Proof of Immortality, VI

[Loss Leader]

- First, I’ve tried to avoid using the word “soul” in that it usually implies immortality, and I figured that using it would be like begging the question. Consequently, I’ve used “self” which doesn’t, and I’ve tried to argue that it is (immortal).
- Otherwise, I’m saying that P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E), or 1.00*.01/(virtually zero), or (virtually one). I'm replacing "~H" with the more intuitive "I."
- My math came through the behavioral sciences, consequently wasn’t that strenuous in the first place and is currently largely forgotten – so, I really do appreciate the expertise you guys have brought to the debate and have used to actually support some of my argument…
- But so far, I still disagree that any of my assumptions result in P(E|I) = P(E|~I). All I’m saying is that I’m much more likely to exist, and to exist right now, if I’m immortal than if I’m not.
- Then, to be immortal just means either that we have always existed (in some form of awareness) or will always exist once created (however that happens), and my honest opinion is that the prior probability of our immortality is at least .01.
- I suspect that science is really just still in its infancy -- and as I keep suggesting, that our current attempt to understand reality is analogous to chickens trying to understand calculus. For instance, do we really understand what “now” is -- or, how nothing could produce or become something, or simply has always been something? Etc.
- If cause and effect is absolute, there is no such thing as free will or ultimate meaning. Could these assumed characteristics of life be like emergent properties -- leaving cause and effect in the dust?
- Then, there’s the uncertainty and anthropic principles, and quantums zero and entanglement, etc.
- My best guess so far is either that each of us is a piece of an infinitely divisible bucket of consciousness (and more than one of us used to be Napoleon), or “now” just isn’t what we think it is -- or, a combination of the two – or, something else… Whatever, I think that scientifically speaking, my current existence is an absolute miracle.
- I suspect that reality is (at least, somewhat) “magical” — and what seems ridiculous from a naturalistic/materialistic/scientific point of view is actually what reality is all about...

I struggled to find a single word in the above that wasn't complete nonsense. I lost that battle.

Who cares what you guess or suspect? It's either provable or not. You have no evidence - none. That makes it less valid than Star Wars because at least we know that Harrison Ford exists.

 

[jond]

Jabba, good to know you’ve stopped pretending that you’re not talking about souls.

 

[theprestige]

I for one am happy to sit back and watch the caveman1917-Jabba debate series.

Jabba won't say anything that hasn't been rebutted scores of times already, so there's not really any work for the rest of us to do.

The situation has a very "Devil Went Down to Georgia" feel to it.

 

[Jabba]

Jabba: 1.00*.01/(virtually zero) is not "virtually one".

You are dividing .01 by "virtually zero", which is "equal" to "virtually infinity".

Humots,
- Sorry about that. Flying by the seat of my pants.
- Earlier, when using OOFLam as H, I had used
P(H|E)=(P(E|H)*P(H)/((P(E|H)*P(H)+P(E|~H)*P(~H)), and got the results expected. Above, I tried simplifying things and switched over to a more intuitive hypothesis of "Immortality" (I) and the simpler formula of
P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E) -- which doesn't seem to apply...
- How about P(I|E)=(P(E|I)*P(I)/((P(E|I)*P(I)+P(E|~I)*P(~I)), and specifically, "I" is "We who currently exist are immortal"?

 

[Belz...]

Humots,
- Sorry about that. Flying by the seat of my pants.
- Earlier, when using OOFLam as H, I had used
P(H|E)=(P(E|H)*P(H)/((P(E|H)*P(H)+P(E|~H)*P(~H)), and got the results expected. Above, I tried simplifying things and switched over to a more intuitive hypothesis of "Immortality" (I) and the simpler formula of
P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E) -- which doesn't seem to apply...
- How about P(I|E)=(P(E|I)*P(I)/((P(E|I)*P(I)+P(E|~I)*P(~I)), and specifically, "I" is "We who currently exist are immortal"?

