Filippo Lippi
Philosopher
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2002
- Messages
- 5,551
Mojo's out
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Proof of Immortality, the IV league
- Thread starter Mojo
- Start date
- Status
jsfisher
ETcorngods survivor
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2005
- Messages
- 24,532
Where does "implication" enter into Bayes' formula? It doesn't. Only P(E) does (or its equivalent P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H)), and, as Hokulele says,
P(E) = 1.
And if P(E) = 1, then for any possible H, P(E|H) must be 1 as well. Implications do not alter this mathematical truth.
ANY old evidence has a probability of 1 by virtue of the fact it's already known. This is the problem of "old evidence". One of the solutions is to look at the evidence counterfactually.
One of the best examples is to imagine you're going to be executed by being shot by a hundred sharpshooters. The order to fire is given, and you're miraculously not dead. The probability that you're alive is 1, of course, yet the probability that it was just an accident you survived is now practically zero. Because counterfactually, you know that your continued existence would be incredibly improbable on the chance hypothesis (that all 100 shooters missed or misfired or had sudden heart attacks, etc.). So your continued existence constitutes incredibly powerful evidence that the execution was rigged in some way.
Last edited:
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
The point is, you are calculating something completely different there. In that case, as the number of misses increases (1-100), your certainty that something fishy changes. With Jabba's existence, there are no misses, because there was no target to begin with.
You are trying to reverse the Texas Sharpshooter position, rather than quantify it.
Last edited:
I haven't been following Jabba much. Has he made the fine-tuning argument yet (the physical constants have been "tuned" to allow life in this universe to exist)?
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Well, I can guarantee that now he will!
But to be serious, his sole argument is that he is immortal because .. what are the odds he wouldn't be!
Well, I can guarantee that now he will!
He should. It's probably the best argument in the theist's bag (or simulation theory proponent).
Sounds lame. I like the quantum immortality argument.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Their best is the Texas Sharpshooter/Sentient Puddle fallacy writ large. But we already knew that.
Meh, I am a fan of carpe diem! Pretty much any immortality argument butts heads with solipsism, and so to me is inherently meaningless. And yes, I do like to spend time discussing inherently meaningless topics. It amuses me.
The fine-tuning argument doesn't rest on a fallacy. The problem with fine-tuning is a sufficiently large multiverse totally defeats it.
"That the universe appears to be fantastically finely tuned for intelligent life is not particularly controversial, and is the second piece of evidence related to the end of Copernican Mediocrity. But, you might ask, why is the universe so perfect?
Good question. There are so far only three kinds of answers from science. One is just dumb luck. The second answer, proffered and defended by most of my theoretically minded colleagues, is the multiverse: There are an infinite number of universes spanning all logical possibilities. We just live in the one we can. The third answer touches on philosophy, and comes from quantum mechanics. (If you have taken any modern physics course, it is likely you will have heard this notion before.) Matter is composed of wave functions of probability that only become “real entities” when they are measured by a conscious observer. The quantum mechanical pioneer, John Wheeler, is one of several thinkers who have proposed that the unusual nature of the universe suggests it had to evolve conscious beings in order to become real."
I will admit that I am not a fan of any of these. It seems a cop-out to say we are just lucky, and as a physicist trained to give preference to simple solutions, a multiverse strikes me as the opposite: exorbitant.
http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/69/does-science-suggest-humans-have-a-cosmic-role
I don't see why immorality has to lead to solipsism (or even imply it).
Last edited:
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
I will leave the typo in, as it is funny.
But to the intended comment, when closely examined, if I am truly immortal, the very idea of a "prior life" is self-contradictory. The universe must have started when I did, and will last as long as I do, because I am immortal, you see, so all the rest of you lot must be figments of my imagination!
The Sparrow
Graduate Poster
It's a joke, but sadly it is also true.Well, I can guarantee that now he will!
...
What the hell it has to do with a mathematical proof of immortality is beyond me though.
Oh BTW, have we abandoned (for now) NDEs? OBEs? Whatever they are?
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Jabba gave up on this when he couldn't beg a single person to believe that any of his third-hand anecdotes were competent evidence of even the possibility of any sort of immateriality.
But it's literally the first question he has to deal with. In order for immortal souls to be even the most unlikely explanation of anything, they at least have to be possible.
So he can pretend he's gone on to some other section of his argument, but when put to his paces, he failed miserably right out of the gate.
Jabba
Philosopher
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2012
- Messages
- 5,613
Fudbucker,
- Isn't the Wheeler explanation just a different expression/version of multiverse?
Jabba
Philosopher
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2012
- Messages
- 5,613
Fudbucker,
- Then, multiply the likelihood of such a universe by the likelihood of your current existence.
Belz...
Fiend God
Then divide by the relevance of this entire exercise and... DAMN IT! I've created a cluster of fractal black holes again.
Jabba
Philosopher
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2012
- Messages
- 5,613
- Here's a map of our discussion, as I see it -- from the edge of space.
- I claimed that through the use of Bayesian statistics, I could virtually prove immortality.
- Later, I reduced that to something more direct, logically speaking -- i.e., through the use of Bayesian statistics, I could virtually disprove OOFLam (that we each have only one finite life to live (at most)).
- I think there were (was?) six basic objections to my claim: 1)Bayes isn't applicable, 2)there is no real "self," 3)the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is not infinitesimal 4)the likelihood I prescribe for my existence -- given ~OOFLam -- doesn't make sense, 5)it is not reasonably possible that OOFLam is wrong and 6) the likelihood of MY current existence is not an appropriate entry for P(E|OOFLam).
- Lately, we've been working on #2 and #5.
- Under #5, we got into NDE's and the validity of anecdotes as evidence re scientific hypotheses.
- Re anecdotes, most participants disagreed that anecdotes could constitute evidence re scientific hypotheses, but several posters actually agreed with me -- that anecdotes can constitute such evidence.
- Currently, I'm trying to engage some of those latter participants in exploring the credibility of NDE anecdotes.
- I claimed that through the use of Bayesian statistics, I could virtually prove immortality.
- Later, I reduced that to something more direct, logically speaking -- i.e., through the use of Bayesian statistics, I could virtually disprove OOFLam (that we each have only one finite life to live (at most)).
- I think there were (was?) six basic objections to my claim: 1)Bayes isn't applicable, 2)there is no real "self," 3)the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is not infinitesimal 4)the likelihood I prescribe for my existence -- given ~OOFLam -- doesn't make sense, 5)it is not reasonably possible that OOFLam is wrong and 6) the likelihood of MY current existence is not an appropriate entry for P(E|OOFLam).
- Lately, we've been working on #2 and #5.
- Under #5, we got into NDE's and the validity of anecdotes as evidence re scientific hypotheses.
- Re anecdotes, most participants disagreed that anecdotes could constitute evidence re scientific hypotheses, but several posters actually agreed with me -- that anecdotes can constitute such evidence.
- Currently, I'm trying to engage some of those latter participants in exploring the credibility of NDE anecdotes.
Belz...
Fiend God
"Currently I'm doing X" is getting tiresome and sounds more and more disingenuous.
Yes, there is. It is, however, an emergent property of the brain, not an independent entity (aka "soul").
Jabba
Philosopher
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2012
- Messages
- 5,613
Zoo,
- I should have added that...
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
You also appear to have omitted that you, by your own rules, have agreed that you do not have any evidence at all for the existence of a "soul", much less for its "immortality"...
Last edited:
- Status