Proof of Immortality III

[JayUtah]

But the possibility remains that it wasn't fixed and he won fairly.

Indeed not only the possibility but the presumption must be that the lottery wasn't fixed and that the cousin won fairly. That presumption must be overcome with evidence that is best explained by rigging. The relationship between the winner and the lottery authority gives rise to reasonable suspicion, but suspicion is not proof.

Jabba desperately wants it to be. He wants his critics to accept that the mere hypothesis that an immortal soul may exist creates enough doubt in the scientific model to warrant a quantitative guess of probability for the hypothesis. Then he waves Tom Bayes' magic wand over that guess and, Bob's-your-uncle, there's suddenly an insurmountable probability that science alone can explain individual consciousness.

A neutral audience would see that mere suspicion equates to proof via mathy-sounding handwaving.

How does something go from possible to impossible merely by decreasing its odds?

It's the standard pattern in fringe thinking. Say you believe in X. But X is, on its face, somewhere between controversial and preposterous. You insinuate that the mainstream model or narrative, if it were true, ought to meet some arbitrary ad hoc standard of credibility. This subtly shifts the burden of proof to the mainstream model, which then must prevail against all the hypotheticals -- however unsubstantiated -- you can throw at it. If you erode enough belief in the mainstream model, you can argue that X should hold instead, since the mainstream model didn't meet the standard of proof you imposed on it. X may still be improbable, but its standard of proof is different than the one you said the mainstream model should meet.

 

[JayUtah]

But, to make it somewhat analogous to our situation, we do the inquiry and find that the cousin got out of jail a few months back and has been living with his cousin ever since.

And if you could do anything like that, you'd have a case. You're not making the analogy analogous, you're adding elements to the analogy that make it differ from your approach. Regarding immortal souls, your "inquiry" consists, in the qualitative sense, of Googling for random phenomena and attributing them without justification to an immortal soul. Your "inquiry" consists, in the quantitative sense, of making up numbers and pretending they mean something. That's not an inquiry; that's wishful thinking. How apt it is, then, that even your modifications to the analogy don't constitute proof of collusion, but merely an amplification of suspicion. As was amply demonstrated in your abandoned circumstantial evidence thread, you simply don't know what evidence is.

Your critics have been urging you for years to actually perform the inquiry instead of just repeating the accusation over and over again as if repetition were proof. Quit stalling and actually prove it.

 

[JayUtah]

...really it's the culmination of a long series of events.

Almost like the formation of a mountain over eons.

The prior probability of the event changes depending on what point in time you estimate the probability.

Which is how he equivocates away from the Mt. Ranier analogy. Reckon mountains from one point and reckon babies from another.

Causality matters. Time matters. I didn't come into existence the way a neutron emerges from decaying uranium.

Indeed. Science has a better chance of predicting you the way you will be tomorrow by knowing the way you are now. Simililarly, it has a better chance of predicting the way Mt. Ranier will be tomorrow by knowing the way it is today. Each is the expression of a complex system to which chaos theory applies. One of the fundamental theorems in complexity theory answers this very point, similarly, both for human consciousness and for mountains.

 

[Mojo]

- Anyway, at this point, I do believe that a neutral audience would agree with my argument -- so, I'm pretty well satisfied with it...

A neutral audience would not ignore all of the reasonable objections to your argument.

 

[Mojo]

- Simply speaking, there is a reasonable possibility that OOFLam is not correct, and my current existence is so unlikely -- given OOFLam -- that OOFLam must not be correct.

Simply speaking, there is a reasonable possibility that the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul is not correct, and your current existence is so unlikely -- given the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul -- that the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul must not be correct.

You have three possibilities:

1. Admit that your argument disproves immortality;
2. Admit that your argument is invalid;
3. Claim that there is no possibility that you do not have an immortal soul.




OK, there's another:
4. Ignore this post, as you have all of the others that have pointed out the blatant flaws and fallacies in your argument.

 

[Loss Leader]

LL,
- I agree. The win by the cousin doesn't prove anything -- it merely supports an inquiry...
- But, to make it somewhat analogous to our situation, we do the inquiry and find that the cousin got out of jail a few months back and has been living with his cousin ever since.

You're not saying anything. You're making it seem maybe a little moire likely that someone would want to rig the game, but you haven't developed any evidence (let alone proof) that the game is rigged.

And you haven't shown amy evidence that you existence is anything other than a fortunate turn of events for you - fortunate but entirely possible.

 

[Jabba]

LL,
- I agree. The win by the cousin doesn't prove anything -- it merely supports an inquiry...
- But, to make it somewhat analogous to our situation, we do the inquiry and find that the cousin got out of jail a few months back and has been living with his cousin ever since.

