Proof of Immortality III

[godless dave]

Why do you think your current existence is extremely unlikely?

 

[Jabba]

That was the basis for my assumption that the immortal soul only came into existence at the same time as its body since, as far as I know, that's how it works in Christianity.

caveman,
- For me, If reincarnation is actual, we all must come from the same, infinitely divisible, bucket of consciousness -- and more than one of us was Napoleon in a previous lifetime. We must keep dividing. And all of us must have been the singularity, God?
- Pretty far out, but seemingly necessary if we are, in fact, immortal -- which I still think we are.

 

[Jabba]

Why do you think your current existence is extremely unlikely?

Dave,

- I forget how to use a link from the previous "chapter," but my answer is #3000 in that chapter.

 

[Jabba]

All of this is a bunch of nonsense. Jabba's argument has nothing to do with Bayes or anything else. He is saying:

1. If I am mortal, there is no chance that I exist.
2. If I am immortal, it is certain that I exist.
3. I exist
Therefore: I am immortal...

LL,
- I like that!

 

[godless dave]

Dave,

- I forget how to use a link from the previous "chapter," but my answer is #3000 in that chapter.

So this:

11.1. Re P(E|H):According to science, I would never exist if
11.1.1. My parents had never met…
11.1.2. They had never had intercourse.
11.1.3. The necessary sperm cell (of the sextillion produced by my dad) had not met up with the necessary ovum (of the 500 carried by my mom).
11.1.4. The same three events (of above) had not occurred for both sets of my grandparents.
11.1.5. And all four sets of my great-grandparents.
11.1.6. Etc., etc., etc.
11.1.7. All the way back to the beginning of life on this planet.
11.1.8. And then, there’s the big bang.
11.1.9. And what if I had been (would have been?) the combination of a particular sperm cell of my dad and a particular ovum of Cleopatra?
11.1.10. How many human sperm cells and ova have existed since the beginning of (just) human life?
11.1.11. And, wouldn’t each potential combination of particular sperm cell and particular ovum represent a different potential person?
11.1.12. And what about all those potential persons of potential but unactualized persons?
11.1.13. However, my particular conscious existence probably doesn’t depend upon a particular sperm cell and particular ovum, anyway…
11.1.14. Rather, a certain organic state must naturally produce the emergent property of consciousness, and each new consciousness must produce its own, brand new, “self.”
11.1.15. IOW, there probably is no limited pool of potential beings – and consequently, the ‘number’ of potential beings is infinite…
11.1.16. Wow!
11.1.17. And then, there’s the anthropic principle.
11.1.18. And, what’s the likelihood that the 14 billion years of apparent universe existence would currently be within the years of my life.
11.1.19. And, what if time is infinite in both directions?

All that means (everything through 11.1.7, after which it stops having anything to do with the scientific model for consciousness) is that if you go back far enough in time, your existence is one of many possibilities, just like the current existence of Mount Rainier.

All of reality works that way. So what?

 

[Jabba]

All of this is a bunch of nonsense. Jabba's argument has nothing to do with Bayes or anything else. He is saying:

1. If I am mortal, there is no chance that I exist.
2. If I am immortal, it is certain that I exist.
3. I exist
Therefore: I am immortal.

The problem isn't in his logic above, it's in the logic of his givens. They have absolutely no foundation whatsoever in testable fact. There's no way to assign a truth value to them. Thus, there's no way to assign a truth value to his ultimate conclusion.
If Jabba wants to advance his argument, he needs to provide evidence that his givens are true. This is something that he cannot do. He cannot even define what he means by "immortality," let alone provide falsifiable evidence for it.

And this all rests on the largely unspoken assumption that God exists. After some thousands of posts, Jabba has finally and very recently referred to a "creator." He can't provide a working definition for that, either.

LL,
- My only givens are H and ~H. You seem to be saying that there is absolutely no evidence for ~H.
- Is that what you're saying? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth -- I just suspect that I don't know what you're saying.

 

[Loss Leader]

LL,
- My only givens are H and ~H. You seem to be saying that there is absolutely no evidence for ~H.
- Is that what you're saying? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth -- I just suspect that I don't know what you're saying.

