Proof of Immortality, VI

[godless dave]

Dave,
- If I understand your question, we’re back to Mt. Ranier…
- For one thing, the likelihood of an event depends upon when we’re predicting from…
- In regard to the likelihood of your existence, I’m predicting from the apparent singularity ‘before’ the beginning of time and before the laws of physics…
- If I do the same in regard to the existence of a specific rock, or Mt. Ranier, the denominator will still be infinity – but, we’ll be forced to accept that the likelihood of either is not quite zero.

If the denominator is infinity then the likelihood is zero.

 

[Jabba]

If the denominator is infinity then the likelihood is zero.

- I guess you're suggesting that the denominator cannot be infinity -- as if it were, there could be no rock or Mt Ranier?

 

[godless dave]

- I guess you're suggesting that the denominator cannot be infinity -- as if it were, there could be no rock or Mt Ranier?

Exactly.

 

[JesseCuster]

Dave,
- If I understand your question, we’re back to Mt. Ranier…
- For one thing, the likelihood of an event depends upon when we’re predicting from…
- In regard to the likelihood of your existence, I’m predicting from the apparent singularity ‘before’ the beginning of time and before the laws of physics…
- If I do the same in regard to the existence of a specific rock, or Mt. Ranier, the denominator will still be infinity – but, we’ll be forced to accept that the likelihood of either is not quite zero.- I assume that you and I are upon different pages already—so, what are your thoughts so far?

It has been repeatedly explained to you that if the denominator is zero, then the odds are zero, not some undefined concept like 'virtually zero'.

Either you're deliberately ignoring that inconvenient fact or you disagree with it.

If you disagree with it, can you explain why? You're trying to come up with a mathematical proof, so you can't just ignore the mathematics when it doesn't suit you and make up your own mathematics.

 

[JayUtah]

If I understand your question, we’re back to Mt. Ranier

Yes, in the sense that this is the same dilemma your argument runs into time and again, from which you've been able to extract yourself only by begging the question of some speculated special nature of the soul. People have souls and Mt Ranier doesn't, and that's how you cross the analogy.

For one thing, the likelihood of an event depends upon when we’re predicting from…

We've heard this painful contortion before. You pick dissimilar times from which to reckon the two likelihoods, and by that means hope to break the analogy. For souls you pick one time so that the denominator comes out a certain way. For everything else you pick a different time so that the denominator comes out differently. That's either begging the question or special pleading; take your pick. But it's moot, since yesterday you agreed the denominator was infinity in all cases -- "absolutely everything that exists," was how Dave phrased it. You agreed.

I assume that you and I are upon different pages already—

You and reason are on different pages already because you apply an arbitrary difference in reckoning likelihoods from initial conditions. Your initial conditions differ depending on how you need the denominator to come out. You want to play with loaded dice.

...so, what are your thoughts so far?

You already have pages upon pages of our thoughts on this point, which you already ignored. Asking for them to be presented again so that you can ignore them again is rude.

My thoughts so far are that you realized too late you'd conceded that everything has the magic infinity denominator and that you'd thereby conceded that there's no difference in your argument between the likelihood of people existing without souls and the likelihood of a banana existing without a soul. Having belatedly recognized your error, you've dredged up some long extinct analogy -- Mt Ranier -- in order to change the subject.

Your critics here and elsewhere are not so easily distracted, Jabba. We got to a certain point yesterday where you were made to see that if you're going to define a cardinality on the newly-minted metaphysical concept of potentiality you've cobbled together and stapled to materialism, that cardinality would have to apply equally to all things animate and inanimate. You were asked straight up if that would have to be the case, and you quickly agreed it would. We're not buying today's frantic backpedal where you try to wriggle out of your concession. The denominator is either infinity because that's what potentiality entails, or it's not infinity because it would have to be an actual computed number, and your abstract cardinality-from-potentiality is just pseudo-philosophical babble.

Take your pick.

 

[JayUtah]

- I guess you're suggesting that the denominator cannot be infinity -- as if it were, there could be no rock or Mt Ranier?

Correct -- no rock, no Mt Ranier, and no people.

