[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

But it would indicate organizational skills that heretofore have been absent. I'm skeptical that there is a file from which to cut and paste. I see sticky notes. Lots of sticky notes.
 
Looks like Jabba is posting everywhere except in the thread that was set up for the immortality debate.
 
jt512 said:
Jabba essentially has done the following to conclude that we are immortal: (1) He assumes that if we are not immortal that our existences are outcomes of a random process; therefore, each of us would have been very unlikely to have been born. (2) He then invents a non-random alternative hypothesis (immortality) under which our existences would be virtually certain. (3) He then grossly overstates the prior probability of this alternative hypothesis. Given those inputs, the mechanics of Bayesian inference lead to an astronomically high probability of the alternative hypothesis.

The trick will work for anything. Consider shuffling a standard Atlantic City 8-deck pack of playing cards. The probability of any permutation of the pack, if generated by a random mechanism, is on the order of 10-911, an unimaginably small number. Now, invent an alternative hypothesis under which that permutation was certain. I know: God did it! Voila! The data is 10911 times more likely if God ordered the cards than if they were randomly determined. Now, just be careful not to supply too low a prior probability of God ordering the cards, and claim that you've proven God exists.
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Jay,
- I only gave it a 1% prior probability. Why do you think that's a gross overstatement?




This and the next 4 posts moved from the "Immortality Debate: Commentary Thread", where they didn't belong
Posted By: zooterkin
 
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theprestige said:
You'd think, and yet Loss Leader has declined to contest Jabba's argument almost in its entirety.

Reading the debate thread, no attempt is made to show that any part of Jabba's argument is nonsense, let alone the whole of it.

Far from demonstrating that Jabba's whole argument is nonsense, as you believe it to be, LL concedes all of it, and then quibbles about the degree of certainty that is justified by his concession. Is that the rebuttal you anticipated, when the debate thread opened?
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theprestige,
- What do you think is wrong with my argument?
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
So let me try to understand your claim: You (2nd person singular) don't have to believe and that apparently applies to all of reality, i.e. you don't actively hold any beliefs about reality at all. But not only that, it applies to we so it seems repeatable; I as a part of we should be able do the same and repeat what you can do. So please explain what you mean by "don't have to believe" and what you do instead.

With regards
Tommy
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Tommy,
- What do you think is wrong with my argument?
 
Jabba said:
Jay,
- I only gave it a 1% prior probability. Why do you think that's a gross overstatement?
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Because we have no evidence that there exists, or can exist, anything that could be immortal; and, conversely, we have vast amounts of evidence (eg, the body of evidence supporting the standard model of particle physics), which shows that there cannot be anything like an immortal soul that could interact with the macroscopic world in any way.

That said, it is not my job to justify my probabilities. One of the criticisms of your argument is that you have pulled your numbers out of thin air. You are the one with the hypothesis. It's your job to justify these numbers. I have shown that your conclusion depends on an assumption that you have not justified (that the nonscientific model (a world in which people are immortal) is vastly more plausible than your existence in a world in which lifetimes are finite). Unless you can justify that assumption, your argument is dead.
 
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jt512 said:
Because we have no evidence that there exists, or can exist, anything that could be immortal; and, conversely, we have vast amounts of evidence (eg, the standard model of particle physics), which shows that there cannot be anything like an immortal soul that could interact with the macroscopic world in any way.

That said, it is not my job to justify my probabilities. One of the criticisms of your argument is that you have just pulled your numbers out of thin air. You are the one with the hypothesis. It's your job to justify these numbers. I have shown that you conclusion is a direct result of an assumption that you have not justified (that the nonscientific model (a world in which people are immortal) is vastly more plausible than his existence in a world in which lifetimes are finite). Unless you can justify it, your argument is dead.
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Jay,
- Here's my effort, so far, to justify the prior probability of the NSM -- taken from #14 in the moderated thread. Can we really eliminate the possibility that we're immortal?

- It seems to me that there is all sorts of "evidence" for an "afterlife" -- it's the credibility of this evidence that's so questionable.

- Personally, I believe that some of the evidence is at least somewhat credible. Many credible scholars do also.
- Note that in the Bayesian formula, I've inserted only 1% as the prior probability of any "NSM" (Non-Scientific Model). So long as I'm right about the likelihood of my current existence given the SM, it hardly matters how small the prior probability of the NSM is.
- Otherwise, there have been all sorts of claims of past lives, NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and OOBEs (Out Of Body Experiences). Not that the following means a whole lot, but on one plane ride I sat next to a somewhat "famous" neurosurgeon who had a patient with an NDE who was able to tell the surgeon what the surgeon had been doing in the next room. The surgeon wasn't a religious man, but he was impressed.
- Then, there's what Quantum Mechanics suggests about consciousness. Google "consciousness quantum mechanics."

- Then, there is what makes us think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body -- 1) we think that nothing is non-physical, and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.

- All in all, I'm not convinced that we can eliminate the possibility of an afterlife, and if we can't...
 
Jabba said:
- It seems to me that there is all sorts of "evidence" for an "afterlife" -- it's the credibility of this evidence that's so questionable.
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Well, yeah. When people say there's no evidence, they usually mean there's no credible evidence.

Jabba said:
- Personally, I believe that some of the evidence is at least somewhat credible. Many credible scholars do also.
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Name one.