As much as I'd like to oblige, I'm not sure what -H is.

My point was that you could abandon all this jargon and make your argument though conventional methods.

 

[Jabba]

...
All that means (everything through 11.1.7, after which it stops having anything to do with the scientific model for consciousness) is that if you go back far enough in time, your existence is one of many possibilities, just like the current existence of Mount Rainier.
All of reality works that way. So what?

Dave,
- We've already been through all that. It started on the 24th of April. If you can find your last unanswered question/objection, I'll see if I can answer it.

Below I've linked to a photo of Mount Rainier. Consider the exact details of what it looks like, the position of each piece of rock. What do you think was the likelihood that it would look exactly like that at the time the photo was taken?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Rainier_from_the_Silver_Queen_Peak.jpg

 

[JayUtah]

My only givens are H and ~H.

No.

You assign values to P(E|H) and P(E|~H). These are among your givens, and your choice of numbers for them is the magical thinking that rejects anything you want to define as H, regardless of how probable H might be.

You seem to be saying that there is absolutely no evidence for ~H.

- Is that what you're saying?

That's how I read it.

You have been told that ~H is necessarily a composite hypothesis, and in order to reason about P(E|~H) you need to properly partition it so that the individual hypotheses can be given individual probabilities. You attempted to do that and failed dismally. You haven't made another attempt, so your formulation remains broken at the algebraic level.

You have been told that you cannot estimate P(E|~H) until you show that anything in ~H amounts to more than just your fertile imagination. You can't do any more than trot out the same anecdotes that people speculatively attribute to some form of ~H. I would say that you don't understand what it means for something to be evidence of something else. But in fact you do, and you deliberately avoid it, as demonstrated by your incessantly equivocal use of the nebulous "supportive." In any case, your claim that you have a "reasonable alternative" to finite life continues to lack even a little credibility.

You have been told that simply making up numbers both for your priors P(H), P(~H) and your likelihoods P(E|H), P(E|~H) does not lead to meaningful posterior probabilities. This is the point Loss Leader is making. He has chosen a syllogistic analysis. jt512 has made the same point algebraically in the context of statistical probability. You cannot simply pluck out of thin air all the important values in your model and expect your critics to take you seriously.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- We've already been through all that. It started on the 24th of April. If you can find your last unanswered question/objection, I'll see if I can answer it.

My last unanswered question is "All of reality works that way. So what?"

Why accept that for the formation of mountains, deserts, plants, planets, asteroids, stars, and everything else, but not human consciousness?

 

[JayUtah]

If you can find your last unanswered question/objection, I'll see if I can answer it.

He has no obligation to do that. If you are now admitting that you didn't read and respond to his objections when he raised them, then you have the obligation to apologize for your laziness and correct the consequences of it by going back and re-reading what you omitted or forgot. You were able to find the post in question without difficulty. Now use that prowess to read each post that followed until you come to one you didn't answer.

Quit expecting everyone else to spoonfeed you your prior failures in order to keep you accountable for them.

 

[JayUtah]

My point was that you could abandon all this jargon and make your argument though conventional methods.

I believe, as I suspect you do to, that Jabba knows a conventional argument for his point will be immediately rejected because it relies entirely on speculation and assumption. As have so many others before him, Jabba is employing pseudo-mathematics (Bayesian analysis is always a popular choice) to obscure the qualitatively broken elements, such as circular reasoning, of his argument.

 

[JayUtah]

I like that!

Do you realize that in order for this syllogism to hold, you have to actually prove (1) and (2)? So far in your argument you're just assuming them. Your critics don't agree with your assumption.

 

[JayUtah]

[T]he real issue for me (so far?) is whether the likelihood of my current existence, given H, is an appropriate entry for P(E|H) in the formula I'm using.

This is a serious issue for your critics. You've selected Bayesian inference as the method you want to use to "prove mathematically" that you are immortal. You've chosen priors P(H) and P(~H), which some of your critics assure the rest of us is entirely acceptable.

