Proof of Immortality, VII

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Jabba said:
Where does my formula go wrong?
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You've been told where, and you've admitted you can't fix it. It's insulting to your critics that you keep asking as if it's something you don't already know.

In short, the rationale for your model is based on several fallacies you can't be bothered to learn about or avoid. Your hypothesis post-justifies an already-observed event. You adopt an indirect approach against a straw-man adversary. And on and on -- you know where the list of fatal flaws is. You know, the one you admit you can't cope with.

And here again you're trolling for a de minimis correction. Asking where your "formula" goes wrong suggests you can correct your proof by simple adjustments to the algebra. Your errors are far broader than that and transcend mere algebra. I can express Pythagoras' theorem in a simple formula. It's a correct formula, and it embodies a model of analytical geometry and is testable. But if I solve it for random numbers, I don't get to say that it works for some given triangle. And someone pointing out my error isn't limited to commenting on whether Pythagoras got his formula right or not.

You're simply making up all the numbers that go into your model and then pretending it arrives at a valid and useful answer. The problem with your "formula" is how you come up with the numbers you plan to shove into it.
 
Jabba said:
I try to avoid a problem with that issue by tilting the numbers in favor of the other side.
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You tilt some numbers in your favor and some numbers against your favor. But the numbers you allow to seem disfavorable have no appreciable algebraic significance. You know this. You told us you had a preconceived belief in what the likelihood ratio should be, and you've all but admitted that you're just trying to rationalize the Big Denominator you know makes it happen.

The problem seems to be that you're used to dealing with ignorant sycophants who don't check your math. So you think you can pull these little algebraic and arithmetic stunts and not get caught. The bottom line is that you're making up all the numbers in your model. Pretending that you've been fair to your critics in those inventions and hoping to gaslight them into accepting that is just insulting.
 
Jabba said:
Do you think that for all intents and purposes, the priors should be 1.00 for H and .00 for ~H?
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Asked and answered. The problem your critics have with your model is that you're making up all the numbers that go into it. Asking your critics to make up different numbers doesn't address their criticism or fix your broken model. You've formulated a model that requires values you can't possibly know, or which in some cases don't rationally exist. And in a lightning-bolt moment of hubris, you've expressly claimed that since you can't possibly know what they are, it's therefore valid for you to make up whatever values you want and the result will still have probative effect. You need to come to grips with how jaw-droppingly ignorant such a proposal is.
 
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theprestige said:
Another virtue of Jay's comprehensive listing is that there's nothing he can move to that hasn't already failed.
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That's how you unmask a crooked shell game. You ask the operator to turn over all the shells at once. If he refuses, there's a pretty inevitable conclusion to be drawn about whether the operator believes he's being honest.
 
Jabba said:
Thermal,
- In a way, I agree. I try to avoid a problem with that issue by tilting the numbers in favor of the other side.
- For instance, in reality I think that the prior probabilities of the complementary hypotheses are much more in my favor than I've indicated. Do you think that I've tilted some of the numbers in my favor?
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via Imgflip Meme Generator
 
Dave Rogers said:
This is fun. I constructed a piece of satire that was intended from the start to be an invalid argument, and you've decided to get into an argument about which bits of it are invalid.

:popcorn3

Dave
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So you were refuting Belz with a piece of satire?
Dave Rogers said:
Belz... said:
Even if it's correct, my understanding is that it averages out way before it gets to the macroscopic scale, so for all intents and purposes the universe is entirely deterministic, making the odds of ANY event 1.
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In fact, we could then draw a Bayesian inference.

(1) The probability of any event in a deterministic universe is 1, so P(E|D)=1.
{...}
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ETA: or is this just the latest instance where a claim by the "skeptics" side gets refuted, and as a response it gets presented as "just satire" (or "we're just repeating what Jabba says")? Because I can clearly see the claim in Belz's post you quoted and then immediately repeated.
 
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jt512 said:
I don't know, but I bet I can start a side argument about it: If we live in a deterministic universe D, and E is the event that a (future) coin flip will land heads, what is P(E|D)?
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That was exactly the example I had in mind, P(E|D) (landing heads) and P(~E|D) (landing tails) can't very well both be 1.
 
caveman1917 said:
That was exactly the example I had in mind, P(E|D) (landing heads) and P(~E|D) (landing tails) can't very well both be 1.
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They're both 0.5, to start with. There's two possible outcomes: A deterministic universe where it's heads, or one where it's tails. Without any further information, we can start by assuming each universe is equally likely. Then we can adjust the probabilities from there as more information comes to light.
 
Jabba said:
- OK. Do you accept that the likelihood of your current existence involves the necessary events from the beginning of time -- such as the joining of the specific sperm from your mom's father and the specific ovum from your mom's mom that produced your mom?
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No, no more that MT Tahoma
 
Jabba said:
- In a way, I agree. I try to avoid a problem with that issue by tilting the numbers in favor of the other side.
- For instance, in reality I think that the prior probabilities of the complementary hypotheses are much more in my favor than I've indicated. Do you think that I've tilted some of the numbers in my favor?
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Yes, because I remember what you did when you were asked what your formula would look like if H was the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul. You arbitrarily chose different numbers to make your existence under H much more likely.
 
Jabba said:
- OK. Do you accept that the likelihood of your current existence involves the necessary events from the beginning of time -- such as the joining of the specific sperm from your mom's father and the specific ovum from your mom's mom that produced your mom?
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Do you accept that your current existence requires all those events whether or not you have an immortal soul?
 
Jabba said:
Thermal,
- In a way, I agree. I try to avoid a problem with that issue by tilting the numbers in favor of the other side.
- For instance, in reality I think that the prior probabilities of the complementary hypotheses are much more in my favor than I've indicated. Do you think that I've tilted some of the numbers in my favor?
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Thermal said:
Jabba:

Yes, I think that in your enthusiasm (or fascination) with your hypothesis, you may be assigning values that feed a confirmation bias.
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Thermal,
- Can you propose numbers for the prior probabilities that would effectively rule out a confirmation bias on my part?
 
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