OK. This:


I object to the highlighted, because no such caveats are required to make the situation analogous.

Your existence is analogous to a random ticket buyer winning the lottery. No cousin of anyone involved with the lottery, let alone a convict cousin, need be imagined. Just a random number coming up, the ticket for which was bought by a random person.

To use the card hand analogy: you are not a royal flush or a full house, you're any old random selection of cards. If you think otherwise (and it appears you do) please explain why.

Pixel,

- I'm claiming that there are, indeed, such caveats in my situation.

- In my situation, I claim to already have a reasonably possible alternative explanation to OOFLam and chance -- simply, ~OOFLam.
- In the lottery winner situation, the winner being a cousin of the controller, raises an alternative explanation to chance.

- In my situation, I recognize some relevant info that supports ~OOFLam -- i.e., the monumental unlikelihood of my current existence given OOFLam and chance.
- In the lottery situation, we recognize some relevant info that supports ~chance -- i.e., the cousin's recent history.

- Thanks for providing just one of your reservations. I assume you have more -- so, if you find that the above answer does satisfy that particular reservation, I'll happily try to answer your next one.

 

[The Sparrow]

"the monumental unlikelihood of my current existence"

I still don't get this. Why it is unlikely? Why is your particular existence, as opposed to the existence of, say, an individual polio virus, so unlikely, or more unlikely than the polio virus?

 

[JayUtah]

In my situation, I claim to already have a reasonably possible alternative explanation to OOFLam and chance -- simply, ~OOFLam.

You don't, for the reasons given. Asked and answered.

In the lottery winner situation, the winner being a cousin of the controller, raises an alternative explanation to chance.

No. In any lottery drawing, the hypothesis that the winner cheated in some way is always a possibility. The fact of the winner being related to the lottery authority motivates us to look for evidence of cheating. It is not itself evidence of cheating. In fact the cousin of the lottery runner had the same prior probability of winning as any other player. While his legitimate win despite his relationship seems less probable, it is not.

In my situation, I recognize some relevant info that supports ~OOFLam -- i.e., the monumental unlikelihood of my current existence given OOFLam and chance.

Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Asked and answered. In the analogy, it is given that the winner is related to the lottery authority. The odds of the winner being related are greater than the odds of a winner not being related. That is the special case that raises suspicion.

In your argument the odds of your current existence by the scientific method are no better than the odds of any other existence. There is no special case, and therefore no similar suspicion.

In the lottery situation, we recognize some relevant info that supports ~chance -- i.e., the cousin's recent history.

No. You conflate suspicion with evidence, and you have once again invoked the equivocal word "supports" when proof instead needs evidence. Suspicion is not proof and does not "support" the accusation. Do not play word games.

I'll happily try to answer your next one.

No, you won't. All you've done at any time in this discussion is simply repeat your already-debunked claims as if your critics don't exist.

 

[Pixel42]

Pixel,

- I'm claiming that there are, indeed, such caveats in my situation.

- In my situation, I claim to already have a reasonably possible alternative explanation to OOFLam and chance -- simply, ~OOFLam.
- In the lottery winner situation, the winner being a cousin of the controller, raises an alternative explanation to chance.

- In my situation, I recognize some relevant info that supports ~OOFLam -- i.e., the monumental unlikelihood of my current existence given OOFLam and chance.
- In the lottery situation, we recognize some relevant info that supports ~chance -- i.e., the cousin's recent history.

- Thanks for providing just one of your reservations. I assume you have more -- so, if you find that the above answer does satisfy that particular reservation, I'll happily try to answer your next one.

Of course it doesn't satisfy it, for the reasons that have been explained to you umpteen times.

Your existence is no more "monumentally unlikely" than that of any other person who might have been born instead of you - i.e. in your analogy, the particular lottery ticket that came up was bought by a random person unrelated to anyone employed by the lottery.

 

[godless dave]

Also ~OOFLam is not a more reasonably possible alternative:

1. ~OOFLam is just the set of all hypotheses that aren't OOFLam
2. If we choose one of those hypotheses - that souls exist and can be reincarnated - we still don't know where souls come from, how it is determined which body they will inhabit, how they interact with the body, what happens to them after the body dies, and how it's determined what new body they will inhabit.

 

[JayUtah]

i.e. in your analogy, the particular lottery ticket that came up was bought by a random person unrelated to anyone employed by the lottery.

