Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

[JayUtah]

- I've given my answer, as best I can, for the Texas Sharpshooter accusation.

You've given this same answer several times. It's a non-answer. You're simply begging the reader to agree that your subjective sense of wonderment at the mere fact that you're alive should have some sort of objective, pre-ordained statistical significance.

It simply doesn't.

And if that's the best answer you can provide, then you lose the debate. You can't show that your sampled data escapes the obvious bias that forms the basis of your inference. Further you seem to think that just because you wrote down an answer, it must be somehow valid or noteworthy. That's now how debate works. We don't just keep lowering the bar until you can clear it. And no, the problem is not that everyone but you lacks your particular discernment and intuition to see things others don't. In this case you're just provably wrong.

Indicate what you see as my other fatal faults, and I'll do my best to answer each one.

Stop pretending you have any interest in an honest debate. You haven't managed to convince a single person you've presented all this to that you have the slightest intent toward a meaningful evaluation of your proof. They can all see -- most quite quickly -- that you're just looking to create the illusion of objective verification for your predetermined religious belief. You seem to think you're the first who's ever tried this, and therefore that your critics can be easily fooled.

You have already admitted there is one fatal flaw in your argument, by your inability to overcome the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. That alone is enough for people to reject your proof. And guess what? People have rejected your proof, and for that defensible reason. That's how fatal flaws work. You don't get to just brush them aside as if the rest of your argument somehow still has merit.

But since you asked: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11871278&postcount=3198

You know the drill. One post containing all the answers to all the flaws. One or two sentences for each answer. No anthological quotation, no dialectics, no color-coded "maps," no numbered lists, no tedious restatements of the original claims, no distractions, no commitments to sub-sub-sub-issues. Just tell us how you plan, in your "final" proof, to overcome each of those fatal flaws. If this takes you more than an hour to compose, you're not doing it as I intended you do.

Put up or shut up.

 

[theprestige]

Indicate what you see as my other fatal faults, and I'll do my best to answer each one.

The sad thing is, you're already doing your best to answer each one.

 

[Jabba]

Jabba, before we even get to the Texas Sharpshoot fallacy, you seem to be under the impression that if something is very unlikely, it shouldn't happen. But that's not what unlikely means. It's not a synonym for impossible.

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

 

[jond]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

And yet, ~OOFL is .62x1/10¹⁰⁰ which means it is less likely than OOFL.

 

[jsfisher]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

You persist on using the wrong word. What does that say about the argument you present?

 

[Belz...]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam

This is a number you've invented out of this air. It is not a given nor does it follow from even your bastardised version of materialism. You're simply wrong.

minus the Sharpshooter issue

You can't remove that issue. It's integral to your argument.

-- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

The former, since we've demonstrated a thousand times to you that the latter can't possibly be more likely under any circumstance. Your total and utter inability to understand that is not important.

 

[godless dave]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

Neither because the likelihood of my current existence has no bearing on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam.

 

[The Sparrow]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

Ooflam!

Why would I even consider a made up alternative with no evidence?

 

[RoboTimbo]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence

Why would anyone in their right mind agree to that for their current existence rather than 1?

-- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

Whether materialism is a given or not, you are engaging in the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy and it's fatal to your argument.

ETA: But then, the rest of the list is just as fatal to your argument.

You lose.

 

[abaddon]

Jabba,

You say "P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H))"

But your "E" are not the same.

Your "E" on the left hand side of the equation is merely your existence. Your "E" on the RHS is an entirely different thing, you with a "SOUL".

E must be a singular thing. If it is different depending upon which side of the equation it exists, it is useless and your equation cannot work. P(E) cannot be 1 on the LHS yet some other value on the RHS. Were that to be the case E=mc² could be E=mc³ or whatever value one wanted to insert. Or for example E=0.768 E. Does that make sense? Sure, if you define E as being different depending on if it is to the right or left of the "=". Still makes no sense.

What you are actually attempting is something akin to the following.

A=2
B=2
A=B
A*4=B*4=8

But if B = potato then A equals 4 potatos and if B = 5 then A = 10, or 15 or 20 or whatever you want.

It is nonsense whatever way you slice it.

In order to formulate any equation the terms must remain inviolate.
If P(E) is one on the LHS of your equation then P(E) must be one on the RHS of the equation. P(E) cannot be different thing depending upon where you insert it.

Why do I feel that befuddled old man is about to turn up?

