Proof of Immortality, VI

[Jabba]

What is it about human selves that suggests the possibility of more than one life that is not true for mountains?

- First of all, the meaning of the word "life" is not the same thing when talking about mountains as it is when talking about selves. Consequently, your issue would seem to be a "straw man."
- Nothing is better than heaven. But then, an apple is better than nothing. Consequently, an apple must be better than heaven! Not quite the same error, but similar...

 

[JayUtah]

- First of all, the meaning of the word "life" does not mean the same thing when talking about mountains as it does when talking about selves. Your issue would seem to be a "straw man."

No. And your problem is still special pleading. You've just up and decided that life is somehow magical compared to everything else. You've declared on no more reliable grounds than your say-so that there is no analogue to life -- specifically, the finiteness of life -- for nonliving organisms. You're struggling to foist the concept that the properties associated with living beings must somehow be entirely unlike any other property of any other entity.

Your ongoing straw man remains your comical characterization of materialism, specifically how materialism explains what we observe about living beings. As I said before, we introduce these inanimate examples to illustrate how materialism treats living and nonliving entities the same when it comes to chaotic process, to determinism, and -- most importantly -- to concepts like emergence. This is an attempt to educate you on what your critics actually hold, not the pale, silly caricature you're trying to paste on it.

Life, consciousness, and self-awareness have no magical, special status in materialism that separates them somehow from all other kinds of properties. Your fervent desire that they should have a special status is...

Simply.

Wrong.

Nothing is better than heaven. But then, an apple is better than nothing. Consequently, an apple must be better than heaven! Not quite the same error, but similar...

Gibberish.

 

[godless dave]

- First of all, the meaning of the word "life" is not the same thing when talking about mountains as it is when talking about selves.

Indeed, life requires matter to not only exist in a certain configuration but to behave in certain ways. Unless I die in a fire or catastrophic explosion there will be a period of time in the future when I am no longer alive but my body still exists.

So now we're back to this question:

If, at the beginning of the universe, the likelihood of Mount Rainier's current existence was very small, is that a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for Mount Rainier's current existence?

If the answer is no, why is a similarly small likelihood for your current existence a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for your existence?

 

[JayUtah]

...there will be a period of time in the future when I am no longer alive but my body still exists.

The straightforward concept of emergence. Similarly a time will come in the life of every Volkswagen when it will stop displaying the property of going 60 mph but will, in all other respects, still be a Volkswagen. Consciousness, in materialism, is no more mystical a property than that. A human organism, in proper working order, will display the property of consciousness or self-awareness. Let it fall out of order and it will eventually stop satisfying the threshold criteria for emergence. Emergence requires all the parts to work together, and the resulting property is a property of the ensemble of parts, not any individual part. All the parts of a Volkswagen have to be in good working order in order for certain emergent properties like self-propulsion to occur.

The period of time in which that good working order persists is as vital a definition of life for a Volkswagen as for a human being. We will all one day be lifeless meatsacks, just as the Volkswagen will one day be a lifeless rusting hulk. Death is the moment, in each case, where emergence is no longer satisfied. The rest of the decay proceeds in its own good time.

If, at the beginning of the universe, the likelihood of Mount Rainier's current existence was very small, is that a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for Mount Rainier's current existence?

If the answer is no, why is a similarly small likelihood for your current existence a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for your existence?

Jesse Custer's answer a page back needs more emphasis. If the harsh realities of improbable existence derive equally in all cases, as a mathematical certainty, from the notion of potentiality, then why all of a sudden do we need this pseudo-philosophical criteria to distinguish the math in different contexts? This makes about as much sense as Douglas Adams' "bistromathics" in which numbers behave differently in restaurants than in the rest of the universe. Only Adams meant for his to be funny.

 

[Toontown]

I think I've tried to explain this before. I'll try one more time, since many posters clearly don't get it, and keep making the same incorrect assertions year after dreary year.

Probabilistically, "significance" is entirely about perspective. This is true because probability is entirely about information, and information is dependent on perspective.

Many people incorrectly believe "prediction" determines significance. This is true, but only indirectly, because a prediction is either the result of or establishes a particular perspective.

Practically, this means two observers can witness the same event, and the event can be significant to one observer and insignificant to the other. Which, quite often, is exactly what happens.

