[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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carlitos said:
Can someone coin a word for a thread that simultaneously delivers and fails to deliver? This one really fits. Perhaps the universe was fine-tuned to deliver frustrating discussions that never go anywhere?
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Fission Mailed?
 
Slowvehicle said:
How many different ways?

I have posted links; I have given you explanations; I have provided you analogies; you have, apparently, simply dismissed them all without seeming to attempt to comprehend them.
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Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- That's because you are always insulting.
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Jabba, even if Slowvehicle were insulting, that is hardly a valid counter-argument.

If you feel you have been insulted, wouldn't a better response be to report it to a moderator?
 
After the last two pages, I am going back to my multi-Jabba theory. There are three to six posters writing responses under the name Jabba. I can't quite figure out the motivation, but they definitely believe the JREF board needs to have its nose tweaked.

Does anyone have a better theory to explain why we are still at square one in this thread?
 
Ladewig said:
After the last two pages, I am going back to my multi-Jabba theory. There are three to six posters writing responses under the name Jabba. I can't quite figure out the motivation, but they definitely believe the JREF board needs to have its nose tweaked.

Does anyone have a better theory to explain why we are still at square one in this thread?
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Occam's razor: there's one Jabba, with no proof of immortality.
 
godless dave said:
Jabba, 1) have you been listening to Dinesh D'Souza or William Lane Craig? 2) I seem to remember one of them uses the "fine tuning" argument for the existence of a creator god, and also erroneously claims that multiverse hypotheses were developed to find a way around the fine tuning argument.
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Dave,
- Re #1: No.
- Re #2: The multiverse hypothesis seems to be a reasonable one.
 
Humots said:
Jabba, even if Slowvehicle were insulting, that is hardly a valid counter-argument.

If you feel you have been insulted, wouldn't a better response be to report it to a moderator?
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Humots,
- Do you honestly believe that Slowvehicle has not been insulting?

- So far, I haven't wanted to "report" anybody, as I would be reporting almost everybody, almost every time.

- I basically never respond to some of our participants, because in my opinion, they only insult and never offer anything constructive -- and also because I don't have nearly enough time to answer every question/objection aimed at me.
- I do sometimes respond to Ladewig and Slowvehicle and some others --because, in my opinion, they do offer something constructive at times.

- It's a counter argument to his accusations of me avoiding the issues.
 
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Jabba said:
Dave,
- Re #1: No.
- Re #2: The multiverse hypothesis seems to be a reasonable one.
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Which one? The one postulated as part of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, or the ones postulated by various hypotheses of cosmology?

Whichever one it is - none of them have much to do with the anthropic principle.
 
Pixel42 said:
As you seemed to be struggling with the concept of an analogy I thought drawing your attention to one you'd come up with yourself might be helpful. Apparently not...
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pixel,
- Do intelligent people struggle with the concept of an analogy?
 
Ladewig said:
After the last two pages, I am going back to my multi-Jabba theory. There are three to six posters writing responses under the name Jabba. I can't quite figure out the motivation, but they definitely believe the JREF board needs to have its nose tweaked.

Does anyone have a better theory to explain why we are still at square one in this thread?
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As someone who has recently turned 60 and is already having minor memory issues I'm probably a little more understanding than most of the way Jabba will appear to comprehend, say, the difference between the anthropic principle and the fine tuning argument one minute, and then be confusing them again a few hours later. Unfortunately to keep up with many of the discussions on this board it is necessary to not only understand but retain quite complex information.

I think at some point Jabba is going to have to accept that he has simply left it too late in life to try to wrap his brain round some of the topics he would like to understand. I've already reluctantly accepted that I will never regain the understanding of quantum mechanics I possessed back when I did my maths degree, let alone ever increase it.
 
Jabba said:
pixel,
- Do intelligent people struggle with the concept of an analogy?
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This was my analogy:

Pixel42 said:
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.
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This was your response:

Jabba said:
- What if the universe was all gas? If that were the case, you couldn't have a car to begin with.
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Are you really surprised that I concluded that you had not understood the analogy?
 
Pixel42 said:
This was my analogy:



This was your response:



Are you really surprised that I concluded that you had not understood the analogy?
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Pixel,

- I'm not surprised, but not because my response didn't make sense. In my opinion, you just didn't understand the meaning of my response. If you want, I'll try to explain again, but note how by trying to deal with each response, and each Question or objection within the response, the pile I want to respond to grows bigger and bigger...
- Lately, I've been hoping that if I go ahead and try to answer the criticisms that I think might be constructive, after awhile the pile will start to diminish...

- So, if you want me to try to explain how my answer to what you said made sense, that's what I'll do. But keep in mind thatthen, as one ventures deeper and deeper into a discipline (math for instance), the logic becomes more and more difficult, and time consuming, to effectively communicate.
 
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Pixel42 said:
The puddle analogy in particular seems to be one that lots of intelligent people struggle with.
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Pixel,
- In my opinion (of course), I'm not the one struggling with the logic -- it's you guys who are struggling with the logic.
 
Pixel42 said:
As someone who has recently turned 60 and is already having minor memory issues I'm probably a little more understanding than most of the way Jabba will appear to comprehend, say, the difference between the anthropic principle and the fine tuning argument one minute, and then be confusing them again a few hours later. Unfortunately to keep up with many of the discussions on this board it is necessary to not only understand but retain quite complex information.

I think at some point Jabba is going to have to accept that he has simply left it too late in life to try to wrap his brain round some of the topics he would like to understand. I've already reluctantly accepted that I will never regain the understanding of quantum mechanics I possessed back when I did my maths degree, let alone ever increase it.
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Pixel,
- Stipulated: my memory ain't what it used to be (not by a long shot), but my honest (albeit obviously biased) opinion is that while my logic does suffer to some extent from the memory loss, it's still damned good...
 
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