Proof of Immortality III

[John Jones]

LL,
- In my opinion, I've provided all sorts of evidence for the soul's possible existence.

Underlined weasel-words make it easier to lie.

What evidence for the existence of the soul have you provided?

 

[jond]

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.

Except that your possible alternative hypothesis is far less likely than OOFLam.

 

[Loss Leader]

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?

1: I find it offensive as a lawyer that you are using two different standards of evidence to evaluate competing theories.

But that hardly matters because

2: I am absolutely sure that you have provided no testable evidence that the soul exists. In fact:

3. You have not even offered a working definition of the soul. You continue to dodge my questions about people changing over their lifetimes and which part of them represents the static soul.

 

[Pixel42]

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.

But any other hypothesis is only worthy of consideration as an alternative to the chance hypothesis if you're special - if you're the equivalent of the lottery controller's cousin. You aren't.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Underlined weasel-words make it easier to lie.

What evidence for the existence of the soul have you provided?

A load of spam-links is kind of evidence.

 

[HighRiser]

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?

Your opinion is all that you have presented in support of your premise. There's no objective evidence that supports your opinion. This idea of an undefined, characteristic less, and completely imaginary immortal soul is not evidence, it's baseless conjecture.

There is no rational reason to believe in unevidenced postulates. Therefore your argument is not rational, no matter how much mangled mathematics and loosened logic you try to heap on it.

After five years of watching you attempting to pull the wool over your critic's eyes, put words into their mouths, and either completely ignore their criticisms or fail to comprehend them, I can only think that you're not the least bit sincere in what you present as what you believe.

 

[JayUtah]

In my opinion, I've provided all sorts of evidence for the soul's possible existence.

"Evidence of possible existence" is not a thing. What you provided was a bunch of anecdotes that you Googled up without further thought. You then speculatively attributed them to the soul. Even you don't have confidence in your presentation, stylilng it as "indirect" at best. Just as in your Shroud thread you're trying to sneak speculation in as evidence. And just as before, you're trying to blame your critics for not accepting it. Knock it off with the weasel-words and either show testable evidence or admit you have none. Time to put up or shut up.

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

Asked and answered. The null hypothesis in your proof is that there is no soul. Do not play up the null hypothesis to be more than it is. Do not shift the burden of proof.

 

[godless dave]

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.

How about addressing my (or Loss Leader's) reasons why we don't think you've presented a reasonably possible alternative hypothesis?

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.

Besides, even if you had a reasonably possible alternative, you would still have to show why that alternative is more likely to be true than OOFLam.

 

[JayUtah]

I'm claiming that I don't need to be special in order that my current existence virtually prove that OOFLam is false.

Yes, you absolutely are. Your mathematical gyrations to come up with a number that suggests your existence via the scientific model alone is "virtually impossible" is based on exactly that premise.

But of course now you're equivocating "special case." Twice. First you have argued that we could substitute me, Loss Leader, or anyone else in your math and it would come out the same. That's not what is meant in the refutation. What is meant is that a required outcome is predetermined in your model. The erroneous requirement to achieve that outcome is the "special case" in the refutation.

Then below you spin "special case" to be the essence of the "virtual impossibility" of you by the scientific model, and say you don't have to be that because you have the alternative of a soul to explain that uniqueness. That's not what's meant in the refutation.

So knock off the word games and address the actual substance of your critics' rebuttals. You've wasted enough time already.

My claim is that I just need a reasonably possible alternative hypothesis -- which, I already have.

Asked and answered. You do not have a "reasonably possible alternative hypothesis." You have a hypothesis, but you have not shown that it is reasonable. And you know that, because just today you begged the question and then tried to shift the burden of proof. Do you really think your critics don't recognize these shenanigans for what they are?

 

[JayUtah]

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.

No, that is not the point of disagreement. Quit trying to shove into your critics' mouths the statements you wish they had made.

