Jabba
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Proof of Immortality, VI
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JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Jabba, please just use the normal quotation convention of the forum. You're obfuscating the argument by making people read your ever-growing summary of prior posts in order to find what, if anything, you've added new. We can read the prior posts ourselves and follow the argument without your help.
First, no you don't get to reword your opponents' arguments. If you're not "talking about the same thing" when you summarize another's argument, then you're the one who's wrong. Much of your argument is based on putting words in your opponents' mouths.
Second, there is no such thing as "OOFLAM" in your critics' claim. That's your straw man, and your point of equivocation for deciding whether H or ~H is the singular argument. Please use the words your critics use when they state their arguments. H is materialism. Materialism is the theory that reality is composed only of the physical. You don't get to imply that there must be something beyond that and try to say it's still materialism. You must evaluate P(E|H) as if materialism were true -- your critics' version, not yours.
Your begging of the question is not cured by inviting others to beg the question, nor to invite speculation about how others would beg the same question. The degrees-of-freedom problem with your argument is that it makes up everything. It doesn't largely matter what the actual numbers are if they all simply spring from your imagination. That process leaves too many degrees of freedom in your model for it to predict anything.
You equivocate "suprise." That you ascribe great profound significance to your self-awareness is not data. That's just hype.
First, no you don't get to reword your opponents' arguments. If you're not "talking about the same thing" when you summarize another's argument, then you're the one who's wrong. Much of your argument is based on putting words in your opponents' mouths.
Second, there is no such thing as "OOFLAM" in your critics' claim. That's your straw man, and your point of equivocation for deciding whether H or ~H is the singular argument. Please use the words your critics use when they state their arguments. H is materialism. Materialism is the theory that reality is composed only of the physical. You don't get to imply that there must be something beyond that and try to say it's still materialism. You must evaluate P(E|H) as if materialism were true -- your critics' version, not yours.
Your begging of the question is not cured by inviting others to beg the question, nor to invite speculation about how others would beg the same question. The degrees-of-freedom problem with your argument is that it makes up everything. It doesn't largely matter what the actual numbers are if they all simply spring from your imagination. That process leaves too many degrees of freedom in your model for it to predict anything.
You equivocate "suprise." That you ascribe great profound significance to your self-awareness is not data. That's just hype.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Or the farmer may simply be a lousy shot and was instead aiming at a coyote, or the gun accidentally discharged coincidentally in the direction of a deer.
You can't infer intent from outcome reliably. But this is precisely what Jabba's argument is based on. The only significance in the seven billion "targets" that were "hit" is that they were hit. He can establish no prior significance, so he has to beg that question. The farmer analogy is a red herring because it introduces the alien notion of a deliberated intent. This is what he hopes he can back-door into the argument -- that the universe somehow "intended" to choose these seven billion lucky incarnates, and that's what makes them special. He even has a word "targetness" to express this tacked-on notion.
Dave Rogers
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through
What you're actually doing in this series of threads, though, is only firing one shot at the barn, then expressing amazement at how tightly grouped the bullet hole is.
Dave
Jabba
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Jay,
- In this case, "Targetness" essentially means "degree of reliability."
- If we found out that a particular farmer shot a deer, and that's all we knew, my estimate for the likelihood that he was shooting at that deer would be at least 90% -- there would be some chance that he hit the wrong deer. But then, I'd say that the likelihood that he was shooting at A deer was at least 99%.
Toontown
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Speak for yourself.
You have learned nothing new from it. But your reasoning as to why you've learned nothing new from the subjective perspective is a non-sequitur. It does not follow that you can learn nothing from a perspective simply because others could choose the same perspective.
I have learned that, given Jabba's interpretation of H, I simply would not exist. Note that I did not say "could not". I said "would not" There is a difference, but that difference is negligible.
Don't believe me? Try to beat some truly daunting odds. Then, when you repeatedly fail miserably, realize that the odds against whatever dauntingly unlikely thing you tried to do pales to insignificance compared to the giganogargantuan prior odds against your specific brain, given Jabba's H.
The endeavor will be fruitless, if the odds are truly daunting, but you might learn some respect for truly daunting odds, and what they mean in a personal and practical sense. And from that respect might come the realization that it really doesn't make any sense to believe you've already beaten such odds. And from that the further realization that the interpretation of reality that stacked such prior odds against you is very unlikely to be correct.