Let's not lose track of why Loss Leader posed this analogy. The question is not whether there is legitimate suspicion of the lottery being rigged, but whether that suspicion -- and the subsequent ways we can reckon the probability of cheating -- results in a defensible conclusion that the lottery must be rigged. The sticky wicket is Jabba's insistence that probability is somehow equivalent to knowledge or certainty. Loss Leader is adeptly pointing out that Jabba's incessant aspersion-casting word games in no way provide evidence, and in no way provide a mathematical framework for reasoning about rigged lotteries.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba

- You are so deep in nested special pleadings that at this point it is pretty much impossible to get an honest, direct statement out of you.

- You are still insisting that we all already agree with you on a multitude of your "points" prior to you beginning the discussion.

- It's been a half decade and you still haven't even began to make an actual argument. You've spent the entire time putting more and more clauses and "rules" on how the discussion has to go.

- Despite all we've been through and how frustrating I find this whole fiasco I hold you no ill will and I say this with zero animosity but it is seriously like you don't understand what a discussion is or how they work. You just keep making statements over and over with new language.

 

[Loss Leader]

- In my situation, I claim to already have a reasonably possible alternative explanation to OOFLam and chance -- simply, ~OOFLam.

In order for any other explanation to be "reasonably possible" it first has to be "in any way possible at all." You have not admitted one single piece of evidence that the existance of the soul is possible. In fact, you haven't even given a testable definition of the soul.

10 year-old Loss Leader was extraordinarily attracted to 10 year-old girls. 46 year-old Loss Leader finds the very thought disgusting and vile. Which one of us is the real Loss Leader? Wherein dwells a soul that can alter its affection when it alteration finds?

In the lottery winner situation, the winner being a cousin of the controller, raises an alternative explanation to chance.

Well, let's be very clear here: We have evidence that a lottery can be fixed. There are examples of people who have done it. We have no evidence that a soul even could exist. In fact, evidence increasingly shows that neurological activity accounts for all thoughts and actions. The analogy fails you here.

 

[Jabba]

Of course it doesn't satisfy it, for the reasons that have been explained to you umpteen times.

Your existence is no more "monumentally unlikely" than that of any other person who might have been born instead of you - i.e. in your analogy, the particular lottery ticket that came up was bought by a random person unrelated to anyone employed by the lottery.

Pixel,
- I think that the underlying point of disagreement is my claim that all we need in order to apply the Bayesian logic to a situation is to have a reasonable alternative to the hypothesis in question -- otherwise, we're stuck with chance.
- I claim that we need a 'target,' only if there is no reasonable alternative otherwise. That the winner of the lottery was a cousin of the controller, gave us the target -- and, a reasonable alternative that we didn't have before.
- I assume that you disagree...

 

[Mojo]

Pixel,
- I think that the underlying point of disagreement is my claim that all we need in order to apply the Bayesian logic to a situation is to have a reasonable alternative to the hypothesis in question -- otherwise, we're stuck with chance.
- I claim that we need a 'target,' only if there is no reasonable alternative otherwise. That the winner of the lottery was a cousin of the controller, gave us the target -- and, a reasonable alternative that we didn't have before.
- I assume that you disagree...

The relationship of the cousin to the controller makes the cousin "special" in the context of your analogy.

What makes you special?

 

[Jabba]

In order for any other explanation to be "reasonably possible" it first has to be "in any way possible at all." You have not admitted one single piece of evidence that the existance of the soul is possible...

LL,
- In my opinion, I've provided all sorts of evidence for the soul's possible existence. Are you 100% sure that there is no such thing as a soul?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Are you 100% sure that there is no such thing as a soul?

These double standards of yours are growing tiresome Jabba.

Why is it your opponents have to present 100% metaphysical certainty for their positions but we're supposed to accept your microscopic probability?

 

[Pixel42]

Pixel,
- I think that the underlying point of disagreement is my claim that all we need in order to apply the Bayesian logic to a situation is to have a reasonable alternative to the hypothesis in question -- otherwise, we're stuck with chance.
- I claim that we need a 'target,' only if there is no reasonable alternative otherwise. That the winner of the lottery was a cousin of the controller, gave us the target -- and, a reasonable alternative that we didn't have before.
- I assume that you disagree...

I agree that in your analogy the winning ticket being bought by a cousin of the controller is suspicious, and raises at least a possibility of something other than chance being at work.

But that situation is not analogous to your existence. Your existence is analogous to the winning lottery ticket being bought by a random person unrelated to anyone involved with the lottery. No reason for suspicion, no reason to consider alternative explanations.

 

[Jabba]

The relationship of the cousin to the controller makes the cousin "special" in the context of your analogy.

What makes you special?

Mojo,
- I'm claiming that I don't need to be special in order that my current existence virtually prove that OOFLam is false. My claim is that I just need a reasonably possible alternative hypothesis -- which, I already have.