Proof of Immortality III

[Mojo]

It cannot be propped up. It is syllogistically invalid, its major premise is fallacious, and its method is misapplied.

It is syllogistically invalid by being a false dilemma. Jabba wants to prove H, but he cannot. So he believes he can falsify ~H and thereby establish H indirectly. What he doesn't acknowledge is that his ~H is a composition of several incompatible propositions.

Not even that, quite. He wants to prove A. He's decided that A is incompatible with H. He therefore tries to disprove H, ignoring the fact that ~H is not the same as A.

The hypothesis that Jabba has decided to attack is the hypothesis that the universe as we see it is the result of chance. ~H is not immortality, it is the hypothesis that we live in a designed or otherwise predetermined universe.

Even if he somehow manages to eliminate all the blatant fallacies in his argument, it is still going to be irrelevant to his desired conclusion.

 

[caveman1917]

When you talk about "datapoints" you've gone from the realm of probability to the realm of statistical inference. A "datapoint" is the outcome of a single iteration of a random experiment, or, a bit more formally, one sampled element from a sample space whose elements are distributed according to some probability distribution which we wish to learn about. In the context of a single experiment (and hence a given sample space), the larger the sample size, the more information you have about the population distribution. A sample of size 1 from the sample space of binary integers {0, 1} gives you the same amount of information about the distribution of binary integers in your population of binary integers as a sample of size 1 from the sample space of all 10-bit strings gives you about the distribution of 10-bit strings in your population of 10-bit strings.

You seem to be suggesting that you can make inferences about a distribution of binary integers starting from a sample of size 1 from the sample space of 10-bit strings. Maybe you're right and you can. If so, show us in a mathematically rigorous fashion how you do so. It might even be easy. As a statistician, I haven't given this much thought to sample spaces since grad school.

Let S1 = {0, 1}, let S10 = {0, 1}^10, let X1 be a random variable with codomain S1, let X10 be a random variable with codomain S10 where X10 = X1^10 = {X1, X1, ... , X1}, let p = {p_1, p_2, ... , p_10} be a sequence of outcomes of X1 with length 10. p is both a sample size of 10 in X1 and a sample size of 1 in X10.

Let H1 be some hypothesis regarding X1, and let C be the relative prior probability of H1 vs ~H1, A the relative posterior probability of H1 vs ~H1, and B the relative conditional probability of p given H1 vs p given ~H1. Each p_i can be either 0 or 1, let B0 be the relative conditional probability of 0 given H1 vs 0 given ~H1 and B1 likewise for 1. Then

A = C * B = C * B0^k * B1^l where k is the number of 0's in p and l the number of 1's in p.

The latter expression, C * B0^k * B1^l, is the same as if we had considered p a sample size of 10 from S1. The important bit here is the decomposition of X10 as X1^10 which, given the independence between the p_i, allows us to write P(p) = P(p_1) * P(p_2) * ... * P(p_10)

 

[caveman1917]

If he propose to argue indirectly, he must additionally prove that his hypothesis set is finite and enumerated.

It needn't be finite, recursively enumerable is enough.

 

[Jabba]

Jay,
- I think your answer is that my assumption is correct (I'm really not sure), so I'll try again to explain why I think that we conscious beings are all special cases -- why we all have targets on our backs.
- Though, I would ask you to keep in mind that I don't think that we need to be special cases in order for my argument to make sense.

You tried once, and that try was refuted. Do not simply repeat the same points without addressing the refutations that were made. Either retrospectively address my posts and those of others whom you have been ignoring, or construct a new, better argument.



Changing horses. That is not what you claimed and it is not compatible with your mathematical outcome. I have already identified the quantitative dilemma in that approach. Do not invoke it without first dealing with the dilemma.



Do not couch your arguments in cryptic quips and other word play. It can be too easily misunderstood by your critics or equivocated evasively later by you. State your argument plainly. If your argument is quantitative, state it mathematically.



This smacks of equivocation -- by "special case" all you might mean is unique. It is already stipulated that each person is a unique outcome, and it has been already shown how that does not enable your argument. Your argument has up until now rested squarely on the presumption that in order to construct you as you are -- whether or not you characterize yourself as a "special case" -- the scientific model must display "luck" on such an order as to render it virtually impossible. From that you constructed a false dilemma purporting to prove immateriality. The basis of that calculation was the predetermination of you as you are as the outcome whose probability is to be derived or estimated. It has been explained to you many times how the unjust ennoblement of that outcome is the flaw in your reasoning. Do not simply offer the same reasoning by equivocating "special case." Conversely, since none of your critics accepts the premise by which you determine the probability that science creates you as you are, and you are now insinuating that you no longer need that premise, then please save everyone a lot of time and construct an argument that does not require the outcome to be any particular a priori case. You must also construct an argument that avoids the false dilemma, as jt512 has instructed you, otherwise your exertion will still be moot for that reason.

