Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

godless dave said:
He did, in the post you're replying to.

And he didn't insult you, he insulted your argument. And he's right.
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He didn’t insult it, he just described it.

ETA: It might be arguable that he insulted nonsensical drivel.
 
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Dave Rogers said:
And also, I don't think your argument is wrong; this is mathematics, and it simply is wrong.
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Agreed. In the meta-thread over in Social Issues, I covered the notion of facial invalidity. And I'll write more about it over there, later, if I have time. Briefly here, it's the notion Jabba's trying to foist that we can't know his argument is wrong unless we examine it in depth. And it's that ongoing, in-depth argument that gives him so much entertainment. In his other debates he relied on things like expert judgment whose credibility can be affected in many ways and therefore also its weight as evidence. Here he's made the mistake of trying to make mathematics as "soft" as evidence in his other debates, open to interpretation and redefinition.

Informally, Jabba seems to believe that if he lives forever as a reincarnated being, it's impossible to pick a century out of all of history where he wasn't alive. Therefore reincarnation somehow has a better chance of explaining his presence in this century than materialism. That requires him to equivocate P(E|R) versus P(E|~H) where ~H is "everything that isn't materialism." Those are not the same number or the same concept. He just hopes the formal math somehow works itself out. But it doesn't; if he's expressing his argument in mathematical terms then it's either correct mathematically or incorrect mathematically. And if it's incorrect mathematically, it's no proof.
 
Essentially Jabba's whole idea of some sort of "Truly Effective Debate" (and this is something that pops up in a lot of obsessions with formalized or "the right way" to debate that... a scarily large number of people have...) is that winning a debate isn't proving a fact.

You can get someone to agree with you that water isn't wet. It still is.

Reality gives not one toss what a sampling of the third species of chimpanzee can be convinced to agree to.
 
Mojo said:
He didn’t insult it, he just described it.
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He described it in appropriately pejorative terms. Jabba's prima donna response would equate to accusing someone of insult for saying that turd smells bad. If it is a turd and it does smell bad, the pejorative language is accurate and appropriate. In this case Jabba wants to beg the question that his argument can't possibly be a turd and therefore can't possibly merit such criticism. As often happens, Jabba's feigning injury to avoid participation.

It would not even necessarily be an insult to point out that Jabba is incompetent at statistics. That's a statement of defensible fact, not intended to injure but intended to rebut statements made by him as part of his argument.

Logically, "Jabba is a 'certified statistician' therefore his proof is valid," isn't going to work. Similarly, "Jabba doesn't understand statistics, therefore his proof is invalid" fails on logical grounds. What we start with is the fact that his proof has been refuted, conclusively so by most estimates. Jabba's further argument suggests, "You can't know that it's wrong, and if you think you have refuted it then I still maintain that I know more about this than all you guys. Therefore your refutation is likely to be the thing that's wrong, even if no one can see why." That puts expertise on the hot seat to explain why Jabba and his critics disagree.

When we apply tests and conclude that Jabba is incompetent at statistics, that's part of the argument. It addresses Jabba's rejoinder that proposes to undermine the refutations already on the table, not by direct statistical reasoning but by the socialized "Who's more likely to be correct?"

A variant of this exists in a lot of fringe argumentation. "Who's more likely to lie about this? Me or the [powers that be]?" It tries to shift the argument from one of expertise to one of credibility. And keep in mind that Jabba's overarching argument in all these debates is that he is an expert debater and he would have won all his debates if those darned skeptics hadn't been so unfair and dishonest.
 
JayUtah said:
It would not even necessarily be an insult to point out that Jabba is incompetent at statistics. That's a statement of defensible fact, not intended to injure but intended to rebut statements made by him as part of his argument.
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This essentially puts it into the same broad category as conspiracy theories and... a certain social argument that shall go unnamed because I don't want to hijack this already pointlessly hijacked into 37 nested arguments discussion any further.

"I'm defining you disagreeing with me as evidence that you are wrong" is a sadly time honored tactic.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You can get someone to agree with you that water isn't wet. It still is.
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Exactly. And this is why he's going to lose this debate a lot harder than other debates he may have had here. Math isn't something you vote on. Juries are convinced every day of things that aren't true, by arguments skillfully formulated toward just that sort of persuasion. Saying you can prove something mathematically -- even via the uncertainty-wrangling power of statistics -- doesn't mean success or failure depends on how an audience receives it. It's either right or it's wrong.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Jabba,

It wasn't an insult. It was a reasoned criticism of your argument. You're saying that P(E|H) is so small that P(E|~H) can't possibly be smaller. That's complete nonsense. It has no basis in any form of mathematical reasoning. As caveman1917 puts it, it's "not even wrong;" as in, it's not coherent enough to admit of correction. Seriously, your argument is that bad.

Let me, however, try.

About 113 billion people have lived on the Earth. Every one of them either has died or is expected to die. Supposing that we set the odds of immortality at 0.5 for one person ever having lived, then the existence of 113 billion people indicates odds of 2-113,000,000,000 for immortality. Even if we accepted (which, of course, nobody does) your blindly guessed number of 10-100 for your current existence, it's still unimaginably larger than the odds of immortality.

See how easy it is to imagine a number smaller than your guess for the probability of P(E|H)? Your claim is that P(E|~H) cannot possibly be less than P(E|H), but it is in fact trivially simple for it to be less; it simply needs to be a smaller number.

And also, I don't think your argument is wrong; this is mathematics, and it simply is wrong.

Now I have a question for you.

