[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Jabba said:
Loss Leader,
- The following quotes comes from a ways back. I think that my quote pretty much covers my "evidence" in a very general way. I'm sure that others will want me to be much more specific -- but, in that I'm allowing the prior probability of the non-scientific opinion to be only 1%, and you guys are probably pretty familiar with some of the supportive "evidence," I shouldn't need to provide much in the way of specific evidence.
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Oh, so nothing then. You could have just said, "Nothing."
 
Just lurking here, but I'm stupified at this point at the magnitude of the challenge Jabba is taking on. There have been innumerable "On Consciousness" threads on the Forum. I've learned things from them, but I don't recall anybody from any viewpoint managing to convince anybody from a rival viewpoint to switch sides. It's about as intractable an issue as one could possibly choose.

It seems to me that final victory in the "On Consciousness" debate is merely one step in Jabba's monumental argument.

Do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you are taking on, Jabba? Why bother with all this Bayesian crap? It's a sideshow. Park this thread. Start a thread where you "prove" that consciousness is what ever it is that you need it to be for your argument to work. That's the hard part. I would put the odds of you succeeding at very much less than 1%.
 
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Jabba said:
Humots,
- I think that the following statement shows that I don't need to say anything about the theory being true...
From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/:
1. Conditional Probabilities and Bayes' Theorem

The probability of a hypothesis H conditional on a given body of data E is the ratio of the unconditional probability of the conjunction of the hypothesis with the data to the unconditional probability of the data alone.
Click to expand...

Note: this is simply a statement of the definition of conditional probability:

P(H|Data) = P(H and Data) / P(Data)

I think you may be confusing two different uses of the word "hypothesis".

Hypothesis: John Doe died in 2000

Hypothesis: a = G M / R^2

The first hypothesis is about an event.

The second hypothesis is a scientific model.

I don't believe that probability can be applied to both hypotheses in the same way, but I may be wrong. My knowledge of Bayes' Theorem is mostly about the math, not about its applications.

Consider the following statement (Higgs boson confirmed):

"Physicists announced on July 4, 2012, that, with more than 99 percent certainty, they had found a new elementary particle weighing about 126 times the mass of the proton that was likely the long-sought Higgs boson."

Does this mean that
- the Standard Model has a 99 percent certainty of being valid, or
- evidence that supports the Standard Model has a 99 percent chance of being right?
 
Jabba said:
Humots,
- I think that the following statement shows that I don't need to say anything about the theory being true...
From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/:
1. Conditional Probabilities and Bayes' Theorem

The probability of a hypothesis H conditional on a given body of data E is the ratio of the unconditional probability of the conjunction of the hypothesis with the data to the unconditional probability of the data alone.
Click to expand...

Wait.

Are we still pretending to follow the organized and structured list of questions/issues or are we going back to freestyle?


........

Oops. I just realized how paradoxical my question is. If we are still working the organized list, then Jabba cannot answer my question.
 
Jabba said:
- Oops. I forgot to mention quantum mechanics as evidence for 1) personal consciousness being something more than neurobiology, and 2) some sort of immortality being quite possible.
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SharkJump.jpg
 
I know I'm late to the thread, but I figured this was the place to ask. Even assuming immortality were possible, why on Earth would it be desirable? I can't imagine a worse possible fate or existence than immortality. You would have to bury all your friends and loved ones, it would be nigh impossible for you to form any lasting relationships, your memories would all blur together after a while, and as the eons pass you would become the only unevolved piece of crap still hanging around while the world has moved on.
 
Jabba said:
Humots,
- I think that the following statement shows that I don't need to say anything about the theory being true...
From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/:
1. Conditional Probabilities and Bayes' Theorem

The probability of a hypothesis H conditional on a given body of data E is the ratio of the unconditional probability of the conjunction of the hypothesis with the data to the unconditional probability of the data alone.
Click to expand...

It's been over a year, and you haven't brought your argument forward an inch, despite all your "baby steps".

I'd call this thread an utter failure.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
I know I'm late to the thread, but I figured this was the place to ask. Even assuming immortality were possible, why on Earth would it be desirable? I can't imagine a worse possible fate or existence than immortality. You would have to bury all your friends and loved ones, it would be nigh impossible for you to form any lasting relationships, your memories would all blur together after a while, and as the eons pass you would become the only unevolved piece of crap still hanging around while the world has moved on.
Click to expand...


And then there's the problem of Sunday afternoons.
 
shuttlt said:
Just lurking here, but I'm stupified at this point at the magnitude of the challenge Jabba is taking on. There have been innumerable "On Consciousness" threads on the Forum. I've learned things from them, but I don't recall anybody from any viewpoint managing to convince anybody from a rival viewpoint to switch sides. It's about as intractable an issue as one could possibly choose.

It seems to me that final victory in the "On Consciousness" debate is merely one step in Jabba's monumental argument.

Do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you are taking on, Jabba? Why bother with all this Bayesian crap? It's a sideshow. Park this thread. Start a thread where you "prove" that consciousness is what ever it is that you need it to be for your argument to work. That's the hard part. I would put the odds of you succeeding at very much less than 1%.
Click to expand...
Shuttit,
- I suspect you're right about getting anywhere with this -- sort of like the lottery. But as we say in NY re the lottery, "Hey -- you never know!"
 
Jabba said:
- I assume that you know what I mean by "self," and accept that such a thing exists -- that it's reincarnation that you don't accept as actually existing (happening). Am I correct?
Click to expand...

You really don't even read posts by other people, do you?
 
Jabba said:
Loss Leader,
- The following quotes comes from a ways back. I think that my quote pretty much covers my "evidence" in a very general way.
Click to expand...

You're purporting to be putting forwards a scientific proof. Anecdotes of reincarnation are not evidence in such a context.
 
Jabba said:
- Oops. I forgot to mention quantum mechanics as evidence for 1) personal consciousness being something more than neurobiology, and 2) some sort of immortality being quite possible.
Click to expand...

"Quantum mechanics" is not evidence towards your proposition. What, precisely, about quantum mechanics? Please describe what you're referring to in detail and link to the peer-reviewed research from which you've derived your thinking.
 
abaddon said:
No sweat. Jabba has not moved beyond his first post yet. You have missed nothing.

ETA: On the off chance you think I am being sarcastic, no. No, I am not. Read post one. Jabba has not progressed any further than that.
Click to expand...

Now come on, that's not fair. Jabba didn't post anything even vaguely relevant to the thread title until page 3, more than 2 days after he started the thread. So there has definitely been progress since his irrelevant time-wasting page 1 posts.
 
Jabba said:
Shuttit,
- I suspect you're right about getting anywhere with this -- sort of like the lottery. But as we say in NY re the lottery, "Hey -- you never know!"
Click to expand...

The lottery is down to blind chance. You could advance this thread if you presented some arguments which had merit.
 
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