First, the correct formulation is not between a soul and "chance." There is no "chance" in this problem, despite your vigorous desire that there be. The correct formulation is between your claim of a soul and the scientific model. Second, your priors are simply made-up numbers. Bayes may not be used to turn those into facts. Third, your turnabout formulation is just plain wrong. H is the scientific model. ~H is the disjunction of "everything else," which cannot have a single prior probability attached to it. You steadfastly refuse to correct this error.

Are you prepared to deal with your critics' actual arguments, or are you just going to continue in this epic drama where you script both sides?

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...

No.

If you want to speak Bayes, we start off with an equal prior probability that each person won legitimately. We have an equal prior probability that one of them cheated. The event is the lottery drawing. Where suspicion arises is in our estimation that the probability of the winning cousin cheating was higher than for the others because we note the qualitative factors that suggest that as a possibility in his case more than the others. Subsequent events would be the data that arose during an investigation.

You have none of that. You have no rationale for your priors. You formulate P(E|~H) completely wrong. And you have no actual data.

 

[JayUtah]

3. You have not even offered a working definition of the soul.

Which is essential for being able to provide testable evidence. The properties of a soul have to be identified ahead of any proffered evidence so that the evidence can be tested against it.

I'm obliged to point out that Jabba has said a soul has no properties. He has been asked several times to either address that discussion or withdraw the characterization, and he will do neither. I gather he wants that statement to just go away. He may have realized that his knee-jerk definition in that case practically ensures that no evidence could ever be found for it.

But in the larger sense, this is the same shenanigans the UFO claimants pull. They want to style this or that as evidence of alien visitation. The argument goes that some particular observation can't be explained in terms of human activity -- say, fantastic speed in an atmosphere with no sonic boom. Thus it must be aliens, because humans can't go that fast, and certainly not very fast without atmospheric reaction. But how do you know aliens can do that? The claimants point out that since we don't know anything about aliens, but we can reasonably assume they are more technically advanced than we, then we can't put any reasonable limits on their purported abilities even if they appear miraculous.

The ploy is to make the fringe claim non-testable so that it can't be dismissed, or even challenged on the same grounds as the mainstream explanation. And to do it in a way that seems to allow any and all speculation to sound like it would fit. This is essentially what Jabba is doing here. He doesn't want to nail down his definition of a soul because then he runs the risk of evidence that disputes it -- evidence he'd want to style as supporting his claim without going into too much detail about it.

You continue to dodge my questions about people changing over their lifetimes and which part of them represents the static soul.

Looks like I'm back on Jabba's informal ignore list as well, along with a score of other people. I won't play the game where he shoves words in my mouth and tries to make me defend them. His threads are essentially scripted dramas where he plays his characters and either ignores the other actors or manipulates them into playing his foil.

 

[Mojo]

Jabba, what happens if you use your formula to evaluate the hypothesis that the universe is designed down to the smallest detail and doesn't include immaterial selves?

 

[Dancing David]

In a biological world full of all sorts of critters, there is no freaking miracle in an individual existing.

Despite the whole Ornamented Carriage of Words constructed to pretend that a single organism is so freaking special.

 

[Loss Leader]

Jabba, what happens if you use your formula to evaluate the hypothesis that the universe is designed down to the smallest detail and doesn't include immaterial selves?

Using his formula will return any result you want, because it doesn't require any evidence that the counter-proposition be possible.

 

[JayUtah]

Using his formula will return any result you want, because it doesn't require any evidence that the counter-proposition be possible.

Indeed, it requires only the quantified belief in its "possibility." Jabba selects a very small number, thinking it will appeal to skepticism and knowing that the rest of his formulation is rigged by a teeny-tiny made-up number for P(E|H) -- the probability that the scientific model produced some individual. You can literally shove any preposterous statement in as the counter-proposal, and as long as you assigned a non-zero probability to its "possibility" Jabba's formula will "prove" it against the scientific model.

