[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

Status
Not open for further replies.
Humots said:
I suspect Jabba is jumping from

"According to the Scientific Model, the probability of my existence is infinitely small, yet I exist, therefore (insert Bayes' Theorem hand waving) the Scientific Model is wrong and we are all immortal."

to

"According to the Scientific Model, the probability of the universe's existence is infinitely small, yet it exists, therefore (insert Bayes' Theorem hand waving) the Scientific Model is wrong and we are all immortal."
Click to expand...

Not sure about that. He could equally be heading for "I am immortal because I believe. You are not"
 
Agatha said:
No.

All the Anthropic Principle says is that the observations of the universe are compatible with the life which observes it. Of itself, it doesn't explain anything about how that universe came into being, nor whether there is one universe or more than one.

It's a philosophical point, not a law.

ETA It also, as Slowvehicle so rightly notes, is the equivalent of marvelling that sausages are long and thin, and being surprised that they fit so exactly into hot dog buns.
Click to expand...


Come on, Jabba! Get on with your essential proof of immortality. Your audience is anticipating your every failed move.

It's as if you were trying to prove the veracity of the Shroud of Turin all over again - failing at every turn.
 
Agatha said:
ETA It also, as Slowvehicle so rightly notes, is the equivalent of marvelling that sausages are long and thin, and being surprised that they fit so exactly into hot dog buns.
Click to expand...

And a cat's fur has two holes in it exactly where the eyes are. Surely this is the most intelligent of designs.
 
Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- Give me a link.
Click to expand...


a link


Better though . . . here's the whole quote:


Douglas Adams said:
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
Click to expand...
 
Jabba said:
Pixel,
- I'm not interested in threads. What I want is a link to scientist demolishing the appearance of enormous coincidence.
Click to expand...


Why would anyone - scientist or not - have any interest in demolishing the trivially obvious idea that enormous coincidences happen all the time?



Jabba said:
- Otherwise, I see a universe that happens to allow for life as the first enormous coincidence allowing for my current existence.
Click to expand...


Fortunately the Universe that we actually live in doesn't give a toss about your expectations of it.
 
Jabba said:
Pixel,
Otherwise, I see a universe that happens to allow for life as the first enormous coincidence allowing for my current existence.
Click to expand...

So now we are back to the Hand of Aces argument, only aimed at the universe supporting life this time.

Jabba, will it take another year for you to realize that this is the same fallacy as your "I am special" routine?
 
Is there any rational basis for estimating the odds of the universe happening to allow for life? Presumably one must feel one has at least an intuitive sense of the probability in order to feel it is an enormous coincidence?
 
Hay there, li'l' Buckaroo!

How disrespectful is it that, in response to your rather jussivel hortatory demand:

Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- Give me a link.
Click to expand...

...I posted:

Slowvehicle said:
For what? For an aphorism?

This feature of the anthropic principle has been explained to you, Mr. Savage. it is the other end of the argument that starts with the idea that the only reason a Royal Flush (or a Fizbin Kronk, on Thursdays of a leap year) seems significant is because the rules of poker imbue that particular hand (no less likely than any other hand of five cards) with particular, artificial, significance.

It's the approach of Dr. Pangloss, who claimed that noses are wonderful because they are exactly the right shape, and in exactly the right place, to hold up our spectacles.

This planet is not fine-tuned for life. Most of this planet will kill a naked human fairly quickly. As I said, you would not survive the night in my garden this month...and you would die nearly as quickly in August--the high desert is not a forgiving habitat.

The illusion of fine-tuning comes from looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Life as we know it evolved under these conditions. OTH: are hands "adapted" to gloves, or were gloves "adapted" to hands?

At any rate thank you so very much for your oh-so-polite request:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI301.html
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/?q=anthropic_principle/primer
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Fine-tuning_argument
http://butdoesitfloat.com/Puddle-thinking
http://home.olemiss.edu/~namanson/Fine tuning argument.pdf
http://www.strongatheism.net/library/against/problems_of_fine_tuning/

You're welcome.
Click to expand...

...and your response has been silence, but for the deafening crickets drowned out by the tumbleweeds.
 
Jay, Lenny, xtifr,
- Any of you guys still around? If so, do you agree with the others that the Anthropic Principle has been "demolished" by the experts?
 
- Otherwise, to the extent that I can really understand the rebuttals given, I just don't see the wreckage that you guys do. To me, the AP is a real conundrum, and another big reason for thinking that the "scientific opinion" about one finite life doesn't make sense.
- Can one of you put one of the arguments against the AP in your own words?
 
Jabba said:
- Otherwise, to the extent that I can really understand the rebuttals given, I just don't see the wreckage that you guys do. To me, the AP is a real conundrum, and another big reason for thinking that the "scientific opinion" about one finite life doesn't make sense.
- Can one of you put one of the arguments against the AP in your own words?
Click to expand...

Obstinacy is not a valid counter-argument.
 
Jabba said:
Can one of you put one of the arguments against the AP in your own words?
Click to expand...
Assuming that what you're actually asking for is arguments against the claim that the universe is fine tuned for life:

1. It's cart-before-the-horse thinking. The universe is not at it is in order that we can be as we are; we are as we are because the universe is as it is. See the analogy with the puddle that thinks the hole it sits in must have been deliberately shaped so that it would fit into it.

2. The fact that if you change a single parameter you make the universe no longer suitable for our kind of life does not mean that there is only one possible combination of parameters that supports life. In the latest Science of the Discworld book the authors use the analogy of a car engine: if you change a single component (say the diameter of one of the bolts) the engine ceases to function, but if you simultaneously change the size of the nut that goes with it you have a working engine again. There are millions of workable designs for a car engine, some with differences as radical as the kind of fuel they use.

3. Most of the universe is actually inimicable to life, which is odd if it's supposedly fine tuned for it

4. This is almost certainly not the only universe
 
Jabba said:
Pixel,
- I don't understand what you're saying.
Click to expand...
She's saying it's trivially true that intelligent life will find itself in a universe capable of supporting intelligent life...

What's to understand?
 
Pixel42 said:
Assuming that what you're actually asking for is arguments against the claim that the universe is fine tuned for life:

1. It's cart-before-the-horse thinking. The universe is not at it is in order that we can be as we are; we are as we are because the universe is as it is. See the analogy with the puddle that thinks the hole it sits in must have been deliberately shaped so that it would fit into it...
Click to expand...
Pixel,
- I think that you're argument requires there to be many basically different ways for life to occur. For instance, if the universe was all gas, life could/would(?) still occur. (I understand that if the force of gravity was just slightly weaker, the universe would be all gas.)
- And so far, I think that's exactly what the puddle analogy is about. The fluid filling the puddle is totally "flexible." It would take on whatever shape is available. I think that such an analogy requires that life be totally (or, significantly) flexible. I assume that is not what you're saying.
 
dlorde said:
She's saying it's trivially true that intelligent life will find itself in a universe capable of supporting intelligent life...

What's to understand?
Click to expand...
dlorde,
- Isn't that the multiverse argument?
 
Pixel42 said:
Assuming that what you're actually asking for is arguments against the claim that the universe is fine tuned for life:

...3. Most of the universe is actually inimicable to life, which is odd if it's supposedly fine tuned for it

4. This is almost certainly not the only universe
Click to expand...
Pixel,
- I'll get back to #2.
- Re #3: To me, that's like saying that a true God wouldn't allow bad things to happen to good people.
- Re #4: That's the multiverse argument.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom