Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[JayUtah]

In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis.

Most? All the scientific evidence supports this. You've been asked repeatedly to come up with scientific evidence for your claim, but all you can show is that you don't know what science evidence is. And lately you refuse to discuss it after you dump it into the forum.

But more to the point, you know that you can throw to the skeptics whatever bone you want for the priors because you've already worked out the path you need to take through Bayes' theorem in order to erase any advantage your critics gain from the priors. You were kind enough to tell us your plan. You're going to fabricate a likelihood ratio that works out in your favor. And that requires you to have a Big Denominator when computing P(E|H), and you've been trying to come up with one ever since.

I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven...

Of course it has. Your claims (i.e., fervent, unsupported wishes) don't matter one whit to what scientific research has shown us about the sense of self. It correlates one-hundred-percent, according to all observation, to the proper operation of a human brain and nervous system in concert with environmental stimulus. You can provide no observations that this doesn't explain.

...and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account.

No. For five years you've been asked to describe or explain this "significant new relevant information" that you waffle on about. You thrash between pseudo-science for near-death experiences and reincarnation, topics that have been around for decades and have been thoroughly taken into account. You just don't like how they are accounted for.

Then you say your notion of "potential selves" is the key philosophical concept that you and only you present. But no, Monty Python was joking about it decades ago, making the same argument you are. Only they intended theirs to get laughs.

Finally you argued that there was some ineffable mystical goo that science couldn't see, which would explain your beliefs. It's tantamount to simply wishing that there were any evidence for your claims. Then you have the audacity to come right out and ask people to accept that if you had any sort of evidence, you'd have proven your point.

No, Jabba. You've had more time to work out your allegedly significant-yet-untapped evidence than it took real scientists to develop and build an atomic bomb. Since you haven't actually progressed in that time, and are still just repeating the same old arguments as you were back then, there's no point in giving you any more time. You're done.

That's where Bayes comes in.

No, you have no evidence that hasn't already been taken into account. You're begging the question and misusing Bayes to conceal it.

 

[JayUtah]

It's interesting that this was the assessment from one of the posters over there.

Gee, it doesn't sound like they were nice enough to him to merit his attention.

 

[Dave Rogers]

#1. I didn't mean to "declare" that one was impossible; I meant to "argue" that one was (just about) impossible.

As I think everyone has been pointing out to you, you're using the premise that it's virtually impossible to reach the conclusion that it's virtually impossible.

#2. In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven, and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account. That's where Bayes comes in.

It would be more accurate (though still not really all that accurate) to say that all the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. Your estimate, therefore, that there is a 1% chance that all the scientific evidence is wrong, seems to me a colossal overestimate. All the scientific evidence tells me that if I drop a hammer, it will fall downwards; if you want to bet against me at 99 to 1 that it will fall upwards, I can confidently expect to get very, very rich on those odds.

Dave

 

[RoboTimbo]

Waterman,
#1. I didn't mean to "declare" that one was impossible; I meant to "argue" that one was (just about) impossible.
#2. In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven, and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account. That's where Bayes comes in.
#3. No -- I agree.

Jabba, can you explain the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy to me and give some examples of it?

 

[godless dave]

- Yes. But, there are numerous situations in which the possible outcomes are so numerous (say, a million) that any specific outcome will be EXTREMELY unlikely. In such a case, in order for its unlikelihood to 'count,' there must be something about this particular outcome that 'sets it apart' from the remaining million (or at least, most of the remaining million).

Waterman,
#2. In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven, and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account. That's where Bayes comes in.

The only significant relevant information you have supplied is that you exist, and the only explanation you've given for why you think it's significant and relevant is that if you didn't exist, from your perspective (which wouldn't exist), nothing would exist. This is also what you gave as what you think sets your existence apart from all the other possibilities.

You can't be surprised that nobody finds that convincing.

 

[Mojo]

The only significant relevant information you have supplied is that you exist, and the only explanation you've given for why you think it's significant and relevant is that if you didn't exist, from your perspective (which wouldn't exist), nothing would exist. This is also what you gave as what you think sets your existence apart from all the other possibilities.

You can't be surprised that nobody finds that convincing.

I bet he can. All it requires is a complete failure to understand the arguments that have been presented.