But then you have also chosen values for the conditions P(E|H) and P(E|~H), which those same critics assure you is not at all acceptable. Your method is wrong. And it's wrong in a way that P(H|E) ends up impossible for all H, which -- let's be frank -- is exactly what you wanted to have happen.

It isn't an issue anymore, Jabba. You are simply wrong. The discussion has been had, and you are utterly incapable of participating in it any more deeply than giving it a new coat of paint and parading it around again ever three or four weeks to the frustration of your critics (which is likely also what you wanted to have happen).

I need to establish that the likelihood of my existence is not of the same order as that of the likelihood of winning the lottery...

No. In all your threads you insist on arguing by analogies that become increasingly unfaithful to the original question. It's just another incarnation (pun intended) of your well-worn tactic of softening the question until you obtain the semblance of agreement, then snapping back to the full strength of your claim under the pretense that the off-target agreement should apply.

You have been told how and why you lottery analogy doesn't work. Quit beating that dead horse.

What is the appropriate terminology for that kind of situation in which the particular winner, whoever it is, of a fair lottery will be extremely unlikely?

The Texas sharpshooter's fallacy.

 

[sackett]

Zola: "J'accuse!"

Jay Utah: "You have been told."

I like the similar constructions. They don't raise this thread to the level of L'Affaire, but they're mildly diverting.

 

[ferd burfle]

What is the appropriate terminology for that kind of situation in which the particular winner, whoever it is, of a fair lottery will be extremely unlikely? Bayes must talk about that kind of entry somewhere -- but so far, I can't find it.

Try searching for "illogical" or "self-contradictory statements".

 

[Mojo]

LL,
- I like that!

That's kind of the problem.

 

[Jabba]

All of this is a bunch of nonsense. Jabba's argument has nothing to do with Bayes or anything else. He is saying:

1. If I am mortal, there is no chance that I exist.
2. If I am immortal, it is certain that I exist.
3. I exist
Therefore: I am immortal.

The problem isn't in his logic above, it's in the logic of his givens. They have absolutely no foundation whatsoever in testable fact. There's no way to assign a truth value to them. Thus, there's no way to assign a truth value to his ultimate conclusion.

If Jabba wants to advance his argument, he needs to provide evidence that his givens are true. This is something that he cannot do. He cannot even define what he means by "immortality," let alone provide falsifiable evidence for it.

And this all rests on the largely unspoken assumption that God exists. After some thousands of posts, Jabba has finally and very recently referred to a "creator." He can't provide a working definition for that, either.

LL,
- My only givens are H and ~H. You seem to be saying that there is absolutely no evidence for ~H.
- Is that what you're saying? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth -- I just suspect that I don't know what you're saying.

No. You assign values to P(E|H) and P(E|~H). These are among your givens, and your choice of numbers for them is the magical thinking that rejects anything you want to define as H, regardless of how probable H might be...

jt and caveman,
- Do you agree with Jay?

 

[Jabba]

All of this is a bunch of nonsense. Jabba's argument has nothing to do with Bayes or anything else. He is saying:

1. If I am mortal, there is no chance that I exist.
2. If I am immortal, it is certain that I exist.
3. I exist
Therefore: I am immortal.

The problem isn't in his logic above, it's in the logic of his givens. They have absolutely no foundation whatsoever in testable fact. There's no way to assign a truth value to them. Thus, there's no way to assign a truth value to his ultimate conclusion.

If Jabba wants to advance his argument, he needs to provide evidence that his givens are true. This is something that he cannot do. He cannot even define what he means by "immortality," let alone provide falsifiable evidence for it.

And this all rests on the largely unspoken assumption that God exists. After some thousands of posts, Jabba has finally and very recently referred to a "creator." He can't provide a working definition for that, either.

LL,
- I like that!

That's kind of the problem.

Mojo,
- But, it is -- pretty much -- what I'm saying.

 

[JayUtah]

Mojo,
- But, it is -- pretty much -- what I'm saying.

It is pretty much what you are saying, and the problem is that you can't see what's wrong with what you're saying. Or you refuse to.

If you build your proof around this syllogism, you cannot escape having to prove the premises. You must prove (1) and (2). So far all you've done is insist that they must be true.