The difference is not between two subjective perspectives. The difference is between the subjective and the objective perspectives.
But in your specific case, as your next statement and my response to it demonstrate, the greater difference is your "switcheroo" interpretation of the objective view.
Thereby losing information, in the form of a very heavy implication that you would not exist if Jabba's interpretation of H is correct.
You are not "left" with the objective view. You have simply defaulted to it, after some flawed reasoning.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I am not taken in by your "switcheroo". You have quite obviously swapped out the prior probability of a specific event happening with the prior probability that "something" would happen.
Surprise can indeed be supressed by wrongfully equating the sum of the prior probabilities of everything that could possibly happen with the prior probability of a specific event. Apparently, this surprise-suppression tactic works for some people even if the specific event was both ridiculously unlikely and also specifically required in order for the observer to ever observe anything at all (given Jabba's H).
That, apparently, is the question that tries hard core deterministic materialists' emergent thought processes arising from functioning brains.
Short answer: All perspective-derived information is equally valid. But not necessarily equally informative. This includes both the objective and subjective perspectives we are discussing.
For example, a "front loading" blackjack dealer often unconsciously flashes his hole card when he slides it under his up card. But you'll only see the hole card if you're sitting in seat 7. That doesn't mean the other players information is less valid than the seat 7 information. Only less useful for a specific purpose. They can still see their cards and the dealer's up card. They can still see the hot hostess, and they can make fully valid use of the information they're getting. The view from seat 7 is no more valid, but does provide information which is more useful for the specific purpose of beating the dealer.
But maybe you can't see one of player 1's cards from seat 7, but all the other players can see it. So everyone is seeing exactly the same number of cards, just not exactly the same cards.
You'd rather be sitting in seat 7 for the purpose of beating he dealer. But maybe that's not the best position for scoping out the hot hostess.
BTW, don't bother heading off to Vegas in search of front-loading dealers. They've changed their technique so that hole card flashing no longer happens.
Jabba
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LL,
- I do currently accept that in order for my current existence to be a legitimate target -- and the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, properly fill the role of P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula -- I need to be somehow "set apart from the crowd" (or something similar). I have offered my argument for that case previously, but can't seem to find it now...
- Anyway, here's my rough explanation.
- Just to sort of "set the stage," we all take our current existence totally for granted, when it really should be the very last thing we take for granted...
- Even if I am just a process, and not a "thing1." I am still the only "thing2" that I know exists. Everything else (1&2) could just be my imagination.
- If I didn't currently exist, there might as well be nothing -- and, if I never existed, there might as well never be anything.
- That makes me special!
- I assume that you have the same credentials, and are special also.
- That ought to get us started...
Mojo
Mostly harmless
I introduced the idea of a farmer completely surrounded by deer, so that he is bound to hit one of them, because it is precisely analogous to Jabba's argument on this point. Jabba's argument relies on the existence of an infinite number of "potential selves", one of which must inhabit his body. According to Jabba these "potential selves" are identical. There is no sign of a "small hole", or whatever, that sets the lucky "self" apart from the others.
"A farmer shoots a deer -- we can be pretty sure he was shooting at the deer" is pretty much the epitome of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
godless dave
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In what way does that make you special?
Jabba
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Mojo,
-Re:
1) I am currently accepting that something does have to set the particular deer apart from the infinity surrounding the farmer.
2)- All you know is that a farmer shot a deer. How likely is it that he was surrounded by deer? I'd say much closer to zero than to one.
- How likely is it that he was shooting at a group of deer, and he happened to hit one that he wasn't shooting at? I was generous, and allowed that 10%.
- For me, 90% is pretty sure.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
No, "targetness" doesn't mean anything. It's a word you made up to embody your desire to post-select data with impunity.
Begging the question. Making up numbers here doesn't justify your making up numbers for the real problem. You're trying very hard to find some analogy or construct that lets you designate whatever was hit as the intended target. You need to understand first that this is a fallacy and second that your critics are going to call you on it every time, in every form.
Now would be a good time for you to explain, in your own words, what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. When you can explain it to someone else, them maybe you'll understand why your argument is wrong.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
No, under H you are not special. Having a profound emotional reaction to your self-awareness has absolutely nothing to do with the statistical significance of that data arising. The "special snowflake" argument has been refuted several times. Your subjective predilection for your favorite lottery numbers has jack-squat to do with the statistics of whether they get chosen. Superstition is not mathematics.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
That is exactly the definition of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You could just as easily say "if we found out that a particular farmer shot a rock, and that's all we knew, my estimate for the likelihood that he was shooting at that rock would be at least 90%". We could also just as easily say, "if we found out that a particular farmer shot into the sky and hit nothing at all, and that's all we knew, my estimate for the likelihood that was was trying to not hit anything would be at least 90%."