Example: You're playing holdem poker. You have a lowly pocket pair of 3,3, which you played because no one raised and you have position. your only opponent in the hand is slow playing pocket J, J, hoping for some weak action. The flop is rainbow 10,9,5. Small, uninformative betting and calling ensues. Then the turn comes, a 3, giving you 3,3,3.

The turn 3 is very significant to you, giving you a hand that will be hard to beat, given the weak board and action by your opponent. But the 3 means almost nothing to your opponent, other than slightly improving his chances, from his perspective, because the 3 creates no obvious draws, is lower than his J,J, and a skilled opponent is less likely to play a hand containing or involving a 3.

You've both assessed the effect of the turn 3 correctly, given the information each of you have gleaned from your respective perspectives. But the turn 3 has provided much more information to you than to your opponent. Your perspective-determined information informs you that you probably have the winning hand. Your opponent thinks he likely has it, due to his relatively uninformative perspective.

Meanwhile, an objective observer who is not involved in the hand has no idea what any of the board cards imply. From his perspective, the board cards are just some random cards that came off the deck. He predicts to himself, based on his perspective, that whoever bets first on the river will take the pot. His prediction will probably fail. Your opponent will bet first on the river, but only has a 0.045 probability of taking he pot.

Meanwhile, it just so happens that the game is being televised, and the interested viewers know exactly what the facts are, thanks to the hole card cameras. They know your opponent has a a pair, and can beat you by catching a J on the river. That's actually not much more useful information than you have. The turn 3 was very informative to you. The only way you get disinformed and disemboweled is if a J comes on the river, a 0.045 probability.

 

[Hokulele]

Regardless of your subjective valuation of the 3, it does not change the objective odds of the probable winner. It may change how you bet, but it won't change who wins.

 

[Toontown]

Regardless of your subjective valuation of the 3, it does not change the objective odds of the probable winner. It may change how you bet, but it won't change who wins.

Swung on and missed by Hokulele.

It changes how you bet because it changes how much you know about the objective odds of the probable winner.

The player with the pocket 3,3 knows much more than the objective observer and the player with the pocket J, J.

 

[Loss Leader]

- I think that the way I first introduced the hypothesis was, "We each have Only One Finite Life to live (at most)." And, I was referring to human "selves."

If such "selves" exist, define them.

Almost no molecules that were borne from my mother are present within me today. In fact, a good 95% of me wasn't born at all. Through my life, my tastes have changed, my stamina, the people I love, my sexual preference (going from "No thanks" to "Yes, please").

What exactly is this self? What are its characteristics.

And please don't say that it's whatever characteristics reincarnationists believe because: 1) there is no single group of reincarnationists with a single definition; and 2) this is your theory so you have to define your terms.

 

[Hokulele]

Swung on and missed by Hokulele.

It changes how you bet because it changes how much you know about the objective odds of the probable winner.

The player with the pocket 3,3 knows much more than the objective observer and the player with the pocket J, J.

But it doesn't change what hand is most likely to win, so it has no bearing at all on Jabba's case. It is merely a red herring as relates to the OP.

 

[abaddon]

I think I've tried to explain this before. I'll try one more time, since many posters clearly don't get it, and keep making the same incorrect assertions year after dreary year.

Yeah, think about that. It could well be that one possibility is that you are so uber intelligent that the rest of us dullards are too stupid to understand your shiny intellectual brilliance, right?

Or could there be a different explanation?

 

[RoboTimbo]

Yeah, think about that. It could well be that one possibility is that you are so uber intelligent that the rest of us dullards are too stupid to understand your shiny intellectual brilliance, right?

Or could there be a different explanation?

Maybe he thinks holistically?

 

[Fudbucker]

Swung on and missed by Hokulele.

It changes how you bet because it changes how much you know about the objective odds of the probable winner.

The player with the pocket 3,3 knows much more than the objective observer and the player with the pocket J, J.

Quibble, but might be important:
How does the player "know more"? There wasn't extra information presented to him. Both players saw the same amount of information when the cards were revealed. The player with three 3's can make a better inference about the winningness of his hand..., but that's not because he knows more than his opponent, but because the facts he does know are particularly relevant for predicting the winner. Both players know an equal amount about the game: their hole cards, the bets, and the up cards.

 

[Toontown]

Yeah, think about that. It could well be that one possibility is that you are so uber intelligent that the rest of us dullards are too stupid to understand your shiny intellectual brilliance, right?

Or could there be a different explanation?

Yeah. Another possibility is that I'm not uber intelligent, and don't even need to be.