Your premises are wrong. Any formula you concoct based on them is worthless.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba you're trying to add a cheese sandwich to the Battle of Hastings, divide that by color blue, factor in the square root of a potato, and get all that to equal the fuel pump to '89 De Soto.

Your numbers are all nonsense. Nobody (well mostly nobody) gives two squirts about the equation while that first fact is still true.

 

[Dave Rogers]

- How about P(I|E)=(P(E|I)*P(I)/((P(E|I)*P(I)+P(E|~I)*P(~I)), and specifically, "I" is "We who currently exist are immortal"?

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

- Charles Babbage

It seems to me, Jabba, that you are trying to come up with an answer to the question.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

How about...

I baffle at why you think you can present nonsense to people and expect it to be taken seriously. Do you really think that expressing gibberish in mathematical notation somehow hides it from people who read math as easily as English? You've presented this and other pseudo-mathematical nonsense to more than one group of mathematically literate critics, and they have all rejected it and all told you why it was wrong. I baffle at why this has not had the appropriate effect on you. You maintain in the face of all that that your critics are somehow the ones who must be in error and that you are somehow still substantially correct.

My impression is that you're hiding gobbledygook in math to simply present an illusion of erudition. You've given 'em the ol' razzle-dazzle, and now you want applause. You seem to be counting on people not realizing that your math is just made-up nonsense, which means your argument can really only appeal to stupid people. Is that what you're after? Are you simply lowering the bar for your audience until someone stands and cheers?

 

[Belz...]

Jabba you're trying to add a cheese sandwich to the Battle of Hastings, divide that by color blue, factor in the square root of a potato, and get all that to equal the fuel pump to '89 De Soto.

Your numbers are all nonsense. Nobody (well mostly nobody) gives two squirts about the equation while that first fact is still true.

Nonsense! I have it on good authority (well, the guy owes me a trillion dollars) that the equation is the crucial problem with Jabba's argument.

 

[Belz...]

You've presented this and other pseudo-mathematical nonsense to more than one group of mathematically literate critics, and they have all rejected it and all told you why it was wrong. I baffle at why this has not had the appropriate effect on you.

Depends if you consider befuddlement to be the appropriate effect.

 

[Loss Leader]

P(H|E)=(P(E|H)*P(H)/((P(E|H)*P(H)+P(E|~H)*P(~H))
...

- How about P(I|E)=(P(E|I)*P(I)/((P(E|I)*P(I)+P(E|~I)*P(~I))

All you did was change the letter H to the letter I. That's not a difference. That's the exact same thing.

Congratulations, Jabba. You've entered Corn God territory. George Simson should charge you a licensing fee.

 

[Belz...]

All you did was change the letter H to the letter I. That's not a difference. That's the exact same thing.

Bwa ha ha ha! Jabba thinks the letter changes something in the equation!

 

[JayUtah]

Bwa ha ha ha! Jabba thinks the letter changes something in the equation!

But is this anything new? Jabba's argument has always relied on doing little more than change the label for something in the frantic hope someone will mistake it for a new, as-yet undebunked concept. There are still two dozen letters in the alphabet, which means he has at least that many resets waiting in the wings.

 

[Belz...]

But is this anything new?

No but it's always funny.

 

[Jabba]

I'm going to stop you right there. You need to focus on your task at hand, which is showing that you are more likely to exist if you are immortal than if you are mortal. Succeed in doing that and we'll debate the rest, fail in doing that and I'll expect you to acknowledge that your proof doesn't work.

Jabba: 1.00*.01/(virtually zero) is not "virtually one".

You are dividing .01 by "virtually zero", which is "equal" to "virtually infinity".

