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[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Jabba said:
- No one here accepts my description of what it is about some highly improbable events that make us suspect that they are not random. How would you describe what it is about some improbable events that makes us suspicious of their "randomality"?

--- Jabba
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The best characterisation of this situation is that we have a reasonable prior probability that people will cheat somehow when it comes to dealing cards, and that four pat aces are evidence that supports the hypothesis that someone is playing silly buggers. The basis for this is that we have observed people getting up to all sorts of tricks with cards.

(Note that we have never observed immortality or immaterial gods doing things, so no analogous argument works for such cases).
 
It's now been 5 days since this thread was started, and Jabba has yet to provide the information which should have been in the OP.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
The best characterisation of this situation is that we have a reasonable prior probability that people will cheat somehow when it comes to dealing cards, and that four pat aces are evidence that supports the hypothesis that someone is playing silly buggers. The basis for this is that we have observed people getting up to all sorts of tricks with cards.

(Note that we have never observed immortality or immaterial gods doing things, so no analogous argument works for such cases).
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+1
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
It's now been 5 days since this thread was started, and Jabba has yet to provide the information which should have been in the OP.
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Such impatience, surely you don't expect him to fill in the details so quickly. My guess is 6 months and then he will try to define immortality and claim that the colour green is necessary for his argument.
 
Acleron said:
Such impatience, surely you don't expect him to fill in the details so quickly. My guess is 6 months and then he will try to define immortality and claim that the colour green is necessary for his argument.
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Ah, but which precise shade of green?
 
If humans are immortal then where did the immoral part come from? We know how our bodies got here and we know that our bodies will someday die so if there's an immortal part it must have been added somewhere along the line. Why and by whom?
 
Aepervius said:
It has been many months that the shroud thread has been going on with jabba and there still isn't a shred of evidence against the 14C dating.

Don't hold your breath as of this thread.
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I know, I'm just keeping a record.

It does boggle the mind, though, that someone should start their own thread and yet, nearly a week later, have failed to actually mention the stuff that the thread is supposed to discuss.
 
Loss Leader said:
1) Including the first post, this thread has gone three pages without any discussion of how statistics might prove immortality. 2) Most recently, it appears to be about subjective pattern-finding in otherwise statistically meaningless noise. The thread has been moved to Mathematics. 3) If it drifts back towards religion, it can be moved again. 4) On the other hand, if it drifts towards the OP's personal biography, it will be moved over to Forum Community.
Posted By: Loss Leader
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Loss Leader,

- I've numbered your points above for easy reference.
- Re #1, I will try to use Bayesian statistics to show that the position that we each have just one finite life to live is MUCH less probable than the total probability of all the other somewhat plausible positions re our personal conscious existence. Typically, I can commit about an hour a day to the topic, and as you can see I have received numerous questions and objections to answer, and addressing one leads to new Q’s and O’s to answer… In other words, I can only do so much, and unless some sort of spokesperson for the other side is willing to tell me which Q/O to answer next (which is actually what I’d prefer), I’m stuck with answering the one I personally find most deserving or profitable…
- Re #2, I think that’s a fair rendition of what I want to talk about, and I myself had wondered that it might fit better in mathematics than religion -- but I do believe that it supports religious belief.
- Re #’s 3 and 4, whatever category you think is most appropriate is fine with me – but, the thread is not intended to be about me.
- Thanks.

--- Jabba
 
Jabba said:
Loss Leader,

- I've numbered your points above for easy reference.
- Re #1, I will try to use Bayesian statistics to show that the position that we each have just one finite life to live is MUCH less probable than the total probability of all the other somewhat plausible positions re our personal conscious existence. Typically, I can commit about an hour a day to the topic, and as you can see I have received numerous questions and objections to answer, and addressing one leads to new Q’s and O’s to answer… In other words, I can only do so much, and unless some sort of spokesperson for the other side is willing to tell me which Q/O to answer next (which is actually what I’d prefer), I’m stuck with answering the one I personally find most deserving or profitable…
- Re #2, I think that’s a fair rendition of what I want to talk about, and I myself had wondered that it might fit better in mathematics than religion -- but I do believe that it supports religious belief.
- Re #’s 3 and 4, whatever category you think is most appropriate is fine with me – but, the thread is not intended to be about me.
- Thanks.

--- Jabba
Click to expand...


Cripes, will you just post your damn proof already?
 
I wonder if Jabba's proof will look something like this:
|ψ> = c1|Φ1> + c2|Φ2> + c3|Φ3>+ ... + c(n-1)|Φ(n-1)> + cn|Φn>​
:rolleyes::boggled:
 
Jabba said:
Loss Leader,

- I've numbered your points above for easy reference.
- Re #1, I will try to use Bayesian statistics to show that the position that we each have just one finite life to live is MUCH less probable than the total probability of all the other somewhat plausible positions re our personal conscious existence. Typically, I can commit about an hour a day to the topic, and as you can see I have received numerous questions and objections to answer, and addressing one leads to new Q’s and O’s to answer… In other words, I can only do so much, and unless some sort of spokesperson for the other side is willing to tell me which Q/O to answer next (which is actually what I’d prefer), I’m stuck with answering the one I personally find most deserving or profitable…
Click to expand...

Seriously? I was expecting you to resort to this kind of evasion fairly quickly, but to do so before you've posted any genuine content at all is bizarre, even by your standards.
 
