What is the purpose of your qualifier 'at most'? If a particular human being exists not at all, ever, should that be part of A or ~A?
I think we need to clear up the problems with your A and ~A before approaching the problems with this.
[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics
- Thread starter Jabba
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Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
Mmmh. Is that a proof without even attributing number to it ? All I can see is an equation, which I have no lust to check this late on a sunday. A proof would, so far as I can tell include number so that you can trimphantly say "see P(~A)=something near 1!". or "tada ! therefore P(A)=near 0 !".
Naturally somebody can maybe correct me.
jsfisher
ETcorngods survivor
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Jabba,
+- Do you realize that ~A includes cases where some, but not all human "selves" exist for anything other than one finite time at most?
+- Even if you were able to show the superior likelihood of ~A, that says nothing about you or your existence.
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Good Afternoon, Mr. Savage!
I wonder if I can put this in a way that will strike a chord with you:
You are still trying to front-load your argument; that is, you are trying to convince us that observable reality, that which can be demonstrated and experienced, is, by your calculations, so very unlikely that your version of "immortality", which cannot be demonstrated or experienced, is, in fact, so much more likely that it is the only alternative.
This is why I keep suggesting you start with the evidence for your version of the "soul" and your version of "immortality".
Instead of trying to convince me that the invisible pink dragon living in your garage is more likely than the blue heeler/border collie mix asleep on my feet, or the labrador retriever/spitz mix curled up on the couch next to me, or even the family of coyotes in the arroyo to the west; why not simply show me your unicorn?
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Jabba
Philosopher
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Immortality/The Evidence/The Numbers
- Note that the evidence that I need to provide represents the support for the numbers that I stick in the formula: P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
- IOW, P(A|me) = 1/∞*.99/((1/∞*.99)+(.5)*(.01)).
- I’ll start with P(~A).
- I’ve already provided an outline for this evidence. I’ll go back and look it up.
- So, now to my “evidence.”
- Note that the evidence that I need to provide represents the support for the numbers that I stick in the formula: P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
- IOW, P(A|me) = 1/∞*.99/((1/∞*.99)+(.5)*(.01)).
- I’ll start with P(~A).
- I’ve already provided an outline for this evidence. I’ll go back and look it up.
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Good Afternoon, Mr. Savage.
May I ask a question?
DO you remember how much objection has been raised to your blythe usage of "1/∞"?
Reminder: "∞" is not just a really, really hekka-big number. "∞" is, well, infinite.
Formally, "1/∞" has no numerical definition except in limits theory, which does not apply here.
Casually, "1/∞" does not mean, "really really really really really close to zero", but, in effect, "zero"; which makes the rest of your "equation" demonstrate that nothing can happen.
You're still trying to make reality really really really unlikely, instead of providing practical, empirical, objective evidence for the actual existence of your undemonstrated, undetectable, immaterial alternative.
Why not show why what you believe, is; rather than trying to show why what I perceive, is not?
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jsfisher
ETcorngods survivor
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Jabba,
For the sake of discussion only, suppose I grant you your self-serving probability estimates, and that gets you to the point where ~A seems probable, then you have still done nothing to show Jabba exists for other that one finite lifetime.
So, what's the point?
Is this the equation where you claim to demonstrate that because the likelihood of a particular individual coming into existence, as measured at some point prior to their birth, is very small*, then something for which there is no evidence (immortality) must be true?
Because if so, that simply will not fly. One unlikely** event does not make an unrelated impossible event possible.
*In a non-deterministic universe.
**See * above.
Because if so, that simply will not fly. One unlikely** event does not make an unrelated impossible event possible.
*In a non-deterministic universe.
**See * above.
haibut
Scholar
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It's a dull Sunday forgive me.
P(me|me) is 1, so the rest is incoherent.
I asked you a few days ago WHY you thought you were immortal, and you did answer with some useful information as to WHEN.
Thing is, WHAT, aside from your one-time juvenile phantasies, could even make you START to think such a thing?
I put it to you that this all reduces to "I sense my end coming, and I am not very happy about it".
Others have already questioned your math and the conclusions about humans you reach from it.
But I am still curious how you think. I have a rather unique rock (a unique shape, composition, etc.) on my desk. In fact, I have a particular bacterium under a microscope, too.
Please explain how your equation does not prove that they also had multiple existences and each is not a simply a chance occurrence.
Thanks.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
Well no, actually. You have been shown to have no mathematical standing, and you have been asked to provide proof otherwise. Is your response simply to plod out the same failed mathematics when you claimed you had other proof?
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Jabba's proof is pretty straightforward. Reading from the beginning of the thread, I think I have a good handle on it.
He is saying that if his existence is a random event, it would be very, very unlikely for him to exist at this time. However, if he were immortal, his existence is guaranteed. He exists. Thus, it is more likely that he is immortal than not. Basically, he is equating the chance of him being immortal with the chance of him not having come to exist.