Jabba wants to believe he has made an qualitative case for the existence of a soul, such that a non-zero estimate is reasonable. But he ignores the qualitatively fallacious nature of his case. He merely cherry-picks certain anecdotes and speculates that the circumstances in them might be caused by a soul. Again, you can perform that same exercise with practically any preposterous statement, and as long as your critics are willing to accept mere attribution to the hypothesis as proof of it, you can cajole them into accepting a non-zero guess for the prior probability of it.

It's the same old fringe rhetoric we see everywhere -- if there's even a slim chance something might be true, then we have to take it seriously. And if we can discredit the mainstream narrative by any means, then our hypothesis "must" be true by default, even if it has a low order of credibility and no evidence in favor of it. Jabba is just hiding this well-worn line of reasoning behind pseudo-mathematics.

 

[HighRiser]

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.

No, you really don't. Really.

 

[Jabba]

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.

But any other hypothesis is only worthy of consideration as an alternative to the chance hypothesis if you're special - if you're the equivalent of the lottery controller's cousin. You aren't.

Pixel,

- I do think that this is the weakest of my interim conclusions. But so far, I still think that I don't need to be a special case in this case.
- See if this works.

- Hypothesis A has a prior probability of 55%; naturally enough, ~A has a prior probability of 45%.
- We do an experiment and get a result that approaches zero likelihood if A is true.
- You have to bet the farm on A or ~A -- it's up to you.
- Which would you bet your farm on?

 

[Mojo]

Pixel,

- I do think that this is the weakest of my interim conclusions. But so far, I still think that I don't need to be a special case in this case.
- See if this works.

- Hypothesis A has a prior probability of 55%; naturally enough, ~A has a prior probability of 45%.
- We do an experiment and get a result that approaches zero likelihood if A is true.

But that isn't what you have done here. Instead, you have chosen a particular result that has already happened, and drawn a target round it. In any system that isn't completely determinate, any particular result will necessarily be incredibly unlikely, but the likelihood of one of them happening is 1.

If you didn't specify a result in advance (and you didn't) all you have is one of the set of possible results. The likelihood of one of the set of possible results occurring is 1.

If you want to specify an event as effectively disproving a hypothesis it is unlikely under, that event would have to happen after you have specified it.

Your proof of immortality requires that a duplicate Jabba has begun to exist some time after 21st November 2012, which was when you first proposed it. Do you have any evidence that this has happened?

 

[Jabba]

But that isn't what you have done here. Instead, you have chosen a particular result that has already happened, and drawn a target round it. In any system that isn't completely determinate, any particular result will necessarily be incredibly unlikely, but the likelihood of one of them happening is 1.

If you didn't specify a result in advance (and you didn't) all you have is one of the set of possible results. The likelihood of one of the set of possible results occurring is 1.

If you want to specify an event as effectively disproving a hypothesis it is unlikely under, that event would have to happen after you have specified it.

Your proof of immortality requires that a duplicate Jabba has begun to exist some time after 21st November 2012, which was when you first proposed it. Do you have any evidence that this has happened?

Mojo,
- I've already happened, but the implications of my happening have not been factored into the prior probabilities. That's how it's "new."

 

[Pixel42]

Pixel,

- I do think that this is the weakest of my interim conclusions. But so far, I still think that I don't need to be a special case in this case.
- See if this works.

- Hypothesis A has a prior probability of 55%; naturally enough, ~A has a prior probability of 45%.
- We do an experiment and get a result that approaches zero likelihood if A is true.
- You have to bet the farm on A or ~A -- it's up to you.
- Which would you bet your farm on?

What Mojo said.

You're not forming alternative hypotheses and then doing an experiment to see if one is more likely to be true than the other. The experiment had already been done - the lottery number had already been drawn - before you came along. You then turn up and look at it, point out that the odds against that particular number coming up were large (ignoring the fact that the odds against any other number coming up were just as large, and that it was certain that one of them would come up), and claim that the likelihood of this particular number coming up was greater under hypothesis A (shenanigans) than hypothesis ~A (chance). That simply isn't true.

ETA: There are no implications of you happening, any more than there are implications of a particular number coming up in the lottery, so they don't need to be "factored into the prior probabilities".