Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[JayUtah]

- I keep getting lured away...

No. Your critics are not responsible for your lack of attention or focus. You admit you do not read all the posts because you do not want to spend the time. You admit that you don't read certain articles because they are too challenging for you to address. Do not pretend your lack of progress is anything but your own fault. You have frankly admitted you are emotionally entrenched in a belief in the proposition you're trying to prove. Why should your critics accept that your stalling is anything but a ploy to avoid having to concede your inability to prove your deeply-held religious beliefs mathematically?

whether the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, is an appropriate entry for P(E|H).

It has been told to you many times by many people exactly what is wrong with this. Your value for P(E|H) is simply made up, and the premise by which you claim to have arrived at the estimate is patently wrong.

Maybe, the appropriate entry here is the likelihood of somebody's current existence -- i.e., 1.00!

You know this. This is the second time you have made such an admission. The first was when you finally saw via the lottery example that you had committed the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy. Now the question remains whether you will incorporate it into your formulation.

I think this happens (I get lured away) because some questions or remarks seem at least distantly relevant to this issue -- but, trying to respond, produces more remarks and questions that are further removed...

No. You have ignored countless on-topic posts to pursue marginalia, often of your own devising. It is highly insulting of you to blame the longevity of this thread on your critics. You patently ignore almost everything that's said to you and repeat yourself ad nauseam as if no one else were posting. Case in point:

#1898 from Chapter III:

This post was thorough addressed before. Do not keep repeating already-debunked arguments and pretend your lack of attention to criticism is due to some imaginary "distraction" on the part of your critics.

 

[jond]

Jabba, once your parents conceived your body, what is the likelihood that you turned out to be you? What is the likelihood that you might have turned out to be Napoleon?

According to science, you could have only become you. Because "you" (as in the self you keep referring to) is not a separate entity but rather a process that is ongoing and added to from birth to death. If you have some evidence otherwise, please present it. Your statistical games aren't going to cut it.

 

[jond]

The statistics do not in anyway support that. Your H assumes the inclusion of a soul. This is the problem that you need to address. What the statistics do show is that it is much more likely that you have only a body than having both a body and a soul. However unlikely your body's existence may be, it still exists which means that the unlikeliness of a soul must be added to the unlikeliness of your body. And then you need to add the even more unlikely coupling of the soul and the body.

There is no getting around the fact that your body exists. And there is no evidence of the existence of a soul.

Oh, and: I'm waiting...

 

[JayUtah]

Haven't you posted that like, 30 times now.
THis is the whole point of discussion, to examine and critique the premises behind your chain of beliefs. If you are not here to do that, what are you here for?

This is Jabba's well-worn technique for pressing the Fringe Reset button. He blames other people for the discussion being where it is and then proposes that he is the one who must bring it back into focus -- shame on that critic rabble! -- in every case by posting unmodified some argument he's already made and which has already been discussed at length.

If you look at the topic right before the reset, it's his misuse of precision. I'm sure Jabba desperately wants to distract from that faux pas by claiming he's been "lured away" into irrelevancy. And he wants to "get back on track" -- or really, he wants to change the subject so that he doesn't have to answer for the ignorance he exposed.

Precision is not a red herring in this context. Just as with all other aspects of statistical reasoning, precision deals with quantitative uncertainty. Statistical reasoning is about applying objective controls based on the underlying mathematical or practical causes of uncertainty. To claim precision in a measurement that one has not achieved via an appropriate error analysis is no different than ignoring statistical methods that, say, describe a variable with a distribution. It really is that bad.

Despite the chorus of correction, Jabba still wants to maintain the illusion that he is competent at statistical reasoning and logical analysis. But the gaffe with precision is another item on the pile of evidence that shows he is not. That professed but unattained competence lies at the heart of his insinuation that he is modeling his problem appropriately.

This is the typical fringe claimant's gambit. While he probably knows he can never prove his case to experienced practitioners, he is hoping to fool at least one lay person into expressing agreement with him out of ignorance, giving Jabba the benefit of the doubt. If he can just get that one ally, it bolsters his belief that his failure to prove his case isn't his own shortcoming but some purported recalcitrance on the part of his despised critics.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Indeed. It's the classic tactic of winning the race by constantly adjusting down what it means to "win" to the point where Jabba is yelling into a cave hoping to hear the echo so he can claim someone agrees with him.

 

[JoeMorgue]

ETA: And it's just a particularly egregious example of the now common hallmark of the Woo Slinger were "Keep the argument going" is as good as a win.

 

[John Jones]

- I keep getting lured away from discussing the one entry/estimate that I do worry about -- i.e., whether the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, is an appropriate entry for P(E|H). Maybe, the appropriate entry here is the likelihood of somebody's current existence -- i.e., 1.00!
- I think this happens (I get lured away) because some questions or remarks seem at least distantly relevant to this issue -- but, trying to respond, produces more remarks and questions that are further removed...
- Hopefully, this sub-issue of "being lured away" will become more clear if I return to what seems like my original post trying to fully argue the appropriateness issue above.


#1898 from Chapter III:

This is just another Jabba Fringe Reset^TM. That's all this is. Don't blame it on your interlocutors. All that crap has been dealt with before.