Defining whatever he hit to be the target after he hit it is a failure in logic. It doesn't matter how significant that thing might be after the fact.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
You have still not established how this is relevant to your argument. You claim that you can disprove "OOFLam" because, once your body exists, the likelihood of your particular "self", rather than another of an infinite number of "potential selves", will occupy it is infinitely small. But, under "OOFLam", one of them would have to, wouldn't it? You aren't talking about a particular type of object, such as a deer, being hit rather than just part of the landscape; you are talking about one possible outcome out of the set of outcomes, without establishing that there is anything special about that particular outcome. Saying that it is special because it is the one that happens to have occurred is the epitome of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
What, other than the fact that you exist, distinguishes you from all the other "potential" Jabbas?
And, if one of the infinite number of other Jabbas existed in your place, would your argument be valid if they advanced it?
Mojo
Mostly harmless
What sets your particular "self" apart from all the "potential selves"? If one of them existed in your place, and presented the same argument for immortality that you are presenting, would the argument be valid?
Your argument involves an infinite number of "potential selves", one of which must, surely, inhabit your body. Are you withdrawing the infinite number of "potential selves" from your argument? Are you claiming that, once your body exists, it is unlikely to have a "self"?
Making up numbers won't make your analogy relevant.
Jabba
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- It is a word I made up, but it does basically means "degree of reliability." A claimed target doesn't need to be pre-specified in order for us to estimate its probability of actually being the target. There are different aspects of the post-specified target that relate to the likelihood of it being the real target. These determine the reliability of the professed target being the real target.
CriticalThanking
Designated Hitter
"With my next shot, I'm going to miss your ear by 3 inches." Should you be afraid or not?
If you end up with one between the eyes, can you be sure I was intending to shoot you? What was your degree of targetness?
If you end up with one between the eyes, can you be sure I was intending to shoot you? What was your degree of targetness?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
I wrote that one cannot reliably infer the intent from the outcome alone. Jabba wants to parlay that into justification for his (wrong) argument that there would exist a spectrum of reliability for such an inference. He's invented a new word to hide that equivocation -- "targetness." Of course reliability exists on a spectrum. However, inference from outcome alone lies at the "unreliable" end of that spectrum. That's why I wrote what I wrote.
Not all inference is unreliable. For example, logic formulated to be deductively strong still requires an inference, but in a deduction-strength argument that inference can have the effect of fact. But Jabba's argument is a begged question, not a logicaly deductive syllogism. Inferring from a begged question has no strength at all.
Jabba tends to argue from analogies that have little to do with his actual argument. For the past few weeks he's been stuck on the story that illustrates the Texas sharpshooter fallacy without really attempting to understand what the fallacy actually is and how it actually works. A number of posters have identified the problem with that.
Jabba isn't inferring from outcome alone. His analogies imply additional information in the form of the characterizations. The target is a game animal. This is additional information. The actor is a conscious being that can have an intent, not some random occurrence. That too is additional information. He is further a rural resident, from which we can glean additional information if we choose. The contemplated action is shooting a firearm -- not out of keeping with the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, but still something that conveys information that isn't merely the outcome.
Shooting is the verb that is the analogue to selecting the data in the illustration. Change "shoot" to "rape" and see how that alters the inference. Change it to "marry" and see how it alters the inference. We can look at a number of verbs that all convey some manner of selection -- and thus properly analogize that element of Jabba's argument. And we see that the "proper" inference varies widely with the connotations the verb brings with it, not with the fact that the action succeeded (i.e., that the selection was made). That's the additional information that drives the inference one way or another. Change "farmer" to "stock analyst." How does that affect the inference? Change "deer" to (as some mentioned) "rock" or "sky." Or "wife." How does that change the inference?