 

[CriticalThanking]

Jabba agreed to withdraw his map? Shucks, I missed that. Can anyone point me to it, if it's not too much trouble?

By the way, I ran across this by accident.

It's Jabba giving his "virtually proving immortality through Bayesian statistics" spiel at a statistics forum in early 2015, and people, it ain't pretty.

Among other things, they point out a mistake I don't recall Jabba making in this thread. Possibly he did take away one lesson.

Has anyone seen and/or linked to this before?

Wow. That thread was short and brutal to his argument. The folks there said most everything that's been said here about Jabba's math. I don't understand where his confidence in his math comes from. Has any mathematical authority agreed with his use of Bayes? [yeah, yeah- argument from authority blah blah blah]

CT

 

[CriticalThanking]

Jabba,

I like your new avatar pic.

CT

 

[Jabba]

Jabba,

I like your new avatar pic.

CT

CT,
- Thanks.

 

[Waterman]

To count potential people from some eggs and sperm that do not exist in the same place and time?

Waterman,
- If one were frozen and later combined with the other, wouldn't this produce a new, different, original person?

But then they would exist in the same place and time regardless of how they arrived there. If sperm and egg meet in the right conditions in the right environment they have a chance of developing into a being capable of developing an emerging sense of self based on its biology and experiences it amasses.

I also note that in this response I was contrasting meals of which each individual would have thousands in their lifetime. So meals would number significantly more individuals.

 

[Waterman]

May I count potential meals of some items that do not exist in the same place and time? If I can there must be a near infinity of them. The odds that I would have a particular meal this evening was astronomical. It must have a non-mundane explanation. Or am I abusing the logic in some way.

- Yes. But, there are numerous situations in which the possible outcomes are so numerous (say, a million) that any specific outcome will be EXTREMELY unlikely. In such a case, in order for its unlikelihood to 'count,' there must be something about this particular outcome that 'sets it apart' from the remaining million (or at least, most of the remaining million).

From context I am assuming that you are saying that I can count this as a potential meal but it is not special enough. If I have all of time to work with and can only come up with a million different meals I would have to be pretty lame.

Heck there are 7.5 billion people in the world if we average 2 meals per day that is 15 billion different ACTUAL meals today alone. In a year that would be 5.5 trillion ACTUAL meals in ONE year. Those are just the real ones.

If we want to talk about potential meals and try to count all the ways all the ingredients available that we didn’t combine, then if we start adding things across time… I’d like my Triceratops Streak Medium well… I think that we could exceed your estimated number of potential people. In fact we have more actual meals than actual people on any given day. Each meal would have a slightly different combination of ingredients, aromas and tastes.

Why does this not count as numerous or special enough?

 

[Waterman]

1)What you have appear to have done is to declare that one of the hypotheses is impossible prior to putting it into the equation. Therefore stacking the deck in favor of the perferred hypothesis regardless of how unlikely.

- I didn't mean to "declare" that one was impossible; I meant to "argue" that one was (just about) impossible.

When you make up all the numbers you can get the desired results. By clumsily FORCING 1/infinity you are, in effect, declaring H impossible, rendering the entire Baysian Argument IRRELEVANT. No one here has accepted your position on this one item. This is stacking the deck and begging the question.

2)So Bayes cannot be applied until a reasonable probability can be established for BOTH hypotheses. Current scientific theory is that a normally functioning human brain will have the property of self awareness and sense of continuity and growth.

- In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven, and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account. That's where Bayes comes in.

When you make up all the numbers you can get the desired results. Your prior probabilities are irrelevant when you force a 1/infinity into the equation.

3)If a healthy human brain exists the odds that it will have a property of self is 1:1. Do you disagree?

- No -- I agree.

Good, Now I am sure that we probably disagree on what that means.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

From context I am assuming that you are saying that I can count this as a potential meal but it is not special enough. If I have all of time to work with and can only come up with a million different meals I would have to be pretty lame.

Heck there are 7.5 billion people in the world if we average 2 meals per day that is 15 billion different ACTUAL meals today alone. In a year that would be 5.5 trillion ACTUAL meals in ONE year. Those are just the real ones.