Humots,
- Sorry about that. Flying by the seat of my pants.
- Earlier, when using OOFLam as H, I had used
P(H|E)=(P(E|H)*P(H)/((P(E|H)*P(H)+P(E|~H)*P(~H)), and got the results expected. Above, I tried simplifying things and switched over to a more intuitive hypothesis of "Immortality" (I) and the simpler formula of
P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E) -- which doesn't seem to apply...
- How about P(I|E)=(P(E|I)*P(I)/((P(E|I)*P(I)+P(E|~I)*P(~I)), and specifically, "I" is "We who currently exist are immortal"?

caveman,
- I'm hoping that you will agree that the last sentence answers your "request" above, and sets the record straight. I think that I understand your previous objection, but resolve it by a better definition of "I."
- P(E|I)>P(E|~I) -- "E" is my current existence, so my claim is that the likelihood that I would currently exist is greater if we who exist are immortal than if we are not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ah Jabba it's like you never left.

No seriously it's like you never left. Time doesn't exist in this Dojo.

 

[Loss Leader]

so my claim is that the likelihood that I would currently exist is greater if we who exist are immortal than if we are not.

Since you do exist, you can't possibly mean the likelihood that you currently exist. That would be 1 in any case.

So we are left with the likelihood that you would come to exist at some point in the past. Why was it more likely that you would come to exist as an immortal being than as a mortal one? There have to be an infinite number of possible immortal beings. So the odds that you specifically would be one of them would be 1/inf., the same as the odds that you specifically would be mortal.

How does immortality help those odds?

 

[jt512]

Dave,
1. I’m back!
2. Can’t help myself.
3. Simple Bayesian formula: P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E)
4. I: I’m immortal
5. E: I currently exist
6. If I allow for
6.1. a 1% prior probability for my immortality, and
6.2. an unimaginably small number for the prior probability of me currently existing, and
7. If P(E|I) is NOT an example of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy,
7.1. P(I|E)=1*.01/.00000000000…1=.9999999…9, and
7.2. I must be immortal.
8. Am I using the formula properly?

Caveman & jt,


- Otherwise, I’m saying that P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E), or 1.00*.01/(virtually zero), or (virtually one). I'm replacing "~H" with the more intuitive "I."

For at least the fourth time:

It is mathematically impossible for P(E|I)P(I) to be greater than P(E). The fact that it is in your formula proves that you are just making up numbers. And you're so bad at making them up, and so ignorant of probability, that you can't even make up numbers that are mathematically consistent. This means that there is no reason for me and anyone else to take your argument seriously or to respond to you further. You, yourself, have conclusively proved that your own argument is false. If I were a moderator, I would now lock the thread.

 

[Jabba]

For at least the fourth time:

It is mathematically impossible for P(E|I)P(I) to be greater than P(E). The fact that it is in your formula proves that you are just making up numbers. And you're so bad at making them up, and so ignorant of probability, that you can't even make up numbers that are mathematically consistent. This means that there is no reason for me and anyone else to take your argument seriously or to respond to you further. You, yourself, have conclusively proved that your own argument is false. If I were a moderator, I would now lock the thread.

jt,
- One of my claims at this point is something to the effect that my overall mathematical concept is still correct -- it's just that I'm weak on the details.
- I now accept that the simple formula I tried to use above --
P(I|E)=P(E|I)*P(I)/P(E) does not apply, but I still think that the more complicated formula -- P(I|E)= P(E|I)P(I)/P(E|I)P(I)+P(E|~I)P(~I) -- does and P(E|I) can be greater than P(E|~I).
- I assume that the simple formula I used previously is not appropriate for comparing hypotheses.

 

[JayUtah]

jOne of my claims at this point is something to the effect that my overall mathematical concept is still correct -- it's just that I'm weak on the details.

No. As has been explained to you by several different people, including people you yourself consulted, your mathematical concept is broken at its very core. it's not just slightly broken. It's fully broken. You're pulling numbers out of your kiester and pretending they equate to something meaningful. There is no technique in mathematics that validates that.

I assume that the simple formula I used previously is not appropriate for comparing hypotheses.

Your proof is broken at the fundamental level of understanding how a statistical inference works at all. It's not just a matter of rearranging the deck chairs. But I'm sure that's all you'll continue to do, for years and years and years.