[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Immortality seems to be the only way I'll ever get Jabba to explain his numbers. If I had to live several lifetimes (I neither expect or want to live more than this one), I suspect in some future one I'd still be asking how Jabba calculated the probabilities he put into his Bayes' theorem.
 
Toon,
- Most of your answers seem way above my head. I get this sense that you really do know what you're talking about -- but then, for me at least, you leave a lot of gaps in your explanations, and I can't figure out what you're talking about...
- For instance: I said that I think that life, consciousness and free will must be strong emergent properties, and asked what you thought about that. I don't think you answered my question -- but, I'm not sure.
 
Jabba said:
Toon,
- Most of your answers seem way above my head. I get this sense that you really do know what you're talking about -- but then, for me at least, you leave a lot of gaps in your explanations, and I can't figure out what you're talking about...
- For instance: I said that I think that life, consciousness and free will must be strong emergent properties, and asked what you thought about that. I don't think you answered my question -- but, I'm not sure.
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I know what I'm talking about up to a point.

Of course those are emergent properties. How emergent, I don't know. As emergent as it takes to give rise to a sentient experience. If 'strong emergence' is what it takes to get there, then nobody knows what they're talking about once that kicks in.

But maybe you don't need to know all about magic. Seems to me the question you raise by rejecting the finite uniqueness assumption is not 'what is the precise mechanism by which sentient experience arises?', but 'how is it that there is no alternative to sentient experience?'. If you think the answer to that is in the strongly emergent and prohibitively complex mechanism, then good luck explaining.

As I explained earlier, I don't intend to present my version of an explanation. It isn't an explanation anyway, it's an interpretation.
 
Agatha said:
Immortality seems to be the only way I'll ever get Jabba to explain his numbers. If I had to live several lifetimes (I neither expect or want to live more than this one), I suspect in some future one I'd still be asking how Jabba calculated the probabilities he put into his Bayes' theorem.
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Don't worry. If you do have to live again, you'll never know what hit you. It will again seem like the first and only time.

About Jabba's numbers. This is the one you need to worry about.

P(SM|me) = ~.0000…1

As long as that's there, any quibbling over the others is irrelevant.
 
Mojo said:
Well, that's falsifiability out of the picture.
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That depends on how much stock you put in this proposed probability and it's implication:

P(SM|me) = ~.0000…1

The alternative to which demands that nothingness must occupy all but an infinitesimal sliver of eternity, which is inexplicably being occupied by a sentient experience. The infinitesimal sliver of which just happens to be occurring right now. So I really don't have time for this.
 
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Toontown said:
That depends on how much stock you put in this proposed probability and it's implication:

P(SM|me) = ~.0000…1

The alternative to which demands that nonexistence must occupy all but an infinitesimal sliver of eternity, which will inexplicably be occupied by a sentient experience. The infinitesimal sliver of which just happens to be occurring right now. So I really don't have time for this.
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If living again is indistinguishable from "the first and only time", then it doesn't matter what probabilities or implications you wave around; reincarnation is non-falsifiable.
 
Mojo said:
If living again is indistinguishable from "the first and only time", then it doesn't matter what probabilities or implications you wave around; reincarnation is non-falsifiable.
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Sure. All you have to do is ignore or discount, or otherwise alter the probabilities or implications being waved around. Isn't free will great?

Don't you have an inexplicably improbable infinitesimal sliver to live? Better get busy.
 
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Toontown said:
I know what I'm talking about up to a point.

Of course those are emergent properties. How emergent, I don't know. As emergent as it takes to give rise to a sentient experience. If 'strong emergence' is what it takes to get there, then nobody knows what they're talking about once that kicks in.

But maybe you don't need to know all about magic. Seems to me the question you raise by rejecting the finite uniqueness assumption is not 'what is the precise mechanism by which sentient experience arises?', but 'how is it that there is no alternative to sentient experience?'. If you think the answer to that is in the strongly emergent and prohibitively complex mechanism, then good luck explaining.

As I explained earlier, I don't intend to present my version of an explanation. It isn't an explanation anyway, it's an interpretation.
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Toon,
- I have all sorts of questions. I'll start off with two:
1) What is your opinion concerning free will?
2) Would you give me your explanation/interpretation in a private mail?