Jay,
- I must admit that I just don't understand a lot of what you're saying -- but I do think that I understand the hilited portion above.
- In order to assume that the event may not be simple chance (and I am not just somebody/anybody), we need to have a reasonable alternative to chance. If we have such an alternative, we're not stuck with chance...
- So, my basic claim was that the reason we need a preceding "target" was to provide a reasonable alternative to chance. That's why we think that a target is necessary in order to provide a reasonable alternative. Then, I was saying that in this case we already had a reasonably possible alternative -- i.e., ~OOFLam. Now, I think I'd like to re-word that claim -- I now think that ~OOFLam is the target.

 

[Loss Leader]

Jay,
- I must admit that I just don't understand a lot of what you're saying -- but I do think that I understand the hilited portion above.
- In order to assume that the event may not be simple chance (and I am not just somebody/anybody), we need to have a reasonable alternative to chance. If we have such an alternative, we're not stuck with chance...
- So, my basic claim was that the reason we need a preceding "target" was to provide a reasonable alternative to chance. That's why we think that a target is necessary in order to provide a reasonable alternative. Then, I was saying that in this case we already had a reasonably possible alternative -- i.e., ~OOFLam. Now, I think I'd like to re-word that claim -- I now think that ~OOFLam is the target.

Whatever words these are, they don't appear to have meaning. Are you now purporting to calculate the odds that a universe would exist which can support life? In that case, you'd better be prepared to know exactly how many universes there were before or concurrent with ours. Good luck; it's impossible by definition.

If you're just reshuffling words to try to get some agreement, you still have to show that an immaterial soul is at least possible. It has to at least be defined, and testable.

So, basically just do those two impossible things and you're good.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Just complete one more impossible thing to enjoy dinner at Milliways!

 

[JayUtah]

I must admit that I just don't understand a lot of what you're saying --

Others may choose to indulge your obtuseness but I will not. If you don't understand how your argument fails, you're not competent to do what you thought you could do -- prove immortality by mathematical means. Do not evade. Do not play word games. Do not argue by attrition of your critics. Either engage the discussion or concede it.

In order to assume that the event may not be simple chance (and I am not just somebody/anybody), we need to have a reasonable alternative to chance. If we have such an alternative, we're not stuck with chance...

Yes, we're familiar with your false dilemma.

You want to prove you have an immortal soul. But you have no evidence an immortal soul exists. So you have manufactured a dilemma in which, on the one side, we have the scientific model that adequately describes all that can be presently attributed to consciousness. On the other side we have an unholy union of all the different and disparate ways a person can be immortal. In order to prove immortality indirectly, you set out to refute what you set up as the alternative, purporting that if it fails then immortality must hold by default.

But the only argument you can muster is a statistical probability model you say makes it highly unlikely for the scientific model to produce individuals as they are, because each individual consciousness is the unique product of many factors that are each too improbable to allow science to predict the combination of them.

The dilemma you present is false. The method by which you've estimated the probability of an individual arising as-is by the scientific model is logically invalid.

We've all heard this many times before, Jabba. You've been told many times why it doesn't work, and not just by your critics here. You promise you'll "be back" to address those objections, but each time you just repeat the same broken argument. Do not simply repeat it -- fix it or abandon it.

So, my basic claim was that the reason we need a preceding "target" was to provide a reasonable alternative to chance.

You're equivocating what "target" means in the refutation. Try again.

Your basic claim is, and has always been, that the probability of you arising as you are by the scientific model is too improbable to be considered a viable explanation. Therefore the scientific model can't produce "you" and we have to consider other hypotheses. You conveniently have a hypothesis to set up against "chance" -- your notion of an immortal soul. And since you argue "chance" fails to explain consciousness, you "must" therefore have a soul.


No, "OOFLam" is not "the target." Come up with something that isn't just a knee-jerk rewording of your claim to slip by today's refutation. If you're going to change your argument, then explicitly tell us you're abandoning the argument summarized above in blue. I won't tolerate another of your infamous non-concession concessions.

 

[JayUtah]

If you're just reshuffling words to try to get some agreement...

Reshuffling words, yes. But not, I think, to get agreement. More aimed at slipping by the most recent refutation without having to address it. "I don't understand your refutation, but here's some fancy footwork." I doubt he'll stick with this recasting, just as he won't talk about the nonsense he spouted before about souls having "no characteristics." He only said that to get around being cornered then, and he's only spouting this latest nonsense to get around being cornered now.

 

[Mojo]

Yes, we're familiar with your false dilemma.

You want to prove you have an immortal soul. But you have no evidence an immortal soul exists. So you have manufactured a dilemma in which, on the one side, we have the scientific model that adequately describes all that can be presently attributed to consciousness. On the other side we have an unholy union of all the different and disparate ways a person can be immortal.

The other side also includes all the different and disparate ways a person can be mortal, other than the particular model Jabba is trying to disprove.

 

[Loss Leader]

The other side also includes all the different and disparate ways a person can be mortal, other than the particular model Jabba is trying to disprove.

Including the unfalsifiable clockwork universe.

 

[HighRiser]

Including the unfalsifiable clockwork universe.

Ha! The universe knew you were going to say that!

 

[JoeMorgue]

And to me the most bizarre part of this is still how... mainstream what Jabba is obviously dancing around is.

"Some essence of a person continues to exist in some form after their biological death."