 

[Loss Leader]

I define "soul" as: this set of four bobblehead Stargate figures.

I'm not certain if this matters, but I lost the eBay bid for my soul. I'm a little upset about it, but I am glad that at least my soul has a definition.

 

[sackett]

Jabba, are you maybe feeling a chill? Are you remembering Blind Willy Johnson's lyrics?

"They's a time
In the midnight
When death come creepin'
And you run.
You gonna need
Somebody
On your bond."

Is that what this is all about? Do you think maybe someone here, or anywhere out in the internet, will come with you when you go?

Hope it's not that bad. Cause you got to walk that valley
by
yourself.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I just used this random number generator to generate an integer between -1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000. It came up with 539,103,280. What is the probability that 539,103,280 has an immortal soul?

Similarly, I have a bag of tangerines in my kitchen. Each one is unique when compared to the others and to every tangerine that has ever existed, and therefore the probability of any one of them existing is vanishingly small. Does this mean that they have immortal souls, too?

I also have a roll of electrical tape sitting here on my computer desk. Due to the particular wear its accrued from being in my pocket while out on jobs, and the length of the tape that's left, as well as the microscopic imperfections that, too, is unique. It's extremely improbable that this particular roll of tape would be in this particular state. I assume that it therefore has an immortal soul and will be reincarnated once I have used it up.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Wow, I think that post has an immortal soul.

Dave

 

[The Sparrow]

....

Similarly, I have a bag of tangerines in my kitchen. Each one is unique when compared to the others and to every tangerine that has ever existed, and therefore the probability of any one of them existing is vanishingly small. Does this mean that they have immortal souls, too?....

Hey! I already tried that with bananas. (You will be ignored too)

 

[JoeMorgue]

Wow, I think that post has an immortal soul.

Don't some cultures have a concept where inanimate objects develop souls after a certain long period of time?

I've joked in this thread in the past that we've got it all wrong, Jabba's not trying to prove immortality with this thread, he's trying to create it.

 

[Belz...]

Oh no! It's part 4!

Yeah parts 1-3 were not great but just wait 'till part V: there'll be a huge reveal about who's Jabba's father and some great setup for the finale.

 

[Belz...]

9.1.2. Now I must estimate (roughly) the prior probability (rounded off to 3 decimal places) of each more specific possibility (hypothesis), given ~H.
9.1.2.1. That only some of us have but one finite life: .000
9.1.2.2. That we each have numerous finite lives: .200.
9.1.2.3. That only some of us have numerous finite lives: .000
9.1.2.4. That we each have an infinity of finite lives; .200
9.1.2.5. That only some of us have an infinity of finite lives: .000
9.1.2.6. That we each have an infinite life: .200.
9.1.2.7. That only some of us have an infinite life: .000
9.1.2.8. That time isn’t what we think it is (to be explained): .200
9.1.2.9. Some other explanation: .200

Where the **** did you get those estimates from? I'd say 9.1.2.1 gets 1.000 and be done with it.

- Re #1: It seems to me essentially impossible that only some of us would have only one finite life.

Why? Your personal feelings are not a source of data about reality.

 

[Belz...]

*Sighs* It's like he's writing a Gish Gallop in COBOL.

Hey! I work in COBOL every day, and at least I can understand it when I read it.

 

[Belz...]

LL,
- I'm hoping that Dave and some others will agree with my claim. If not, I've got a lot of explaining to do before I can move on.

Man, I really do love you. Every thread you participate in is exactly the same, and summarized in the quote above. To wit: "I made an unsupported claim and I hope someone will agree with it for some reason, and if they don't I have to prattle on about irrelevancies until I can fringe reset again."

 

[Belz...]

Dave,
- Do you accept the preface?

Oh, sure, break it down further. This thread isn't long enough as it is.

I don't know the half-life of your nonsense but it makes U238 highly radioactive in comparison.

 

[Belz...]

Zoo,
- Good question.
- I assume that you'll want a more elaborate, and more specific, explanation -- but for now (just in case), I just think that any possible variation with "some" in it is very improbable.

Oh, man. That's comedy gold. For a split second I thought the "good question" part might lead to some sort of crazy Jabba explanation, but then I read the first words of the second part and remembered that there is no such thing as a Jabba explanation, just a prelude to more claims and irrelevancies.

I think we could call your style of debate "fractal shuffle".

- Why not?

Hilarious. Thanks for proving that you're making stuff up as you go. Once more.

I'm just saying that the probability is less than, or equal to, .000.

Negative probabilities?

- Doesn't #9 make sure that it adds up to 1.00?

Perhaps you should leave math to other people.

 

[Jabba]

Haven't you posted that like, 30 times now.
THis is the whole point of discussion, to examine and critique the premises behind your chain of beliefs. If you are not here to do that, what are you here for?

Sparrow,
- The above are the premises that lead me to the conclusion that the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, is appropriate for P(E|H) in the Bayes formula.
- I think that this is really the Texas Sharpshooter issue, and I need to show that I qualify as a legitimate 'target.' Would you agree with my assertion that such is what I need to show?