[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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- So for now, I'll focus on what I think are your three major objections:
1. That my current existence is so improbable -- given hypothesis "A" -- is NOT evidence against that hypothesis.
2. My hypotheses are too poorly defined to be dealt with by Bayesian inference, taken seriously or, understood.
3. The probability numbers that I propose are “off the wall” at best.
- I'll start with #2.

- Jay, if you're still around, could you give me your current take on this issue? Otherwise, I might be forced to agree to disagree regarding it…
- As I see it, I am trying to compare the probability of two SIMPLE (and complementary) hypotheses: "A" -- that each of us humans (in general) lives but one, finite, life, at most; and "Non-A" -- in at least some respect, A is incorrect.
- I think that most anyone without “an axe to grind” will have no problem understanding sufficiently what I mean by “A” in order to evaluate it. If such neutral persons understand what is meant by “complement,” they will also have no problem understanding what I mean by “Non-A.”
- For now at least, in regard to #2, I rest my case.

--- Jabba
 
Jabba said:
- So for now, I'll focus on what I think are your three major objections:
1. That my current existence is so improbable -- given hypothesis "A" -- is NOT evidence against that hypothesis.
2. My hypotheses are too poorly defined to be dealt with by Bayesian inference, taken seriously or, understood.
3. The probability numbers that I propose are “off the wall” at best.
- I'll start with #2.

- Jay, if you're still around, could you give me your current take on this issue? Otherwise, I might be forced to agree to disagree regarding it…
- As I see it, I am trying to compare the probability of two SIMPLE (and complementary) hypotheses: "A" -- that each of us humans (in general) lives but one, finite, life, at most; and "Non-A" -- in at least some respect, A is incorrect.
- I think that most anyone without “an axe to grind” will have no problem understanding sufficiently what I mean by “A” in order to evaluate it. If such neutral persons understand what is meant by “complement,” they will also have no problem understanding what I mean by “Non-A.”
- For now at least, in regard to #2, I rest my case.

--- Jabba
Click to expand...
I composed a fairly lengthy post on why your comments are not convincing, but as a layman who only possesses what I immodestly think is a good layman's understanding of statistics, I decided I was crossing into territory better covered by others and with mistakes they wouldn't make.

So I'm changing it to this:

1. You completely ignored Humots' Post 456 which demonstrates quite nicely why your idea of specifics is completely off.

2. If you play the "axe to grind" card (mistakenly, I might add), then you have to play it on yourself, too. In other words: there is no play with that card.

3. There is no "agreement to disagree." Gentlemen's civilities have no bearing on hard numbers, hard math, or hard statistics.

4. Even as a layman it is obvious to me that your specifics are far too vague.

You have nothing here, Jabba.
 
Jabba said:
- So for now, I'll focus on what I think are your three major objections:
1. That my current existence is so improbable -- given hypothesis "A" -- is NOT evidence against that hypothesis.
2. My hypotheses are too poorly defined to be dealt with by Bayesian inference, taken seriously or, understood.
3. The probability numbers that I propose are “off the wall” at best.
- I'll start with #2.

- Jay, if you're still around, could you give me your current take on this issue? Otherwise, I might be forced to agree to disagree regarding it…
- As I see it, I am trying to compare the probability of two SIMPLE (and complementary) hypotheses: "A" -- that each of us humans (in general) lives but one, finite, life, at most; and "Non-A" -- in at least some respect, A is incorrect.
- I think that most anyone without “an axe to grind” will have no problem understanding sufficiently what I mean by “A” in order to evaluate it. If such neutral persons understand what is meant by “complement,” they will also have no problem understanding what I mean by “Non-A.”
- For now at least, in regard to #2, I rest my case.

--- Jabba
Click to expand...
I already covered this once, but it was in a longer post that covered many points so I'll try again, this time as simply as possible.

In order to be a valid hypothesis for Bayes formula an hypothesis must make measurable predictions.

What measurable predictions does your hypothesis make?
 
Jabba said:
<snip>
2. My hypotheses are too poorly defined to be dealt with by Bayesian inference, taken seriously or, understood.
<snip>
- I'll start with #2.

- Jay, if you're still around, could you give me your current take on this issue? Otherwise, I might be forced to agree to disagree regarding it…
- As I see it, I am trying to compare the probability of two SIMPLE (and complementary) hypotheses: "A" -- that each of us humans (in general) lives but one, finite, life, at most; and "Non-A" -- in at least some respect, A is incorrect.
- I think that most anyone without “an axe to grind” will have no problem understanding sufficiently what I mean by “A” in order to evaluate it. If such neutral persons understand what is meant by “complement,” they will also have no problem understanding what I mean by “Non-A.”
Click to expand...
A lot of the time it seems to me you slip away from your hypothesis. Is your argument, or is your argument not based on the claim that the universe has purpose and meaning? If so, that should by your hypothesis. You seem to me to wander back and forth between this and immortality as is they were one and the same thing.
 
