Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

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.
js,
- OK. I don't get that from my reading.
- But anyway, I assume, then, that P(E|H) means the probability of E occurring if H is true.
- And, flipping a nickle -- H being that it's a fair nickle -- I get the probability of getting heads on a particular flip as .5. Is that correct?
- I'll go back to my reading, to see where I went wrong. If you could point me to an explanation, I'll go there.
 
Can anyone take a stab at calculating exactly how many nested excuse hair-split special pleadings we are away from Jabba actually proving immortality using Bayesian statistics at this point?

It's got to at least be in the double digits.
 
js,
- OK. I don't get that from my reading.
- But anyway, I assume, then, that P(E|H) means the probability of E occurring if H is true.
- And, flipping a nickle -- H being that it's a fair nickle -- I get the probability of getting heads on a particular flip as .5. Is that correct?
- I'll go back to my reading, to see where I went wrong. If you could point me to an explanation, I'll go there.


You may find the link in this post useful:

- From https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/bayes-for-beginners-probability-and-likelihood
The distinction between probability and likelihood is fundamentally important: Probability attaches to possible results; likelihood attaches to hypotheses. Explaining this distinction is the purpose of this first column.
 
js,
- OK. I don't get that from my reading.
- But anyway, I assume, then, that P(E|H) means the probability of E occurring if H is true.
- And, flipping a nickle -- H being that it's a fair nickle -- I get the probability of getting heads on a particular flip as .5. Is that correct?
- I'll go back to my reading, to see where I went wrong. If you could point me to an explanation, I'll go there.

But why do you assume H makes your existence so unlikely? All the things you claim make it unlikely refer to how your body came into existence. And if you add a soul, all those same things still had to happen for your body to exist. And you cannot have the experience of a sense of self without your body. Therefore, H doesn't make your current existence any less likely. Adding a soul to your body, however, does make your current existence less likely.
 
OK. I don't get that from my reading.

And that's a problem because over the years people have shown that there's a lot you don't get about statistics. You took part of a course back in the 70s, and it's clear you haven't done much if anything since then or beyond that to develop expertise in statistical problem-solving. Objectively speaking, you're no good at it, and you're wrong to think that people can't tell. Your argument entails quite a lot of bluffery, pretending to be the teacher or commentator, and so forth -- roles that are not appropriate to your meager background.

That in turn is a problem because you're trying to paint yourself otherwise. You tell everyone you're a "certified statistician" in hopes that they'll believe you when you say you've solved a vexing philosophy problem using statistics. in fact you've accomplished no such thing, but you clearly intend to lie and say you have. That lie starts with claiming expertise you obviously don't have, and it continues with your rewriting and publishing debates over your alleged proof, edited to make it seem like you won. You're hunting for a "neutral jury" who -- as you say -- will "just agree." That is not an honest proof.

In the marketplace of ideas, skeptics are the consumer advocates. As much as you've tried to brush away skeptical criticism as intellectually inferior or ideologically entrenched, the fact remains that your proof comes nowhere close to passing mathematical muster. If you want to believe you're an unsung genius, that's your business. But if you try to sell that concept to others, your proof is going to have to meet a standard you can see it does not meet.

I'll go back to my reading, to see where I went wrong. If you could point me to an explanation, I'll go there.

No, Jabba. Your critics are not responsible for holding your hand for the remedial education you now admit you need. At this point, if you agree you cannot address the major criticisms against your proof, and if you agree further that you lack the appropriate knowledge, then what you need to do here is concede that your proof has failed and then thank your critics for the inordinate amount of time they have spent collectively trying to educate you.

But more to the point, you haven't shown the slightest interest in being educated. You admit you have a strong emotional attachment to this belief, and additionally to belief that you can prove it objectively. All your efforts to date have been focused not on testing your proof or acquiring the expertise to test it, but rather to cherry-pick facts that seem to support it. When your proof comes up with the wrong answer given the inputs we finally get you to see must be the case, you go back and fiddle with the inputs with no other goal in mind than to get the answer that pleases you.

It's useless to pretend this is an intellectual exercise with you. You want to use math to fool people into thinking you're a genius over and above those hated atheists, and you seem to wonder why rational people have a problem with that plan.
 
