Proof of Immortality, VII

[JayUtah]

But "probability" is not what we're looking for -- we're looking for "likelihood."

While you can quote the textbook definition of the difference between those two concepts, you have not yet formulated a model that properly respects the difference.

As I've said many times, this is a chronic problem in your style of argumentation. Often when someone points out that you're doing something wrong, your response is simply to quote what the right way is of doing something. But you don't demonstrate that your method implements that right way. You just beg the correctness of your work without addressing the evidence of error. This is common in narcissistic modes of presentation. You cast yourself as some sort of teacher, and you surmise that if someone objects to your presentation it's because they don't understand it and your job is to explain it, not to correct your own error.

Let's get one thing very clear. You are in no way an expert in statistics and statistical reasoning. No one whom you have consulted in the relevant capacity agrees that you are. And in your less narcissistic moments you have admitted you don't really know how the inference method works. You are not the teacher, and your audience here are not your students.

 

[JayUtah]

Likelihood, very often, if not usually, refers to an E that already exists.

The spot on the barn existed before the Texas sharpshooter fired his shot. It was only given significance among all the other spots on the barn because that's where the bullet landed, and only because the bullet landed there. The event upon which the likelihood is conditioned cannot, within the context of the likelihood, suddenly acquire highly improbable status.

 

[Belz...]

- But, first of all, the lottery is not actually random -- however hard the engineers work on making it unpredictable.
- Science agrees that the particular bodies born are also not random -- just that we don't know nearly enough to predict what body will be born. In that respect, which ticket will be drawn and which body will be born are very similarly unpredictable.

Why are you arguing against your own theory? If nothing is actually random, then all odds are always 1.

 

[JayUtah]

In that respect, which ticket will be drawn and which body will be born are very similarly unpredictable.

No. They are not "similarly" unpredictable. Nor does the inability to predict them equate to them being random in the same way. Again, if you had studied chaos theory as I suggested to you years ago, you would understand this. But instead you wish to rely upon your own inadequate knowledge and declare it to be superior. This is why no one takes you seriously; you are ineducable.

And then, second of all, what we call "likelihood" is based only on what is given. It isn't based upon anything else.

Very wrong. A likelihood merely fixes some of potentially several parameters in a model. The other parameters still apply and are allowed to continue to vary. Remember when we tried to have a discussion about degrees of freedom and you didn't want to? That's now coming home to roost.

And, given those givens, the likelihood of now being during my lifetime is 1/140,000,000.

You still didn't show your work. So no one is obliged to even consider your answer, much less accept it. Further you still haven't fixed the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.

Though, OOFLam should be replaced with OOFL.

It should be replaced with the actual competing hypothesis, not this straw man you keep foisting.

 

[Jabba]

Dave,
- I do understand that (given OOFLam) -- but, that isn't the issue. Likelihood, very often, if not usually, refers to an E that already exists.

Then the answer is 1. There is only one time period that your lifetime could have fallen into.

If you're talking about the likelihood of you existing, period, then that's a different question.

- Again, the "likelihood" of something refers to a lottery-like situation. Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets. The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

 

[Dave Rogers]

- Again, the "likelihood" of something refers to a lottery-like situation. Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets. The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

Suppose you buy a lottery ticket where the odds are 140,000,000 to 1 - not, in fact, an unlikely level of odds for a national or state lottery. What do you think is the likelihood, once you have drawn the ticket, that the ticket you have drawn is in fact the one you have drawn?

Let me give you a clue. It's a lot bigger than 1/140,000,000.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

In a daily lottery, the likelihood of drawiing today a ticket that is valid today is 1. The likelihood of drawing today a ticket that is valid tomorrow is zero. None of that has to do with when the tickets existed, but rather with the relationship between the determining the validity of the ticket and when the ticket was drawn. This is the essence of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. We can go on to say that the likelihood of a winning ticket, given that the ticket is valid, has only the parameters pertaining to a time-independent drawing. That's how likelihood works.

 

[godless dave]

- Again, the "likelihood" of something refers to a lottery-like situation.

Then you are misapplying it, because the time you exist was not a lottery-like situation.

Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets. The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

You did not have an equal chance of existing in each of those 100 year segments. Life on earth has only existed for around 3 or 4 billion years. Modern homo sapiens for between 200,000 and 400,000. The specific circumstances necessary for you, Jabba, to exist only existed once and only at one particular time.

 

[JayUtah]

Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets.