Using his card analogy of early in the thread, he is asking, "Given the fact that I have been dealt a straight flush, what is the chance the game is rigged?" He finds that chance to be the same as the chance of having been dealt any other hand.
My question to Jabba is as follows: A straight flush in Pai Gow Poker pays 8,000:1. So, if you pulled a straight flush on a $5 bet in Atlantic City, would you refuse the $40,000 payout? Would you turn to the casino owner and say, "Sir, it is far more likely that I have won this money dishonestly than honestly, so I beg you to keep your $40,000.00"?
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Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
The probability of "me" existing given that life are finite and only happens once, is exactly 1.
You fail immediately by setting it as something near zero. You jsut made the classic error of confusing prior probability, with fact after the draw.
Let me explain more clearly, the probability of any lotto number combination *prior* to a draw is very low. But once drawn it is 1. So if you ask the probability of a *future* human having such and such charactertistic as to be quasi identical to you, then it is very low, but the probability of you existing is 1. Because the lotto for you was already drawn.
And I see another problem. If you have independent events E1 and E2 then P(E1,E2)=P(E1). The probability P(a human) may be small, but it is a probability on *birth*. Whether that human is mortal, immortal, should not change the probability of coming to exist ! Therefore P(me,A) is simply reducable to P(me) and P(A,Me) reducible to P(A).
You have not demonstrated in any way whatsoever that what happens after our death, has an impact on the probability of any specific human to be born.
Naturally I may be wrong so other can correct me. But your reseaonning is faulty cranked up to 11.
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Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
If that is so, then that is another essential error. The universe is infinite, but that does not mean everything with every possibility exists. Would you expect a planet made out of emmental cheese, with crust composed only of the full litterature of shakepear printed on the abck of a magna carta ?
The reasonning above is flawed, "if he were immortal, his existence is guaranteed" for the same reason. Even if human are immortal, there has been a finite number of them with a finite numbers of law of biology applying to them.
EVen then, since he did not accept immortality going backward, only immortality going forward, whether there is immortality or not, his existence is predicated only on a single factor : his birth. That's a condition sine qua non. Mortality and immortality has no impact, because all his assumption are based on what happens *after* death therefore have no impact on birth.
But then again after having gone thru the gigantic shroud thread, I should not have expected anything else.
JABBA
I have a question for you . An essential one. If you think your reasonning is so good 1) why do you think nobody came up with it before you, not even priest acquainted with math and probabilities 2) why don't you present your finding to vaticcan 3) and heck why do you assume your afterlife is good ? As examplified above it could be an horror of being stuck alone for ever.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
The problem is that we can apply the same argument to the existence of absolutely anything.
I am about to eat a piece of cake. It is very unlikely that this particular piece of cake exists at this time. However, if the piece of cake is eternal, its existence is guaranteed. It exists. Thus, it is more likely that the cake is eternal than not.
I really can eat my cake and have it too!
ETA: either that or Jabba has "essentially proved" that the cake cannot be eaten.
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pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
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Thanks for such a clear explanation of the error behind 'confusing prior probability, with fact after the draw'.
Jabba
Philosopher
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The Evidence/Prior Probability of ~A
From #3210 (tiny revision)
- OK. How about this?
- A = human "selves" exist for one finite time at most.
- ~A = everything that is not A.
- I don't think that's quite how to say it, but I think everybody knows what I mean.
- My 'proof' of ~A is P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
From 3225:
So, now to my “evidence.”
- Note that the evidence that I need to provide represents the support for the numbers that I stick in the formula: P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
- IOW, P(A|me) = 1/∞*.99/((1/∞*.99)+(.5)*(.01)).
- I’ll start with P(~A).
- I’ve already provided an outline for this evidence. I’ll go back and look it up.
From #2510 (Here, “SM” is “A,” and NSM is “~A.”
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...
- I'll be back with one more piece for the summary.
From #3210 (tiny revision)
- OK. How about this?
- A = human "selves" exist for one finite time at most.
- ~A = everything that is not A.
- I don't think that's quite how to say it, but I think everybody knows what I mean.
- My 'proof' of ~A is P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
From 3225:
So, now to my “evidence.”
- Note that the evidence that I need to provide represents the support for the numbers that I stick in the formula: P(A|me) = P(me|A)*P(A)/(P((me|A)*P(A)+P(me|~A)*P(~A))
- IOW, P(A|me) = 1/∞*.99/((1/∞*.99)+(.5)*(.01)).
- I’ll start with P(~A).
- I’ve already provided an outline for this evidence. I’ll go back and look it up.
From #2510 (Here, “SM” is “A,” and NSM is “~A.”
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...
- I'll be back with one more piece for the summary.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
You haven't addressed any of the criticisms of these old posts of yours, merely repeated the posts. But I will save my objections until you post the summary - I trust that this will not be a repeat of another old post?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Of course it will be.
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