You will now proceed to change the subject, focus on another sub-sub-sub-issue, rinse and repeat several times, and eventually come back to this one, where, having conveniently forgotten this response, you'll make the exact same claim again and ask everyone to refute it yet again, because you're too lazy to look it up (though you always have time to post the question again, and again, and again, and again...) and too befuddled to remember it.

What is the point of even trying to communicate with you, when it's an absolute certainty that you won't pay any attention?

Dave
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Dave,
- Above you say,
About 113 billion people have lived on the Earth. Every one of them either has died or is expected to die. Supposing that we set the odds of immortality at 0.5 for one person ever having lived, then the existence of 113 billion people indicates odds of 2-113,000,000,000 for immortality. Even if we accepted (which, of course, nobody does) your blindly guessed number of 10-100 for your current existence, it's still unimaginably larger than the odds of immortality.
- Unfortunately, I don't understand your logic. Can you show where/how it fits into the Bayesian formula I'm using?
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H))​
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Above you say,
About 113 billion people have lived on the Earth. Every one of them either has died or is expected to die. Supposing that we set the odds of immortality at 0.5 for one person ever having lived, then the existence of 113 billion people indicates odds of 2-113,000,000,000 for immortality. Even if we accepted (which, of course, nobody does) your blindly guessed number of 10-100 for your current existence, it's still unimaginably larger than the odds of immortality.
- Unfortunately, I don't understand your logic. Can you show where/how it fits into the Bayesian formula I'm using?
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H))​
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Well, effectively, it doesn't, because your Bayesian formula doesn't actually address the likelihood of immortality, but rather that of materialism and its complement. This is the problem with trying to counter an argument that has multiple fatal flaws; it's more or less impossible to isolate one specific flaw and address it using an argument that doesn't trip over one of the other flaws. But let's pretend that ~H is equivalent to the probability of immortality (which of course it isn't, as that's another fatal flaw of your argument). In that case,

P(~H|E) = P(E|~H)P(~H)/(P(E|~H)P(~H) + P(E|H)P(H))

Let's also assume for the purposes of argument that your number of 10-100 for P(E|H) is valid (which, in reality, it isn't, as it's a made up number with no basis in actual data), and generously assume that P(E|~H)=1 (which, of course, it also isn't, because there must be a finite probability of you never having existed at all). Now, Taking P(~H) = 2-113,000,000,000, and taking P(~H)=1-P(H), we can see that P(~H|E) is vanishingly small. The likelihood of immortality is therefore, to use one of your favoured descriptions, "virtually zero".

Your claim was that P(E|H) was so small that any reasonable numbers inserted into your equation must give a vanishingly small value for P(H|E). However, I have inserted reasonable numbers (based, in fact, on an actual known item of data) into your equation and shown that in fact P(~H|E) is vanishingly small; since, by definition, P(H|E) = 1-P(~H|E), this means that P(H|E), rather than being vanishingly small, is almost exactly equal to 1.

Your claim is therefore refuted.

Dave
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Above you say,
About 113 billion people have lived on the Earth. Every one of them either has died or is expected to die. Supposing that we set the odds of immortality at 0.5 for one person ever having lived, then the existence of 113 billion people indicates odds of 2-113,000,000,000 for immortality. Even if we accepted (which, of course, nobody does) your blindly guessed number of 10-100 for your current existence, it's still unimaginably larger than the odds of immortality.
- Unfortunately, I don't understand your logic. Can you show where/how it fits into the Bayesian formula I'm using?
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H))​
Click to expand...

Dave Rogers is arguing that P(~H) as 2-113,000,000,000 (which would make P(H) = 1 - 2-113,000,000,000). You may insert your made-up numbers for P(E|H) and P(E|~H) to conclude that P(H|E) is very nearly 1.
 
Jabba said:
- Unfortunately, I don't understand your logic. Can you show where/how it fits into the Bayesian formula I'm using?
P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/(P(E|H)P(H) + P(E|~H)P(~H))​
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"Can you show me where your simple statement of fact fits into my fan fiction about unicorn poop being used as an alternative food source for impoverished nations, as inspired by the 'Squatty potty' commercial?"



That makes about as much sense as tying to cram real data into your "equation."
 
Jabba said:
Unfortunately, I don't understand your logic.
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The logic is that if you just make up the inputs to a model, you can make that model say whatever you want regardless of reality. This means your model doesn't work as a proof.

Can you show where/how it fits into the Bayesian formula I'm using?
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Keep in mind you're using the wrong formula. Yes, it's the right formula for an event A and its complement ~A. But that's the wrong formula to use for the problem you're actually trying solve, and the problem as you state it when you're speaking non-mathematically. That's Fatal Flaw 1. To "formulate" a problem doesn't necessary mean just to find the formula out of a textbook or online or whatever. Yes, that's part of it. But to formulate a problem means to analyze the problem as stated in plain terms and extract from that what representations and relationships mathematically one would need in order to correctly represent the problem. In arguments that have a mathematical formulation, this will mean breaking down the problem into mathematical entities and then either deriving the model and its constituent formulas from first principles or selecting a model that fits your formulation.

You've formulated your problem as "a hypothesis and its complement," which is the wrong way to do it when the statement of your problem is actually between competing hypotheses.
 
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jsfisher said:
Dave Rogers is arguing that P(~H) as 2-113,000,000,000 (which would make P(H) = 1 - 2-113,000,000,000). You may insert your made-up numbers for P(E|H) and P(E|~H) to conclude that P(H|E) is very nearly 1.
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js,
- Why does he think that P(~H) is 2-113,000,000,000?
 
At a certain point you just have to accept that the problem with trying to to teach a cat to scuba dive isn't that your instructions are written clearly enough.
 
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