Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

Again Jabba's trying for a "Bayesian overload."

1. Take something that is certain to happen. "You will die."
2. Make up as many alternate events as possible, no matter how unlikely.
3. Every event, no matter how improbable, must have at least some tiny sliver of improbability.
4. Therefore enough improbable alternatives to a probable event will magically tip the scale and make the original event less and less improbable.
5. Repeat until original event is improbable enough to slide "virtually impossible" into.
6. Live forever.

Since we're talking about a guy who doesn't understand that 1 and 2 aren't the same number, death exists, and pronouns don't create reality I'm not holding my breath to be wowed by his intricate grasp of the difference between probability and likelihood.
 
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Monza said:
He may not. Jabba recently confirmed to me on this message board that he existed in the year 1888. I assume his parents were born after that.
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Monza said:
Jabba,

Please explain what is the difference between being immortal and being mortal? From your comments, I tend to agree with the people I have quoted above. There is no discernible difference between a mortal person and an immortal person. For example, you have previously stated that (despite being immortal) you did not exist in the year 1888. I then asked what is the likelihood that you would exist in the year 2119. You didn't answer this one, but I assume it is pretty small... say virtually zero...
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Monza
- For some reason, you've made contradictory statements above. If immortality is real -- and I think it is -- I did exist in 1888, and will exist in 2119 (if time gets that far).
 
Jabba said:
Monza
- For some reason, you've made contradictory statements above. If immortality is real -- and I think it is -- I did exist in 1888, and will exist in 2119 (if time gets that far).
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But not in the materialist model, which is what you are trying to disprove.

Also: if you have no memory of existing in 1888, and nothing about your self indicates that it existed in 1888, how is it in any way meaningful to say that you did exist in 1888?
 
Jabba said:
Monza
- For some reason, you've made contradictory statements above. If immortality is real -- and I think it is -- I did exist in 1888, and will exist in 2119 (if time gets that far).
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What do "you" remember about your life in 1888?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Yes we do.
- The likelihood of a fair coin is .5 -- the likelihood of a 2 headed coin is 1.
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JayUtah said:
You asked for "Bayesian likelihood," which isn't really a thing. It appears everyone here has assumed you meant to ask what the posterior probability was, the solution of Bayes' theorem for the example. The answers you're giving us suggest that you're thinking only about the likelihood ratio that is a term in Bayes' theorem. There is such a thing as likelihood, obviously, outside the context of Bayes' theorem. And the posterior probabilities for each of two events, given a common event, are directly comparable only if you have normalized the inverted likelihood via Bayes. But the likelihood ratio by itself doesn't mean what you're ascribing to it. Its only use is to scale the prior probabilities of each of those two events, and your example doesn't contain any priors. You're dissecting Bayes in a way that neither produces correct, useful results nor fixes your proof for immortality.
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jt512 said:
I agree with you that he must have been asking for the likelihoods, not the posterior probabilities.

I have no idea what Jabba was planning to do with the likelihood ratio, but the likelihood ratio by itself is a meaningful quantity in Bayesian inference. The likelihood ratio is sometimes called the "weight of the evidence," and it is independent of the prior odds of the hypotheses. For any prior odds, the likelihood ratio times the prior odds of some hypothesis versus some other hypothesis equals the posterior odds of those hypotheses. So, the likelihood ratio is the amount by which the evidence changes the odds of the hypotheses. In Jabba's example the likelihood ratio was 2 in favor of the 2-headed coin vs a fair coin. So whatever the prior odds were that the coin was 2-headed (vs fair), the posterior odds will be double the prior odds.
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jt,
- Apparently, I was asking about the likelihood ratio -- I'm just not that familiar with the appropriate terminology...
- In doing that, I was trying to emphasize the difference between probability (both prior and posterior) and the likelihood ratio.
- The likelihood, in the Bayesian sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2 headed coin is 1.
 
Jabba said:
If immortality is real -- and I think it is -- I did exist in 1888, and will exist in 2119 (if time gets that far).
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In what exact form will you exist. What are the attributes of that form? In what way, if any, will that form differ in 2119 from its appearances in 1942 and 1888?

Do you think you existed at the Big Bang? If so, in what exact form?

Do you think you existed before the Big Bang? If so, in what exact form?
 