Once again, telling a story in which the implied details -- aside from the mere "success" of the outcome -- all seem to line up doesn't mean that's a proper analogue to Jabba's argument. To wit:
Jabba can provide no additional details for his selection of lucky incarnates that would be analogous to the additional information he sneaks into his deer-hunting story. He wants us to simply agree that they exist in his proof for immortality, and take the form of such fluffy nonsense as "I am a special person and we shouldn't take our special-snowflake status for granted." And thus, that the analogy is somehow relevant to his argument. The analogy provides marginal information that his proof does not. And it is upon that marginal information that the inference turns, not the outcome. "I am special because I was chosen, and I was chosen because I'm special." Stripped of all of its question-begging analogy and pseudo-affirmational puff, the argument remains one of invalid post-selection. Until Jabba is able to conceive of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy in its abstract logical form and not just an amusing story of someone shooting at a barn, it's likely the discussion will remain mired here.
Jabba: You're simply wrong. You can't "get past" the Texas sharpshooter fallacy problem in your argument because you can't demonstrate yet that you understand what that problem is. And if we ever get to the point where you stop trying to hide the begged question in increasingly irrelevant analogies, you still have a dozen or so other fatal flaws to address. You've acknowledged that they exist, because you asked permission to quote them. Yet after that, you said that you only had to "get past" the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and the rest of your argument would fall into place. This suggests that you have answers for all the other fatal flaws, but so far you haven't given any indication what those answers would be. In order to support your confidence in the eventual success of your proof, would you please write a sentence or two for each fatal flaw describing how your answer to it will play out, once we get to them? Thanks.
Not all inference is unreliable. For example, logic formulated to be deductively strong still requires an inference, but in a deduction-strength argument that inference can have the effect of fact. But Jabba's argument is a begged question, not a logicaly deductive syllogism. Inferring from a begged question has no strength at all.
Jabba tends to argue from analogies that have little to do with his actual argument. For the past few weeks he's been stuck on the story that illustrates the Texas sharpshooter fallacy without really attempting to understand what the fallacy actually is and how it actually works. A number of posters have identified the problem with that.
Jabba isn't inferring from outcome alone. His analogies imply additional information in the form of the characterizations. The target is a game animal. This is additional information. The actor is a conscious being that can have an intent, not some random occurrence. That too is additional information. He is further a rural resident, from which we can glean additional information if we choose. The contemplated action is shooting a firearm -- not out of keeping with the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, but still something that conveys information that isn't merely the outcome.
Shooting is the verb that is the analogue to selecting the data in the illustration. Change "shoot" to "rape" and see how that alters the inference. Change it to "marry" and see how it alters the inference. We can look at a number of verbs that all convey some manner of selection -- and thus properly analogize that element of Jabba's argument. And we see that the "proper" inference varies widely with the connotations the verb brings with it, not with the fact that the action succeeded (i.e., that the selection was made). That's the additional information that drives the inference one way or another. Change "farmer" to "stock analyst." How does that affect the inference? Change "deer" to (as some mentioned) "rock" or "sky." Or "wife." How does that change the inference?
Once again, telling a story in which the implied details -- aside from the mere "success" of the outcome -- all seem to line up doesn't mean that's a proper analogue to Jabba's argument. To wit:
Jabba can provide no additional details for his selection of lucky incarnates that would be analogous to the additional information he sneaks into his deer-hunting story. He wants us to simply agree that they exist in his proof for immortality, and take the form of such fluffy nonsense as "I am a special person and we shouldn't take our special-snowflake status for granted." And thus, that the analogy is somehow relevant to his argument. The analogy provides marginal information that his proof does not. And it is upon that marginal information that the inference turns, not the outcome. "I am special because I was chosen, and I was chosen because I'm special." Stripped of all of its question-begging analogy and pseudo-affirmational puff, the argument remains one of invalid post-selection. Until Jabba is able to conceive of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy in its abstract logical form and not just an amusing story of someone shooting at a barn, it's likely the discussion will remain mired here.
Jabba: You're simply wrong. You can't "get past" the Texas sharpshooter fallacy problem in your argument because you can't demonstrate yet that you understand what that problem is. And if we ever get to the point where you stop trying to hide the begged question in increasingly irrelevant analogies, you still have a dozen or so other fatal flaws to address. You've acknowledged that they exist, because you asked permission to quote them. Yet after that, you said that you only had to "get past" the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and the rest of your argument would fall into place. This suggests that you have answers for all the other fatal flaws, but so far you haven't given any indication what those answers would be. In order to support your confidence in the eventual success of your proof, would you please write a sentence or two for each fatal flaw describing how your answer to it will play out, once we get to them? Thanks.
Humots
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