But the probability of any human life arising in the first billion years is markedly different than the probability of it arising in the 14th billion years. And that is markedly different than the probability of any human life arising in the past 10,000 years. Why do you not consider that, O "certified statistician"?

 

[Belz...]

- Again, the "likelihood" of something refers to a lottery-like situation. Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets. The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

No, you've already admitted that it's entirely cause-and-effect dependant. The odds are 1. You have defeated your own argument. Your odds of existing today, as you agreed, is 1, and therefore is not unlikely at all; it's certain. Thanks for proving materialism.

 

[carlitos]

----

never mind, JayUtah said it better than me.

14 billion years is a stupid timeline for a human being to consider as his operational timeline. 200,000 years or 10,000 years or 2,000 years would make a lot more sense, but then you draw gradually towards "1" and we know that ultimately leads to 1.00.

 

[JayUtah]

never mind, JayUtah said it better than me.

Thanks, but you still thought to say it, which means you saw the error too. And even I got ninjaed by godless dave. The point is that Jabba's critics immediately saw that the distribution was not uniform.

Jabba, a probability distribution function is one of the most elementary concepts in statistics. You don't seem to know what it is or why it's needed. When looking at such a large, heterogeneous sample space as the history of all known time, why didn't it immediately occur to you that you can't validly distribute the outcomes uniformly across the space? Three of your critics instantly saw that error on your part and wrote about it. They clearly know about non-uniform probability distributions. Why? Because so very many probability distributions in the real world are not uniform, and there are people such as your critics who use these methods in the real world to solve real problems and have proper experience.

Let's put the fine point on it. You propose to take your proof elsewhere and present it to statisticians. Leaving aside that you've already done that and had your head handed to you, the subtext of that proposal is that your critics here aren't competent or qualified to review your proof. Or so you desperately want it believed. You occasionally poison the well by accusing your critics of being biased, or of not being smart enough to grasp your genius. Well today you just fell flat on your face. You don't know what likelihood is, while your critics do. You don't know what a probability distribution function is, while your critics do. You really don't know anything that properly belongs to statistical reasoning, while your critics clearly do -- and they have taken pains to try to correct your errors. As someone else said, you're applying cargo-cult reasoning and demanding that everyone agree it's working. I'm sure it will fool the same kind of rubes who praised you over your failed Shroud proof, but it won't fly in the real world.

You are not the teacher here, Jabba. You aren't even a passing student.

 

[caveman1917]

No, I am not confused; and, no, you have not refuted my argument. You have only misunderstood it, which, of course, could by my fault for not communicating it properly. Let me try again.

Jabba observes that he exists, and he believes that his observation that he exists is evidence for the hypothesis he is immortal, H_im, over the hypothesis that he is mortal, H_m. Now, let's assume that H_m is true. What is the probability that Jabba would observe that he exists under H_m? It's 1. Why? Consider the alternative: what is P(Jabba_observes_that_he_doesn't_exist | H_m)? it's 0. Therefore, P(Jabba_observes_that_he_exists| H_m) = 1. And this is true of H_im, as well. Therefore, P(E|H_m) = P(E|H_im) = 1.

The trick Jabba has unconsciously played is misstating E as "Jabba exists," when in fact E is "Jabba observes that Jabba exists." But Jabba could never observe his own nonexistence; therefore, Jabba's observation that he exists is the only outcome that Jabba could ever observe, which is why I've been saying that, for all intents and purposes, Jabba is conditioning his observation on his own existence. To put it another way, Jabba's sample space is E.

Yes, you are confused about this. Let me paraphrase:

Caveman observes that he exists, and he believes that his observation that he exists is evidence for the hypothesis that the wire wasn't live, ~L, over the hypothesis that it was live, L. Now, let's assume that L is true. What is the probability that Caveman would observe that he exists under L? It's 1. Why? Consider the alternative: what is P(Caveman_observes_that_he_doesn't_exist | L)? It's 0. Therefor, P(Caveman_observes_that_he_exists | L) = 1. and this is true of ~L, as well. Therefor, P(E|L) = P(E|~L) = 1.

And yet I clearly can conclude that the wire likely wasn't live based on my own existence. Or for another one:

Caveman observes that he exists, and he believes that his observation that he exists is evidence for the hypothesis that the universe supports life, S, over the hypothesis that it doesn't support life, ~S. Now, let's assume that S is true. What is the probability that Caveman would observe that he exists under S? It's 1. Why? Consider the alternative: what is P(Caveman_observes_that_he_doesn't_exist | S)? It's 0. Therefor, P(Caveman_observes_that_he_exists | S) = 1. and this is true of ~S, as well. Therefor, P(E|S) = P(E|~S) = 1.