That's not exactly a far-out statement (socially speaking, not necessarily intellectually.) Billions of people throughout the world hold some version of that statement true. They are just comfortable calling the "essence" a soul and framing it in faith/religious concepts.

Throughout this entire slow motion trainwreck Jabba hasn't argued or even claim to argue anything functionally different from one of the most mainstream religious concepts in existence.

Jabba's issue seems to be either a need to frame a classic, almost Ur example religious belief in the context of mathematical probability which is both impossible and outside Jabba's abilities or to pretend he's somehow presenting a new concept when he is provably not.

At any point in this death spiral that walks like a thread had Jabba simply dropped the pretense of being able to mathematically prove anything and simply said "I have faith we have a soul and survive biological death" I would still strongly disagree with it and having major faults with his reasoning, but I wouldn't be able to take him to task to any greater degree than the majority of humanity.

 

[Jabba]

...
You want to prove you have an immortal soul. But you have no evidence an immortal soul exists...

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).
- I think that your objection above is that I haven't provided any evidence for ~OOFLam. Is that correct? If it is, I'll gladly try (again) to provide some evidence.

 

[JayUtah]

At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).

No. You have an established pattern of repeatedly "softening" your position until some degree of agreement is obtained, whereupon you wrongly restate that position at full vigor. That is dishonest and equivocal, and I will not tolerate it.

If you want to soften your position, then explicitly concede your original position first. That is, concede explicitly that you are unable to "essentially prove immortality mathematically." That will allow those whose interest was in that question retire with satisfaction and let you pursue some other question -- ideally in a different thread.

I am not the least interested in what vague aspersions you think you can cast on the straw man you attribute to your critics. Do not continually adjust the goalposts.

I think that your objection above is...

My objections are as I have stated them. Address them. Do not try to restate them. Do not continually ask for clarification. I will not play your games.

 

[Loss Leader]

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).
- I think that your objection above is that I haven't provided any evidence for ~OOFLam. Is that correct? If it is, I'll gladly try (again) to provide some evidence.

Tell me one single observation that can be testably made about the human mind which is not explainable in a material universe.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).

No. No. We're all sick and damn tired of you "going" to finally make a point. We're done with all your proofs and arguments being perpetually around the corner.

I don't want to hear another flippin' word about anything you're "going" to do. I don't want to hear another word out of you until it is your actual argument. I don't want another excuse, I don't want another delay, I don't want another fringe reset, I don't want another condition, I don't want anything that isn't you finally making the argument you've been claiming you can make for years.

We are done playing your games Jabba. We're not gonna sit until the stars align for you to make an argument. It's been years.

Make your argument. Not later, not after breakfast, not after we all already agree to agree with you, not after you've rewording the question the 1,204th time, not after you add yet another condition or excuse. Now. Right Now.

Make your argument now.

STOP STALLING.

 

[The Sparrow]

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).
- I think that your objection above is that I haven't provided any evidence for ~OOFLam. Is that correct? If it is, I'll gladly try (again) to provide some evidence.

So now, again, you will post a bunch of links to debunked incidents and testimonies of people claiming memories of past lives, or floating above bodies and seeing stuff they could not have possibly seen etc etc, all of which you did already a few hundred posts back.

 

[Mojo]

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).
- I think that your objection above is that I haven't provided any evidence for ~OOFLam. Is that correct? If it is, I'll gladly try (again) to provide some evidence.

That's only one of the objections. There are plenty of others that you have yet to address.

 

[Loss Leader]

That's only one of the objections. There are plenty of others that you have yet to address.

Truly, this is the best of all possible worlds.

 

[Jabba]

Jay,
- At this point, my claim is that I (think I) can virtually disprove OOFLam (I wanted to lower my bar a little).
- I think that your objection above is that I haven't provided any evidence for ~OOFLam. Is that correct? If it is, I'll gladly try (again) to provide some evidence.

No. You have an established pattern of repeatedly "softening" your position until some degree of agreement is obtained, whereupon you wrongly restate that position at full vigor. That is dishonest and equivocal, and I will not tolerate it.

If you want to soften your position, then explicitly concede your original position first. That is, concede explicitly that you are unable to "essentially prove immortality mathematically." That will allow those whose interest was in that question retire with satisfaction and let you pursue some other question -- ideally in a different thread.

I am not the least interested in what vague aspersions you think you can cast on the straw man you attribute to your critics. Do not continually adjust the goalposts.



My objections are as I have stated them. Address them. Do not try to restate them. Do not continually ask for clarification. I will not play your games.

Jay,
- Well anyway, I think that you and the others disagree with me on at least three fronts -- you figure that
1. Bayesian statistics does not apply to my argument.
2. I have no evidence to support P(H) and P(~H). Rather than 99% and 1%, they should be 100% and 0% respectively.
3. I have no right to use my likelihood of existence -- given H -- as P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula. I have no target on my back, and that's where I commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy...

- I'll start with #1. But then, I think that at least the main reason you believe #1 is that you believe #2. Consequently, I'll begin with #2 -- unless you point out a different, explicit, issue you'd rather I address.