Your formulation abuses the notion of a limit to try to argue that division by infinity produces a number that's near zero or approaches zero in some way without being zero. That's absolutely incorrect from a mathematical standpoint. In the extended real numbers, where division of a non-zero real number by infinity is defined, it is defined as exactly zero. Not a number approaching zero. The extended real numbers do not define infinity as a quantity over which the ordinary arithmetic operators are defined. Instead it defines the result of division of a non-zero real number by infinity as zero. That's a very crucial distinction that you've missed entirely, and expressed entirely wrongly in your formulation. We can define the results of division by infinity as a number because the concept of the limit toward which the concept of infinity is aimed has already been taken into account in the definition. You don't get to take the limit twice, or invoke the concept of a limit at any arbitrary place in your formulation.

And because the result of your division is exactly zero, not just some very small number, it cannot be the probability of existence of something that is observed to exist. This is how we can know your formulation is wrong. And that's how a real proof is constructed.

 

[sackett]

Can we calculate the probability of Jabba's arguments ever convincing anybody?

 

[carlitos]

If you can use zero or infinity in a fraction, you can literally prove anything. In high school, I once did a multi-page proof that 1 = 0. There was a zero in a denominator hidden somewhere in the middle of that mess of equations.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- If I understand your question, we’re back to Mt. Ranier…
- For one thing, the likelihood of an event depends upon when we’re predicting from…
- In regard to the likelihood of your existence, I’m predicting from the apparent singularity ‘before’ the beginning of time and before the laws of physics…

Jabba, the existence of your body requires the same unlikely series of events whether or not you have an immortal soul. You cannot use this to show that your existence is more likely if you have an immortal soul than it is if you don't.

 

[theprestige]

Having belatedly recognized your error, you've dredged up some long extinct analogy -- Mt Ranier -- in order to change the subject.

Technically, Mt Rainier is considered active, not extinct.

 

[John Jones]

Dave,
- If I understand your question, we’re back to Mt. Ranier…
- For one thing, the likelihood of an event depends upon when we’re predicting from…
- In regard to the likelihood of your existence, I’m predicting from the apparent singularity ‘before’ the beginning of time and before the laws of physics…
- If I do the same in regard to the existence of a specific rock, or Mt. Ranier, the denominator will still be infinity – but, we’ll be forced to accept that the likelihood of either is not quite zero.
- I assume that you and I are upon different pages already—so, what are your thoughts so far?

You are on a different page from everyone posting at ISF. You always have been.

 

[Jabba]

Exactly.

- But, something over infinity is not really zero – it’s undefined.
- If we start at the singularity, what is the probability of MT Rainier?
- What is the likelihood of a particular event occurring, when nothing is given?

 

[godless dave]

- But, something over infinity is not really zero – it’s undefined.

Which makes it worthless in an expression of likelihood.

- If we start at the singularity, what is the probability of MT Rainier?
- What is the likelihood of a particular event occurring, when nothing is given?

Impossible to calculate by the definition of singularities. That's why it doesn't make any sense to try to estimate a likelihood for an event at the very beginning of the universe.

If you tried to calculate it at a point after 10⁻⁴³ seconds you could theoretically do is if you knew the exact conditions of the universe at that time, which we don't, but you would need a computer far more powerful than anything that exists.


If you're saying that we could not predict my existence, your existence, or the existence of Mount Rainier at the time of the Big Bang then I agree with you, but I don't see how that helps your case.

 

[JayUtah]

But, something over infinity is not really zero – it’s undefined.

It's undefined for real numbers. In the extended real numbers, the result of dividing a non-zero real number by infinity is defined as zero in order to accommodate the obvious behavior in the limit. You (mis)used limit notation in your last expression of your proof, so it's fairly obvious that was the concept you were trying to invoke.

It's rather disingenuous of you now to echo what so many others have told you: that you can't meaningfully divide by infinity in the context of your argument, which has nothing to do with limits. Yet this is what you've been insisting on doing for months if not years. Just yesterday you were telling us that there couldn't be a cap on the size of pool of potential selves, and so dividing by infinity would give the probability of actual existence for some number of those selves drawn from that pool. That's why you don't get to use behavior in the limit here; the number of potential souls doesn't tend toward infinity in your model. You simply dictated the cardinality to be infinite.