But you can't be a beacon if your light don't shine.

 

[Toontown]

But it doesn't change what hand is most likely to win, so it has no bearing at all on Jabba's case. It is merely a red herring as relates to the OP.

Swung on and missed by Hokulele. Strike 2.

The Bayes Theorem, as Jabba has attempted to use it, as a test of hypotheses, does not and is not intended to change which hypothesis is most likely to be correct. It's about knowing more about which hypothesis is most likely to be correct.

And does employ perspective in a very obvious way.

 

[Toontown]

Quibble, but might be important:
How does the player "know more"? There wasn't extra information presented to him. Both players saw the same amount of information when the cards were revealed. The player with three 3's can make a better inference about the winningness of his hand..., but that's not because he knows more than his opponent, but because the facts he does know are particularly relevant for predicting the winner. Both players know an equal amount about the game: their hole cards, the bets, and the up cards.

Well, if you're counting bits of information, both players have the same number of bits of information.

Edited: On second thought, I see what you're getting at. I shouldn't say "more" information, I should say "more significant" information.

 

[StackOverflow]

I think I've tried to explain this before. I'll try one more time, since many posters clearly don't get it, and keep making the same incorrect assertions year after dreary year.

Probabilistically, "significance" is entirely about perspective. This is true because probability is entirely about information, and information is dependent on perspective.

Many people incorrectly believe "prediction" determines significance. This is true, but only indirectly, because a prediction is either the result of or establishes a particular perspective.

Practically, this means two observers can witness the same event, and the event can be significant to one observer and insignificant to the other. Which, quite often, is exactly what happens.

Example: You're playing holdem poker. You have a lowly pocket pair of 3,3, which you played because no one raised and you have position. your only opponent in the hand is slow playing pocket J, J, hoping for some weak action. The flop is rainbow 10,9,5. Small, uninformative betting and calling ensues. Then the turn comes, a 3, giving you 3,3,3.

The turn 3 is very significant to you, giving you a hand that will be hard to beat, given the weak board and action by your opponent. But the 3 means almost nothing to your opponent, other than slightly improving his chances, from his perspective, because the 3 creates no obvious draws, is lower than his J,J, and a skilled opponent is less likely to play a hand containing or involving a 3.

You've both assessed the effect of the turn 3 correctly, given the information each of you have gleaned from your respective perspectives. But the turn 3 has provided much more information to you than to your opponent. Your perspective-determined information informs you that you probably have the winning hand. Your opponent thinks he likely has it, due to his relatively uninformative perspective.

Meanwhile, an objective observer who is not involved in the hand has no idea what any of the board cards imply. From his perspective, the board cards are just some random cards that came off the deck. He predicts to himself, based on his perspective, that whoever bets first on the river will take the pot. His prediction will probably fail. Your opponent will bet first on the river, but only has a 0.045 probability of taking he pot.

Meanwhile, it just so happens that the game is being televised, and the interested viewers know exactly what the facts are, thanks to the hole card cameras. They know your opponent has a a pair, and can beat you by catching a J on the river. That's actually not much more useful information than you have. The turn 3 was very informative to you. The only way you get disinformed and disemboweled is if a J comes on the river, a 0.045 probability.

Can you explain to a poster who "does not get it", how your oversimplified, "made in hindsight"-example is of any relevance to this thread?

 

[Mojo]

Well, if you're counting bits of information, both players have the same number of bits of information.

Edited: On second thought, I see what you're getting at. I shouldn't say "more" information, I should say "more significant" information.

Why is the player with the threes's information "more significant"?

 

[Toontown]

Why is the player with the threes's information "more significant"?

The turn 3 provides "you" more accurate and more actionable information about the probable final outcome, and how to play correctly, than it provides the other player.

It the seats were switched, the other player would have gotten the more significant information from the turn 3's appearance.

 

[Toontown]

Can you explain to a poster who "does not get it", how your oversimplified, "made in hindsight"-example is of any relevance to this thread?

Apparently not. You just admitted you still don't get it, after I practically spoon fed it to you.

 

[Mojo]

The turn 3 provides "you" more accurate and more actionable information about the probable final outcome, and how to play correctly, than it provides the other player.

It the seats were switched, the other player would have gotten the more significant information from the turn 3's appearance.

Swung on and missed by Toontown.

Why is the player holding threes's information "more significant"? Put another way, why is three threes "more significant" than two jacks and a three?