It is so similar to creationists. Start with a 'conclusion' then desparately try to twist the math and science to try to support it. LOL
 
- 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.

js,
- OK. I don't get that from my reading.
- But anyway, I assume, then, that P(E|H) means the probability of E occurring if H is true.
- And, flipping a nickle -- H being that it's a fair nickle -- I get the probability of getting heads on a particular flip as .5. Is that correct?
- I'll go back to my reading, to see where I went wrong. If you could point me to an explanation, I'll go there.

- From https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/bayes-for-beginners-probability-and-likelihood
The distinction between probability and likelihood is fundamentally important: Probability attaches to possible results; likelihood attaches to hypotheses. Explaining this distinction is the purpose of this first column.



js,
- Please read that article (or some of it) and show me how it disagrees with my claims.

You may find the link in this post useful:
- OK. I re-read the article, and still wasn't sure what to call it, so made the following post to that site.
– I’m trying to use
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H)+ P(E|~H)P(~H)). I’ve been calling P(E|H) the likelihood of E given H. I’m told that I’m not using the term (likelihood) correctly. What should I be calling it?

- Hopefully, someone will tell me.
 
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.

Of course it does, it just doesn't for the question "Do we have immortal souls or not?" but it does for questions such as "Does the universe support life or not?" or "Have these two people [points at parents] met or not?" etc. The fact of being alive is just like any other piece of data in that respect, discriminatory for some hypotheses and non-discriminatory for others.
 
- OK. I re-read the article, and still wasn't sure what to call it, so made the following post to that site.
– I’m trying to use
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H)+ P(E|~H)P(~H)). I’ve been calling P(E|H) the likelihood of E given H. I’m told that I’m not using the term (likelihood) correctly. What should I be calling it?

- Hopefully, someone will tell me.

You mean "Hopefully, someone will tell me again", don't you? It is even right there in one of the posts you quoted.
 
- 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.
Dave,
- But P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H)+ P(E|~H)P(~H)), and in our case, H is OOFLam. And P(E|H) is the likelihood (probability?) of your current existence -- given OOFLam.
 
You mean "Hopefully, someone will tell me again", don't you? It is even right there in one of the posts you quoted.
js,
- If you're referring to, This ratio, the relative likelihood ratio, is called the “Bayes Factor.” , P(E|H) is not a ratio. It's one piece of the ratio.
 
But P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H)+ P(E|~H)P(~H)), and in our case, H is OOFLam.

H is materialism, whose consequents include finite life. But reincarnation is not ~H, so you're using the wrong formula.

And P(E|H) is the likelihood (probability?) of your current existence -- given OOFLam.

That's what the expression P(E|H) represents in your model. But you haven't shown that the quantity has the effect you claim when considering the real world from which E arose. You don't understand that estimates of probability are not probative when something has already happened.
 
Dave,
- But P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H)+ P(E|~H)P(~H)), and in our case, H is OOFLam. And P(E|H) is the likelihood (probability?) of your current existence -- given OOFLam.

This suggests that you are misusing Bayesian statistics.
 
If you're referring to, This ratio, the relative likelihood ratio, is called the “Bayes Factor.” , P(E|H) is not a ratio. It's one piece of the ratio.

No.

For two hypotheses A and B and some data X, the Bayes factor is essentially P(A|X)/P(B|X) where P(A|X) and P(B|X) were computed using Bayes' theorem. This represents the relative strength of A versus B in explaining X, where A and B aren't the only possible hypotheses and therefore you can't invoke the complement. This is what you should be using, where A is materialism and B is reincarnation. Instead you're proposing materialism and a whole bunch of enumerated alternatives, with the final alternative being "everything else, " as a way of shoehorning the problem into the derivation of Bayes' theorem you decided you wanted to use. Since by definition "everything else" is something you don't know and can't describe, you have no rational basis for reckoning P(event|everything else). Therefore you have no basis for concluding -- as you have -- that it must be very small.

In Bayes' theorem, for P(A|B) = ( P(B|A)/P(B) ) * P(A), the quantity in red is sometimes call the likelihood ratio, or, as jt512 termed it, "the weight of the evidence."
 
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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...

Of course it does, it just doesn't for the question "Do we have immortal souls or not?" but it does for questions such as "Does the universe support life or not?" or "Have these two people [points at parents] met or not?" etc. The fact of being alive is just like any other piece of data in that respect, discriminatory for some hypotheses and non-discriminatory for others.
- Why not?
 

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