If we want to talk about potential meals and try to count all the ways all the ingredients available that we didn’t combine, then if we start adding things across time… I’d like my Triceratops Streak Medium well… I think that we could exceed your estimated number of potential people. In fact we have more actual meals than actual people on any given day. Each meal would have a slightly different combination of ingredients, aromas and tastes.

Why does this not count as numerous or special enough?

You don't even need to add different ingredients. Remember that even if your lunch corn is identical to your dinner corn (or any of my corn) it isn't the "same" corn. Since there is no limit to the potential corn every kernel counts as a potential meal.

 

[Jabba]

- Yes. But, there are numerous situations in which the possible outcomes are so numerous (say, a million) that any specific outcome will be EXTREMELY unlikely. In such a case, in order for its unlikelihood to 'count,' there must be something about this particular outcome that 'sets it apart' from the remaining million (or at least, most of the remaining million).

Waterman,...
#2. In Bayes these are "prior probabilities," and I'm suggesting .99 for P(H), and .01 for P(~H). I accept that most of the scientific evidence supports the one lifetime hypothesis. I'm claiming, however, that such has not been proven, and that there is significant relevant information that has not -- yet -- been taken into account. That's where Bayes comes in...

The only significant relevant information you have supplied is that you exist, and the only explanation you've given for why you think it's significant and relevant is that if you didn't exist, from your perspective (which wouldn't exist), nothing would exist. This is also what you gave as what you think sets your existence apart from all the other possibilities.

You can't be surprised that nobody finds that convincing.

Dave,
- Here's what I think:
1. You have significantly abbreviated my argument...
2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.
5. I'm still hoping to convince somebody here that my claim makes sense -- but honestly, I estimate the likelihood of that at about 1%.
6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.
7. So now, I'd like to level the playing field with a mixed audience, and see what happens...
8. The map idea is central to that desire.
9. In developing the map, I'm trying to list all the different issues, sub-issues, sub-sub-issues, etc.
10. Above, you gave 2 of your issues.
11. The following are the issues and sub-issues I've come up with so far:
11.1. Prior probabilities.
11.2. Texas Sharp Shooter.
11.3. Whether Bayesian statistics is an appropriate tool.
11.4. Whether I'm using Bayes appropriately.
11.5. The definition of self.
11.6. Does H even address the "self"?
11.7. Definition of "potential self."
11.8. Is "potential self" a meaningful concept?
11.9. Does it apply here?
11.10. How many potential selves?
11.10. Random?
11.11. Cause and effect traceable?
11.12. How self different than Mt Rainier?
11.13. How self different than VW?
11.14. Self a process rather than thing?

- Theoretically, under each issue would be sub-issues and respective answers.
- Can you add to my list?

 

[Garrette]

Nope, try again. It determines the probability of a hypothesis relative to another hypothesis, given that a certain event has happened.

E is our data, our event. It is that you exist and have a sense of self.

The highlighted bit is a mistake in wording that allows Jabba to pretend he has a toehold. As written, it implies that existence is separate from sense of self, but the point is that it is not.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- Here's what I think:
1. You have significantly abbreviated my argument...
2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.
5. I'm still hoping to convince somebody here that my claim makes sense -- but honestly, I estimate the likelihood of that at about 1%.
6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.

It's not that they didn't like the idea, it's that your attempts to focus on the Texas Sharp Shooter fallacy just committed more of the Texas Sharp Shooter fallacy.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Dave,
- Here's what I think:
...
2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.

Which is why you trotted off to claim the million dollars when people didn't respond. Everyone can see your dishonesty. Why should anyone trust you to moderate the debate fairly when you "forgot" how to authorise critical posts the last time you tried this nonsense?