So I can't conclude that the universe supports life based on observing my own existence? By your logic statistics is simply impossible, nothing can be derived from anything.

This is by now the, what, third refutation of your claim or something. Yet you will simply keep repeating it as if it were true, no? Just because you can't observe your own non-existence doesn't mean you can't deduce things from observing your existence. That's like saying that I can't deduce that humans still exist based on observing my own existence, just because if humans didn't exist anymore then I wouldn't be able to observe my own non-existence. That's just, well, "confused" is the only term I can think of here.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba.

I have a box with a window. On the window is a shade attached to a timer so I can control how often the window is open, anywhere from always open to only open for a nanosecond a day.

I put video camera in the box, pointing out the window.

So let's create a variable out of this. X is the percent of time the window is open. Y is the percent of time the video camera is capturing an image of what's outside the window.

X:Y is always going to be 1:1. I can't make that change by making the window being opened more or less frequent.

No matter how improbable the window being open is, the camera is only going be able to take video outside the box when the window is open. They are linked probabilities.

I cannot review the video from the camera and marvel in amazement at the amazing coincidence that it just happened to be taking video from outside the box at the same time the window was opened and holy gee what are the odds of that...

Do you understand this? Do you understand you can't use your existence only being experiencable when you existed to experience to experience it.

 

[jt512]

jt,
- But "probability" is not what we're looking for -- we're looking for "likelihood."
- (Caveman, I can't help myself.)

Because your two H's are discrete, the likelihood terms, P(E|H_i), are, in fact, probabilities.

 

[Jabba]

- Again, the "likelihood" of something refers to a lottery-like situation. Here, you have 14 billion years to be represented in 100 year tickets. The likelihood of randomly drawing the ticket that includes today is 1/140,000,000.

Then you are misapplying it, because the time you exist was not a lottery-like situation.



You did not have an equal chance of existing in each of those 100 year segments. Life on earth has only existed for around 3 or 4 billion years. Modern homo sapiens for between 200,000 and 400,000. The specific circumstances necessary for you, Jabba, to exist only existed once and only at one particular time.

- But, that isn't the issue.
- But then, unfortunately, I was wrong, myself, as to the likelihood of now being within my particular years. Will time go on forever? If so, there is an infinity of 100 year segments in all of time, and the likelihood of now being during my segment is infinitesimal (at most).
- And further, I've been assuming that Time began with the big bang. Does that really make sense? Was there an empty time before the filled time?
- But anyway, here, I'm not asking about the probability of me currently existing. I'm asking about the likelihood of now being during my lifetime...

 

[Jabba]

Because your two H's are discrete, the likelihood terms, P(E|H_i), are, in fact, probabilities.

jt,
- You'll need to explain.

 

[godless dave]

- But, that isn't the issue.
- But then, unfortunately, I was wrong, myself, as to the likelihood of now being within my particular years. Will time go on forever? If so, there is an infinity of 100 year segments in all of time, and the likelihood of now being during my segment is infinitesimal (at most).

Hold on a second. What do you mean by "now"? People who lived 100 years ago thought of the time they were living in as "now". Ditto people 1000 years ago and 100,000 years ago. February 14, 2018, 4:18pm Central Time is not some special moment in time. It was "now" when I wrote this. In another minute it will no longer be "now".

- But anyway, here, I'm not asking about the probability of me currently existing. I'm asking about the likelihood of now being during my lifetime...

And, as I said before, that likelihood is 1, because this is the only time you, Jabba, could exist. The likelihood of you existing at any other time in the past is 0, because the preconditions for your existence had not been met. The likelihood of you being born in the future is 0, because the preconditions for your existence will no longer be there.

 

[JoeMorgue]

jt,
- You'll need to explain.

Why you won't listen and will just lie about whatever gets said anyway.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Hold on a second. What do you mean by "now"? People who lived 100 years ago thought of the time they were living in as "now". Ditto people 1000 years ago and 100,000 years ago. February 14, 2018, 4:18pm Central Time is not some special moment in time.

This is Jabba we're talking. Pronouns are not exactly his strong suit.

So in much the same was as another me (wait for it) "wouldn't be meeeeee." another now wouldn't be the same now because that's how pronouns work in Jabba's head.