Jabba said:
- Note that in the Bayesian formula, I've inserted only 1% as the prior probability of any "NSM" (Non-Scientific Model). So long as I'm right about the likelihood of my current existence given the SM, it hardly matters how small the prior probability of the NSM is.
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Again you are comparing two different kinds of probabilities. Prior probability of your existence under a hypothesis is not the same as the the prior probability of the hypothesis.

Jabba said:
- Otherwise, there have been all sorts of claims of past lives, NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and OOBEs (Out Of Body Experiences).
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Yes, and they all have naturalistic explanations.

Jabba said:
Not that the following means a whole lot, but on one plane ride I sat next to a somewhat "famous" neurosurgeon who had a patient with an NDE who was able to tell the surgeon what the surgeon had been doing in the next room. The surgeon wasn't a religious man, but he was impressed.
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You're right, that doesn't mean a whole lot. It means nothing.

Jabba said:
- Then, there's what Quantum Mechanics suggests about consciousness. Google "consciousness quantum mechanics."
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Quantum mechanics suggests absolutely nothing about consciousness. I fear you have been misinformed by either "What the **** Do We Know?", Rupert Sheldrake, or Deepak Chopra.

Jabba said:
- Then, there is what makes us think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body -- 1) we think that nothing is non-physical, and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.
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That's not what makes us think consciousness is "hooked to" our body. What makes us think consciousness is hooked to the body is all the scientific evidence indicating that consciousness is the behavior of a functioning human brain. Even if I personally knew someone who had experienced a near death experience, and out of body experience, or who thought they remembered past lives, that would not change my opinion that consciousness is "hooked to" our bodies.
 
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Jabba,

What do you estimate for the prior probability, P(me), where me = Jabba exists?

I'd argue that the question and many of its P(me|X) relatives are meaningless because they are self-referential. If you didn't exist, the question wouldn't come up. I could accept the probability as 1, but that doesn't make the question any more meaningful.

But that's my view. I'd like your take on P(me).
 
Remember this, Jabba?

Jabba said:
Pixel,
- Superficially at least, I think that you have also identified the heart of the matter... As I now see the discussion, a lot of you have... I think that while I was trying to be "methodical," you guys had cut to the chase, and I just didn't realize what was happening until now... We'll see.
- In order for my thesis to work, I need to be "special." If I am just "anyone," the likelihood of my current existence, given "X," is (I suppose) 1.00.
- If I'm currently right about this, I'm sorry for my tardiness.

- I do think that I'm special in the necessary sense (as are you) -- and, in the posts to follow, I'll try to show you why I think that.
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Are you trying for another fringe reset? You have not presented any argument that you are special, you are just stating that you are special, over and over again.

Jabba said:
Jay,
- It seems to me that there is all sorts of "evidence" for an "afterlife" -- it's the credibility of this evidence that's so questionable.
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If its credibility is in question, it isn't evidence.

And what's with the quotes? Generally people put quotes on a word to suggest that it may not signify its apparent meaning. That is, "It seems to me that there is all sorts of so-called evidence for a so-called afterlife."

Jabba said:
- Personally, I believe that some of the evidence is at least somewhat credible.
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Your beliefs don't count.

Jabba said:
Many credible scholars do also.
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Name one. A credible one.

Jabba said:
- Note that in the Bayesian formula, I've inserted only 1% as the prior probability of any "NSM" (Non-Scientific Model). So long as I'm right about the likelihood of my current existence given the SM, it hardly matters how small the prior probability of the NSM is.
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But you aren't right. Didn't you say (as in your first quote) you had to show that you weren't just "anyone" ? And you haven't.

Jabba said:
Not that the following means a whole lot, but on one plane ride I sat next to a somewhat "famous" neurosurgeon who had a patient with an NDE who was able to tell the surgeon what the surgeon had been doing in the next room. The surgeon wasn't a religious man, but he was impressed.
Click to expand...

You're right, it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Again with the quotes. What does somewhat "famous" mean? How about a name? Something we could google for ourselves?

This is worthless hearsay. Especially considering your prior "I'm a Certified Statistician" claim.

Jabba said:
- All in all, I'm not convinced that we can eliminate the possibility of an afterlife, and if we can't...
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We don't have to eliminate the possibility. You have to provide some credible evidence of the possibility. Extraordinary claims and all that.
 
Just to complicate matters, I'd like to point out that even if Jabba successfully proves that he's too improbable to exist given modern science, that doesn't prove that modern science is wrong. The other possibility there is that Jabba doesn't exist. Which is, in fact, the premise of at least one major world religion: all is illusion. And despite his apparent improbability, Jabba has offered no evidence whatsoever that modern science is wrong. So, putting those two facts together, instead of leaping to immortality, perhaps Jabba should consider converting to Buddhism! :)
 
Jabba said:
- I think that I can essentially prove immortality using Bayesian statistics.
- If this belongs in a different thread, or has already been done, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll present my case here.
--- Jabba
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
 
It would seem I was overly optimistic in saying the 1 on 1 debate would be a nine-days' wonder.
 
It's a shame, really. I'd have liked to have seen it go on for a while, if only to hammer the point home. However, Loss Leader capitulated almost all of the argument straight away, and Jabba just plain gave up on his method of debating all together.
 
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