 

[Mojo]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

Hey, Jabba, remember when you said, “indicate what you see as my other fatal faults, and I'll do my best to answer each one”? It was only just over two hours ago.

Well, JayUtah yet again provided you with a link to the list, and you yet again failed to address it.

Here’s the link again: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11871278&postcount=3198

Follow the link and address the points made in it, or reveal your offer to address the flaws in your argument to be utter humbug.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Hey, Jabba, remember when you said, “indicate what you see as my other fatal faults, and I'll do my best to answer each one”? It was only just over two hours ago.

Well, JayUtah yet again provided you with a link to the list, and you yet again failed to address it.

At this point, I think, you're supposed to say, "Since you haven't addressed any of the points on the list yet, I'm going to assume you admit they're all flaws that are fatal to your argument and which you are unable to correct."

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

...but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam...

No.

You haven't shown that 10^-100 is anything except a number you pulled out of your butt.

...minus the Sharpshooter issue...

No.

You don't get to "minus" away the entirely biased basis of your argument and pretend it's still a valid argument. You're just begging the reader to overlook the fact that you're knowingly cheating. The only way to avoid the effects of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is not to commit it.

...you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam...

No.

You are asking the reader to compare a number you know you made up with a number you haven't computed or specified. You're abandoning mathematics and asking the reader to make an emotional judgment, placing completely contrived "stakes" on getting the right answer. The right answer -- mathematically speaking -- is the one you compute to be right, not the one you desperately beg your reader to intuitively adopt.

Further, you're just reinforcing the false dilemma.

And yes, since you've been given a list of flaws in your argument, and you haven't answered them in two hours, but you've posted in the meantime on other subjects, then according to the standard of participation you propose for this thread I can assume you have no rebuttal whatsoever to them and are lying about your willingness to engage in any sort of rational debate.

 

[Jabba]

- I agree, but at the likelihood of 1/10¹⁰⁰ for your current existence -- given OOFLam minus the Sharpshooter issue -- and, you had to bet your house on either OOFLam or ~OOFLam, which would you choose?

You persist on using the wrong word. What does that say about the argument you present?

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

 

[JayUtah]

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

Conditional probability. He told you that.

 

[jsfisher]

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

Just as JayUtah indicated, it is a probability, not a likelihood.

In colloquial conversation, the two words are used the same or similarly. That's why others have tolerated your usage. I would have accepted the colloquial meaning, too, like everyone else had you been using the two words as synonyms, but you weren't.

In statistics, the words are different, a difference you still do not understand. You only know some difference exists, and you have insisted P(E|H) referred to the likelihood of E and somehow separate from any probability. That's just wrong.

 

[Belz...]

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

Why should anyone tell you? You won't listen anyway. Do your own research.

 

[JoeMorgue]

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

Why the everloving hell should we bother? You won't listen.

I'm sick of you trying to outsource your bad arguments to us.

It's just you being rude and intellectually dishonest again.

The words you should be using is "I was wrong, I admit that, I'm sorry to have wasting everyone's time."

 

[RoboTimbo]

- I gotta admit that I don't know why "likelihood" is the wrong word. What word should I be using?

Then why were you taking such a patronizing tone with jsfisher?

js,
- Likelihood and probability are not the same.

You're getting schooled.

 

[8Sime8]

Usually, probability is understood to measure sets of observations, such that if an observation set A is measurable then so is the complement set ~A.

In the case of a third person, both their living state and their dead state are measurable, in the sense that we can define observable behavioural categories that define what we mean by the "set of living states" and the "set of dead states". Then we can quantify their frequencies of occurrence and apply those frequencies to estimating the future state of the third person.

But that isn't possible in the case of first-person experience. Here only the state "I am alive" is detectable, but not the state "I am no longer alive".

In the case of survival analysis applied to oneself, one can say "the likelihood I survive the next 30 years is p". This means

1) I can detect my current biological state and then infer my future biological state using life-expectancy statistics. Here, "Infer my future biological state" only means "i change my current behaviour according to my calculations".

2) I can confirm after thirty years that I am still alive, if and only if, I am in fact still alive.

Yet unlike the fully-decidable case of third-person survival analysis, here my survival analysis of myself is only semi-decidable.

Even though I can assign meaning to the sentence

"I will survive the next thirty years"

This does not imply that I can assign meaning to the sentence

"I will NOT survive the next thirty years"