So what have we got to date? Her is the OP.
Jabba said:
- I think that I can essentially prove immortality using Bayesian statistics.
- If this belongs in a different thread, or has already been done, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll present my case here.
--- Jabba
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Fair enough, have at it, I say. Let's see what you have.



Jabba said:
Humots,

- Thanks for that last question. The answer is easy, and is probably worth some merit. I started a Doctorate in Educational Psychology at NYU in 1969.
-The course has two areas of study: Child Development and Research Methods. We (Lauren (my wife) and I) couldn't afford to live in the "City" itself -- living instead in Jamaica Queens, from where I'd take the subway to class everyday. Being a country boy at heart , I got sick of the long, often rush hour, rides to and from Greenwich Village -- and having connections upstate, transferred to SUNY at Albany. Probably a bad idea.
- I finished all my course work -- and then some -- but flunked the essay portion of our comprehensives. I did fine on the two multiple choice tests -- getting the best score in our group (8 Doctoral students) in Research Methods. I could have taken the test again, but we had a three year old at home, and little money, and I had to drop out.
- In our Doctoral studies, we had to choose a "language" in which to specialize. The appropriate "languages" for our course were "Computers" and "Statistics." I chose Statistics, and ultimately received an actual certificate stating that I was, indeed, proficient in that field.
- Since that time, when I think warranted by a discussion, I tend to point out that I am actually a certified Statistician...
- I can't remember all of the different classes involved (and it would take me awhile to find my transcripts), but probably the two most advanced were Factor Analysis and Bayesian Statistics.

- So, th-th that's my story, and I'm s-s-s-stickin to it!

--- Jabba
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Super. Good for you. What does this have to do with the OP?


Jabba said:
Wollery,
- No. It means that I took the numerous statistics courses required and did well in them.
--- Jabba
Click to expand...
Yet still no content relevant to the OP.


Jabba said:
Humots,
- I'm sure that calling statistics a "language" does make some sense.
- And whatever, the State University of New York was calling it that in my day (I assume that they still do), and, I myself would call math in general a language.
--- Jabba
Click to expand...
Who cares? What about the OP?


Jabba said:
- Anyway, you can find my whole story over at http://messiahornot.com/ACT2Scene1.php, and http://messiahornot.com/Act2Scene2.php -- but not to worry, I'll present it right here one step at a time.

Scene 1:

Say that you find a deck of cards in the closet and decide to play some solitaire or something.

You sit down at the table and turn over the first card. It's an ace of spades. You place the ace back in the deck, shuffle the cards and once again, turn over the first card. This time, it's the ace of diamonds. Hmm. So, you try the same thing again. This time, you get the ace of spades again.

'Wait a minute…' You do it one more time, and this time, you get the ace of hearts.

If you’re paying attention, you’re growing suspicious about this deck you found in the closet. You’re starting to suspect that you don’t have the ordinary deck that you had assumed. But, why is that? Why are you suspicious?

You’re suspicious because the probability of drawing that 'hand' is so small if the deck is a normal deck.

Let’s try that again. But, this time, the first card you draw is a 3 of diamonds, the second is a
Jack of spades, the third is a 9 of clubs and the fourth is a 9 of hearts. In this case, you probably are not suspicious.

But, of course you realize that the prrobability of drawing that hand, given a normal deck, is just as small as the probability of drawing that previous hand…

So, what’s the problem here? Why are you not suspicious of this deck, when you were suspicious of the first one?

It turns out that there are two factors causing you to be suspicious of that first deck -- and one is missing in regard to the second deck. There is nothing about the second hand that sets it apart in such a way as to suggest another plausible hypothesis… If there were, you’d be suspicious of that second deck as well. It’s as simple as that…

--- Jabba
Click to expand...
Shameless plug for your website, no content, and packs of cards...again.
Content relevant to the OP? Not so much, no.


Jabba said:
Humots,

- Whatever -- that is what SUNY called it back in my day, and that's what I based my claim of being a "certified" Statistician upon.
- I suspect that this won't help a lot, but I did work for NY State as a Psychometrician for 25 years. I "put together" emplyment exams and analyzed their results. I usually just say that I "wrote" exams, but in reality, the actual writing was minimal...

- No one here accepts my description of what it is about some highly improbable events that make us suspect that they are not random. How would you describe what it is about some improbable events that makes us suspicious of their "randomality"?

--- Jabba
Click to expand...
Off topic. What about the OP? Got anything?


Jabba said:
Loss Leader,

- I've numbered your points above for easy reference.
- Re #1, I will try to use Bayesian statistics to show that the position that we each have just one finite life to live is MUCH less probable than the total probability of all the other somewhat plausible positions re our personal conscious existence. Typically, I can commit about an hour a day to the topic, and as you can see I have received numerous questions and objections to answer, and addressing one leads to new Q’s and O’s to answer… In other words, I can only do so much, and unless some sort of spokesperson for the other side is willing to tell me which Q/O to answer next (which is actually what I’d prefer), I’m stuck with answering the one I personally find most deserving or profitable…
- Re #2, I think that’s a fair rendition of what I want to talk about, and I myself had wondered that it might fit better in mathematics than religion -- but I do believe that it supports religious belief.
- Re #’s 3 and 4, whatever category you think is most appropriate is fine with me – but, the thread is not intended to be about me.
- Thanks.

--- Jabba
Click to expand...
Again with the quibbling about the format of discussion. Again with the risible attempt to control the discourse here. WHAT ABOUT THE OP? HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT?


4 pages and nearly 140 posts. With the exception of the OP, none of your subsequent replies have addressed the topic YOU raised in the OP.
 
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