Jabba said:
- So for now, I'll focus on what I think are your three major objections:

2. My hypotheses are too poorly defined to be dealt with by Bayesian inference, taken seriously or, understood.

- As I see it, I am trying to compare the probability of two SIMPLE (and complementary) hypotheses: "A" -- that each of us humans (in general) lives but one, finite, life, at most; and "Non-A" -- in at least some respect, A is incorrect.
Click to expand...

You need to define "each of us humans" and "a life." It is not clear what these mean under the non-scientific (unscientific?) hypothesis.


3. The probability numbers that I propose are “off the wall” at best.
- I'll start with #2.
Click to expand...

Yes. Your priors are off the wall. The prior probability of a hypothesis is the probability of the hypothesis given all the available background information, not two numbers picked out of thin air.

Furthermore, if your hypotheses concern the lives of all humans, then how can you justify only considering as data the likelihood of only your life?

Jay
 
wollery said:
I already covered this once, but it was in a longer post that covered many points so I'll try again, this time as simply as possible.

In order to be a valid hypothesis for Bayes formula an hypothesis must make measurable predictions.

What measurable predictions does your hypothesis make?
Click to expand...

It would also help if there was actual data to insert in the formula, rather than numbers pulled from...

But none of these massive defects in his proof is going to stop Jabba, is it?
 
shuttlt said:
A lot of the time it seems to me you slip away from your hypothesis. Is your argument, or is your argument not based on the claim that the universe has purpose and meaning? If so, that should by your hypothesis. You seem to me to wander back and forth between this and immortality as is they were one and the same thing.
Click to expand...
Shuttlt,
- I didn't mean for my argument to have anything to do with purpose or meaning... I do tend to believe in meaning, which sort of implies purpose -- but my aim here was to sort of open the door to the liklihood of immortality.
- Even there, it could be that I should have really just said that I think that I can essentially disprove the hypothesis that we each have just one, finite life to live at most. Some sort of immortality is suggested by such "proof" -- but, certainly not nailed down...

- Can't resist mentioning the following.
- My best guess is that reality is best "explained" by "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts," and emergent properties. I suspect that life, consciousness, free will and meaning are all emergent properties. I think that they should remind us of irrational numbers and Zeno's paradox. You just can't get there from here reductionistically speaking.
- Enough of that.

- Anyway, I still think that I can essentially disprove the hypothesis that we each have just one, finite life to live at most. For now, I should stick with that more narrow claim.

--- Jabba
 
OK. Please forget Bayes. It's a distraction unless you can better explain your reasoning. If it has nothing to do with there being some fundamental meaning to things, why does your existience, or anybodies existence tell us anything about whether or not we are likely to have one life, or many lives? Perhaps we are all reincarnations of the same spirit moving backwards and sideways through time. How would one ever know, does you being alive now make it more likely? Why would an alternative Jabba have made it more likely that we have "one short life"?
 
Jabba, what testable predictions does your hypothesis make?
 
Jabba said:
- Anyway, I still think that I can essentially disprove the hypothesis that we each have just one, finite life to live at most. For now, I should stick with that more narrow claim.
Click to expand...


Would you please just fully set out whatever your entire proof or disproof may be? Just put your entire argument in one single post. I have this nagging feeling that you've never really said your entire proof: a, b, thus c.

I'd very much like to understand what you're saying, but I don't think you've said it yet.
 
Loss Leader said:
Would you please just fully set out whatever your entire proof or disproof may be? Just put your entire argument in one single post.
Click to expand...

Seeing as he's refused to do so the many times he's already been asked in this thread, I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
Immortality

- I guess there's no way to re-open my previous thread on immortality and Bayesian Statistics, so I'll start a new one by saying that I'll be focusing on the Shroud thread for awhile, and won't be saying much over here for awhile, but fear not, I'm back.
--- Jabba
 
You started a thread to say that you won't be posting in the thread? Please request that the mods delete this, and come back when you're ready to participate in your own thread.
 
Yep, deliberately DOC-like. Disappears for a while and on his return thinks that all debates can be reset to the starting position.
 
Consciousness

dafydd said:
No, you can't. Humans are not immortal. They die, you may not have noticed that, but they do.
Click to expand...
Dafydd,

- Obviously, human bodies quit working, and then decompose. But then, we don't really know what happens to individual consciousness when the individual's body quits working. Could be that his/her consciousness is just no longer able to express itself in the material world.
- My claim is that there is substantial reason for believing that individual consciousness is not limited to the single, finite existence through that body that just died...

- Just to get us restarted.
 
Jabba said:
Dafydd,

- Obviously, human bodies quit working, and then decompose. But then, we don't really know what happens to individual consciousness when the individual's body quits working.
Click to expand...

We have a pretty good idea. There is overwhelming evidence that consciousness requires a working brain, and no evidence that the two can be separated, any more than breathing can exist without lungs.
 
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