Jabba said:
I'm just not that familiar with the appropriate terminology.
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Then kindly stop trying to "explain" things you aren't familiar with to people who are familiar with them. You approach this discussion as if you have some expertise in statistical inference and the relevant modeling. Your admitted and demonstrated unfamiliarity with both the terminology and the concepts indicate that this is not true. Hence when confronted with statements alleging error in your formulation, kindly do not henceforth assume that you have been presented with an opportunity to "educate" others. Instead, try assuming for starters that you might have actually made an error.

In doing that, I was trying to emphasize the difference between probability (both prior and posterior) and the likelihood ratio.
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No, you're changing horses. The highlighted word is the one you added after your error was pointed out to you. You were trying to draw a distinction between probability and likelihood. You mistakenly invoked a likelihood ratio, which is not the same thing.

The likelihood, in the Bayesian sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2 headed coin is 1.
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That is almost a true statement, but Bayes has nothing to do with it. The conditional probability of getting heads, given that you have a two-headed coin, is 1. That, however, has nothing to do with the point your critics were trying to make when you posed this example.
 
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Jabba said:
jt,
- The likelihood, in the Bayesian sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2 headed coin is 1.
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There is no "Bayesian sense" of likelihood. Likelihood means the same thing whether you're doing Bayesian or non-Bayesian inference.
 
What if it's a Moebius coin and has only one face? Huh? Have I gotcha or have I gotcha?

Old guys like me & Jabba can be pretty tricky. Try getting up earlier in the morning, skepticks.
 
Proof of Immortality, VII

Secure in the knowledge that all of my pennies will have an expected value of 1.5¢ once flipped, I am going to get a coin roller and move to the Bahamas. Adios, pseudo-skeptics.
 
Belz... said:
If you existed in 1888, where are your memories of the events?
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Weeelll... I remember very clearly enjoying the famous chocolate that everyone liked and I sure did follow closely that sports team that did really well too! Ah! The good old days! I owned numerous horses that had silly and/or noble names and I even had a family I loved.

How could I possibly forget THEM?
 
Jabba said:
- The likelihood, in the Bayesian sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2 headed coin is 1.
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The likelihood, probability, chance or whatever word you want to use for it, in any sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2-headed coin is 1. So what? The fact that you flipped a coin and it came up heads is still insufficient data to make any calculation, using Bayes' Theroem or any other mathematical tool, of the probability, likelihood, chance or whatever word you want to use for it, that the coin is double-headed. Your fallacy throughout this 5-year debacle is that you believe you can can therefore make up an a priori chance of the coin being double headed, calculate the conditional probability using Bayes' Theorem, and come up with a valid result. Quite simply, you can't.

Dave
 
Jabba said:
Monza
- For some reason, you've made contradictory statements above. If immortality is real -- and I think it is -- I did exist in 1888, and will exist in 2119 (if time gets that far).
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No. He cited YOU for contradictory statements. Maybe you know the resaon for that.

Hans
 
Just because it's good to start the day with a laugh:

Jabba said:
- I'm not talking about probabilities; I'm talking about likelihoods.
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Jabba said:
Belz,
- If your using a fair coin, what is the probability that it will come up heads? That's the meaning of "likelihood."
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So, Jabba is not talking about probabilities, he's talking about likelihoods. What's the definition of "likelihood"? The probability that something happens.
 
Belz... said:
It's all a distration anyway, to avoid discussing the problem with his actual claim.
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In which aim, of course, it's not exactly working, because it's a good example (albeit based on a different scenario) of one of the fatal flaws of his argument, which is that Bayes' Theorem requires sufficient data to reach a conclusion, and sufficient data is not available.

Dave
 
Jabba said:
- The likelihood, in the Bayesian sense, of getting heads when flipping a 2 headed coin is 1.
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No. That's not what you said and there's no way to charitably interpret what you said as meaning that.

The question originally asked (that you asked) was the following:
Jabba said:
- Say that we do have a penny -- i.e., the probability that this penny exists is 1. We flip the penny and it comes up heads. What is the Bayesian likelihood that this penny is two headed?
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Dave Rogers then told you that you don't have enough information to answer that question. You then claimed that there was enough information to answer the question, and supplied the following answer:

Jabba said:
- Yes we do.
- The likelihood of a fair coin is .5 -- the likelihood of a 2 headed coin is 1.
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There's only one way to possibly interpret what you said, and that is that you were claiming that if you flip a coin and it comes up heads, there is 100% chance that the coin is two headed. That is, of course, patent nonsense, which you appear to be desperately backtracking from.

Either you are being blatantly dishonest about what it is you're actually claiming here, or your thoughts on the matter are just utterly hopelessly muddled and incoherent.
 
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