 

[abaddon]

Dave,
- Here's what I think:
1. You have significantly abbreviated my argument...
2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.
5. I'm still hoping to convince somebody here that my claim makes sense -- but honestly, I estimate the likelihood of that at about 1%.
6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.
7. So now, I'd like to level the playing field with a mixed audience, and see what happens...
8. The map idea is central to that desire.
9. In developing the map, I'm trying to list all the different issues, sub-issues, sub-sub-issues, etc.
10. Above, you gave 2 of your issues.
11. The following are the issues and sub-issues I've come up with so far:
11.1. Prior probabilities.
11.2. Texas Sharp Shooter.
11.3. Whether Bayesian statistics is an appropriate tool.
11.4. Whether I'm using Bayes appropriately.
11.5. The definition of self.
11.6. Does H even address the "self"?
11.7. Definition of "potential self."
11.8. Is "potential self" a meaningful concept?
11.9. Does it apply here?
11.10. How many potential selves?
11.10. Random?
11.11. Cause and effect traceable?
11.12. How self different than Mt Rainier?
11.13. How self different than VW?
11.14. Self a process rather than thing?

- Theoretically, under each issue would be sub-issues and respective answers.
- Can you add to my list?

Wow. It takes a huge level of dishonesty to even write that garbage.

Until now, I was prepared to allow some latitude on the basis that you were honest.

That has evaporated. If you are willing to flat out lie, why should anyone pay any heed to those lies?

 

[JayUtah]

1. You have significantly abbreviated my argument...

It doesn't matter. Your argument in all its glory has been thoroughly covered several times. You have had a fair hearing.

2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.

Laughably no. There are plenty of serious refutations to your argument expressed in this thread and elsewhere. You don't show the slightest interest in them. You certainly make no effort to develop effective rejoinders; you simply repeat the original claims. And it's worth noting that we're not the only forum that has concluded this about you. You tried to present your argument to statisticians (not just skeptics). Not only did they hand you your head -- because your proof is just that objectively bad and wrong -- but they opined that you were a waste of time because you didn't address anything they said and just kept spouting your claims over and over.

Your statement above makes it sound like you know what would be involved in an effective debate. That makes it all the more rude and arrogant when you simply refuse to do what you say you're going to do.

5. I'm still hoping to convince somebody here that my claim makes sense -- but honestly, I estimate the likelihood of that at about 1%.

Or less.

I'm not at all buying that you're hoping to convince someone that your claim makes sense. I think you're hoping instead to trick someone into voicing some manner of agreement than you can spin to make sound like support for your self-esteem. Your argument is objectively wrong. Hoping to convince someone of it anyone is the least honest thing you can do. You're essentially admitting you hope you can fool someone into agreeing with you.

6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.

Your critics didn't like the idea because they had good reason to fear you were just going to rehash all the old failed defenses you had made and thereby prolong the thread for another several years. Your critics would very much like to see you focus on the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. But they want to you pick up where you left off, not start the whole thing over again as you invariably do.

Where we left off was you trying to claim that since the seven billion for a numerator wasn't individualized, it can't be post-selected. But in fact it is. Committing the Texas sharpshooter fallacy seven billion times doesn't fix your argument. You either don't know what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is in the abstract, or you're just trying to argue that it's not a fallacy.

7. So now, I'd like to level the playing field with a mixed audience, and see what happens...
8. The map idea is central to that desire.

You've had a mixed audience. They arrived at the same conclusion we did: you're very wrong and you won't listen to criticism.

And sadly we've seen what these "maps" of yours are for. They're not to level the playing field, but to tilt it heavily in your favor. They serve no purpose that this forum itself cannot serve, except to let you lie about how the debate is going. This is not abstract paranoia; this is what we've seen you do.

9. In developing the map, I'm trying to list all the different issues, sub-issues, sub-sub-issues, etc.

The forum thread already does this. The only thing you can do in your "map" that isn't already done by this thread is leave stuff out. And you have a documented history of leaving out the stuff you just don't want to bother with. You still have yet to convince anyone that the only reason you're abridging the debate and putting it out of reach of your critics is not to be able to lie through your teeth about what happened.

Can you add to my list?

Nobody is obliged to help you misrepresent them, and it's insulting for you to ask. These people whom you're now asking for help have been waiting days, months, or years for you to address what they've already offered you by way of help. Above you said you were here to see whether anyone could rebut your claims and whether you could rejoin them. That iron is hot, ready for you to strike. All the topics you mentioned have been met with enthusiastic rebuttals you have yet to address. Put your money where your mouth is.

 

[John Jones]

6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.

Oh ffs! The Texas sharpshooter fallacy in not an argument, it is an example of fallacious logic. Your trying to embrace it as if it supports your claims is pathetic incompetence.