotation:

"Toontown is talking about particular brain, and the probability of that particular brain is 1 in a gajillion."

He not only saw the distinction, he pointed it out. You keep pretending we are conflating them, but it is a blatant straw man.

And those mental gymnastics improved my brain's chances how?

They didn't; nor did I claim they did. Your brain, under the odds as expressed by Jabba, and accepted for sake of argument here, had horrible chances of existing. What you have proven is precisely that you had horrible odds of existing; you have neither proven nor disproven anything else.

What you've hypothetically calculated is the prior probability of a specific brain coming into existence. I don't disagree with your calculations. I'm sure the identical odds you've calculated against each brain are giganogargantuan. I agree that the Big Bang odds against each brain are essentially equal.

Where I begin to doubt you is when you tell me that eternal darkness can only be staved off for a fleeting moment in the midst of eternity if, and only if, a particular, giganogargantuanly existentially disadvantaged one of these brains comes into existence. And here it is, right here, right on schedule. Wow. What a coincidence.
You seem to think the identicality of every brain's chances means I should believe that story, but you don't say why. If I don't believe the (Lone-Brainger That-Never-Rides-Again-And-Is-Giganogargantuanly-Unlikely-To-Ever-Ride-At-All-But-Does-Anyway) story, why would I worry that all possible brains are identically existentially disadvantaged, or if they all wear black masks?

The first highlighted bit (which I highlighted, as opposed to the second which you highlighted), is another indication of your error. Who says there is a schedule? Your argument is the epitome of puddle-amazed-by-the-hole thinking.