And you further agreed that this would hold for "absolutely everything that exists," including mountains. That's leading to some fairly amusing damage control on your part today. Your argument isn't failing because your critics are biased and closed-minded, as you insinuated earlier. It's failing because you're clearly just making it all up as you go, and you're not very good at thinking it out ahead of time.

If you now agree that P(E|H) cannot be 7 billion over infinity without your model being unable to produce any answer at all, then would you care to offer your revised formulation for P(E|H)? Remember the part where you said you thought you could prove immortality mathematically? Let's try to wend our way back to that, shall we?

If we start at the singularity, what is the probability of MT Rainier?

In your formulation, it would have to be some real number over the number of "potential" Mt Raniers, which you agreed would have to be infinite. Well, you agreed to that until you realized what it would do to your argument regarding souls. Now it would have to be some real number over some real number.

But it's all moot, since you've shifted from barns to mountains. Calculating or estimating a tiny probability that we ended up with the Mt Ranier we got is just more Texas sharpshooter nonsense. There was nothing prior to the singularity that made this Mt Ranier special prior to the Big Bang. You don't get to retrospectively assign it significance. It's not a target. Just like you're not a target.

Again, there exists a post that outlines this and all your other fatal flaws. It would be nice if you gave it some attention.

What is the likelihood of a particular event occurring, when nothing is given?

We can examine the parameters of a model without knowing what data go into it. We can conclude, by what we can know regarding the parameters, that the probability of the current Mt Ranier is non-zero. Our best science tells us a deterministic process created it, despite that process being chaotic and therefore not practically predictable. You tried to wave your hands and equate predictability to determinism. You were invited to study elements of chaos theory, which you did not do and have not since done.

 

[JayUtah]

Technically, Mt Rainier is considered active, not extinct.

Technically I referred to the analogy as extinct, not the mountain.

 

[Mojo]

Never mind the analogy, the whole argument is extinct.

 

[JesseCuster]

- But, something over infinity is not really zero – it’s undefined.

Let's say you're right. How does that help your case?

Whether it's zero or undefined, it doesn't help your case. You can't get from either to immortality

If something divided by infinity is undefined, then why have you been using something divided by infinity as the crux of your argument for so long? You're now stuck at the odds you want to calculate being 'undefined'. How do you think this helps your argument?

 

[Loss Leader]

Can we calculate the probability of Jabba's arguments ever convincing anybody?

There are an infinite amount of possible people.
The chance that anyone will ever agree with Jabba is zero.
So, therefore, there must be one immortal person predestined to agree with Jabba.

 

[The Sparrow]

Let's say you're right. How does that help your case?

Whether it's zero or undefined, it doesn't help your case. You can't get from either to immortality

If something divided by infinity is undefined, then why have you been using something divided by infinity as the crux of your argument for so long? You're now stuck at the odds you want to calculate being 'undefined'. How do you think this helps your argument?

Nearest I can figure, he is trying to get at this.

If each soul is unique and their are infinite possible souls, then the likely hood of ANY soul being created/existing is 1/infinity which is effectively zero. Since there ARE souls, the formula of 1/infinity must be wrong.
Therefore it has to be 1/some finite amount. Because the denominator is a finite amount, there are limited souls to go around, therefore some must have to be recycled to make new people. Therefore souls are immortal.

The problem with this of course is
1. we have things with infinite possible variations being actualized all the time.
2. the possible working DNAs, however large, are not infinite
3. it assumes souls are things, not processes arising from a biological function.

Jabba ignores whenever 1,2 or 3 are bought up.

 

[Jabba]

- But, something over infinity is not really zero – it’s undefined...

Which makes it worthless in an expression of likelihood...

- Yeah... Technically.
- However, time and space might be infinite -- and, there could even be an infinity of universes. So, if there is such a thing as infinity, the concept of a real number over infinity is meaningful -- it just isn't specific. A real number divided by infinity is teeny -- just not quite zero.
- And consequently, we can substitute whatever real percentage we want, and say that any real number divided by infinity is smaller.
- I never claimed that the likelihood of your current existence is zero. I just claimed that it is virtually zero, or it approaches zero. No specific percentage, but still a meaningful concept.