- Though you have no reason to trust me, I promise that I won't tell anyone in our thread. I'll probably tell my wife, and maybe some off-line friends, but they won't know who you are. And, I'd like to think about what you're thinking.
- You can send me an email (at rsavage@nycap.rr.com) if you prefer.
- Thanks.
 
Toontown said:
"way" has a specific conventional meaning in terms of expressing or discussing odds. All "ways" are equal. For example, there is one "way" you draw the ace of clubs from a standard deck, and 51 "ways" you don't.
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Before going to odds, I'd like to better understand this notion of probability.

So your "ways" seem similar to "equi-probable events" (in the sense of Laplace). Is that correct?

And if so,how do you get an infinite number of them? Does your deck of cards analogy carry over to that case?
 
Pixel42 said:
If this future consciousness does not have my memories it is not me in any meaningful sense.
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I know. So who was the 5-year-old "you", who didn't have the same memories or even the same atoms as the current "you"?

There never was any standardized "you" in the first place, unless there is a soul in there somewhere, and that's not how I roll.

Pixel42 said:
This is a fascinating course which I highly recommend: http://academicearth.org/courses/death/
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Death? Do the producers of this course know all about death? Not much to know about that, is there? There's no "you" there either.

I'm sure the course is fascinating, but I have a ludicrously improbable sliver of sentience remaining prior to the onset of eternal nothingness, and a book to read.
 
lenny said:
Before going to odds, I'd like to better understand this notion of probability.

So your "ways" seem similar to "equi-probable events" (in the sense of Laplace). Is that correct?
Click to expand...

It is simple to convert probability to odds, and odds to probability, and not even unusual. It's two ways of expressing the same proportion.

1/p-1 = odds to 1

1/(odds+1) = p

lenny said:
And if so,how do you get an infinite number of them?
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By being 1 unique possibility in an infinity of possibilities, in which case the odds against your ever seeing the light of day are infinity to 1.

lenny said:
Does your deck of cards analogy carry over to that case?
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I don't see why not. 51 to 1, same principle. The only difference is, the odds aren't stacked to infinity against you.
 
Toontown said:
I know. So who was the 5-year-old "you", who didn't have the same memories or even the same atoms as the current "you"?
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This look a little like a strawman argument. Pixel42 didn't say that it is necessary for a person to have all the same memories to be the same person.

And I don't know about you, but I certainly have memories of being 5 years old.
 
Mojo said:
This look a little like a strawman argument. Pixel42 didn't say that it is necessary for a person to have all the same memories to be the same person.
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When she was born, she didn't have any of the same memories. Or any of the same atoms. Or much of the same anything.

And I didn't say a person had to be the same person they were before to be the person of the moment, so to speak. Were you the same person before you were born? No, you were not. And yet here you are, the person you are now.

Mojo said:
And I don't know about you, but I certainly have memories of being 5 years old.
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And I don't know about you, but I didn't have the same memories or the same atoms I have now when I was 5.
 
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Toontown said:
When she was born, she didn't have any of the same memories. Or any of the same atoms. Or much of the same anything.
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Indeed, and that's why she said that a future person in the same position would not be her in any meaningful sense. How would you distinguish between a future person who was a reincarnation of Pixel42 and a future person who wasn't?
 
Jabba said:
Toon,
- I have all sorts of questions. I'll start off with two:
1) What is your opinion concerning free will?
Click to expand...

It it walks like a free duck, and quacks like a free duck, it's a free duck.

Don't look a free duck in the mouth.

Jabba said:
2) Would you give me your explanation/interpretation in a private mail?
Click to expand...

:notm

You know all you need to know. If you knew more, you'd be scared.
 
Mojo said:
Indeed, and that's why she said that a future person in the same position would not be her in any meaningful sense. How would you distinguish between a future person who was a reincarnation of Pixel42 and a future person who wasn't?
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That's not what she said.

I'm not talking about reincarnation. That requires a soul. I'm talking about the absence of an alternative to sentient experience, in whatever form it happens to take.

How do you distinguish between the person that's you now and all the people who are not you now?
 
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Toontown said:
It is simple to convert probability to odds, and odds to probability, and not even unusual. It's two ways of expressing the same proportion.

1/p-1 = odds to 1
Click to expand...


If p is the probability of an event A, that is, P(A) = p, then the odds of the event A, odds(A), is defined as odds(A) = p / (1–p), which is the reciprocal of your expression. That is, your expression is actually the odds of the complement of A.
 
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