[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

- Just got a note from Dr. Hoerl. Says he is skeptical also, but is willing to listen to a reasonable argument. Sounds like you guys. The following was my response.

Roger,
Thanks.
Sorry for my poor timing. A friend on the forum just reminded me that this might be a bad time of the year.
The basic idea is that the likelihood of my current existence -- given the hypothesis that each potential human “self” has but one, finite time to exist, at most – is so small (one over infinity?) as to preclude the hypothesis being correct…
I’ll be back.
Thanks, again.
Rich

Again, he's an actual maths professor. Why not provide him with the maths?

 

[Giordano]

- Just got a note from Dr. Hoerl. Says he is skeptical also, but is willing to listen to a reasonable argument. Sounds like you guys. The following was my response.

Roger,
Thanks.
Sorry for my poor timing. A friend on the forum just reminded me that this might be a bad time of the year.
The basic idea is that the likelihood of my current existence -- given the hypothesis that each potential human “self” has but one, finite time to exist, at most – is so small (one over infinity?) as to preclude the hypothesis being correct…
I’ll be back.
Thanks, again.
Rich

How typical: you appear to have read and responded to just a small part of my post, but ignored the important major part. Dr. Hoeri is a statistics professor; I asked you to ask him questions about statistics and math, not about reincarnation. Did you ask him about math questions, like finiteness, or the Bayes formula? Or did you ask him a more general metaphysical question about your existence? Frankly, I don't care what he thinks about existence or reincarnation; he is not an expert in those areas. I only care if he accepts your math; do you use statistics properly in your proof. Just as I don't expect to have people care more about my opinion about God because I am a faculty member in an area of biology.

 

[Giordano]

- Just got a note from Dr. Hoerl. Says he is skeptical also, but is willing to listen to a reasonable argument. Sounds like you guys. The following was my response.

Roger,
Thanks.
Sorry for my poor timing. A friend on the forum just reminded me that this might be a bad time of the year.
The basic idea is that the likelihood of my current existence -- given the hypothesis that each potential human “self” has but one, finite time to exist, at most – is so small (one over infinity?) as to preclude the hypothesis being correct…
I’ll be back.
Thanks, again.
Rich

Can we also see his exact email text, with phone numbers, etc redacted? Thanks.

 

[Giordano]

How about this - between any gargantuan number you could care to name and infinity lie an infinite number of integers.

Even worse, 1.9999999999999999999_ is equal to 2. (sorry I can't draw the bar right on my computer). That still bothers me some how.

 

[Garrette]

"Roger?" One email exchange and you call this Professor who is kind enough to afford a complete stranger some time "Roger." And you call us rude.

Even if he invited you to do so, simple respect should preclude it.

 

[Garrette]

I thought he was supposed to be trying to prove immortality, not the existence of God.

That is the goal he admits, but as Monza states, he has a hidden agenda. I am not pulling this out of thin air. Long ago near the beginning of this he hinted at it more strongly in his talk about how he and we are somehow "special."

 

[jt512]

The limit of 1/x as x --> infinity is 0

That does not answer my question. You claimed that the expectation of something, call it X, is 0. To show that that is true, you must first unambiguously describe X, the sample space to which X belongs, and the probability distribution over that sample space. Then, using the mathematical definition of expectation, show that the expectation of X is 0. I think you are going to find that to be impossible, but you're welcome to try and prove me wrong.

 

[Garrette]

Moreover, I can well anticipate Jabba's response to your (and our) criticism of his presumed line of thinking, and it will amount to him simply defining and redefining his God so as to -- in his mind -- say that the probability issue does not apply.

 

[jt512]

x is the sample space. x is an infinity of potential souls a god might choose to create.

The limit of 1/x as x --> infinity is 0.

If x is the sample space, then x is a set. So you are attempting to divide a real number, 1, by a set, x, an operation that is undefined. Your supposed expectation calculation involves an undefined operation. Want to try again?

 

[xtifr]

x is the sample space. x is an infinity of potential souls a god might choose to create.

Define "soul", and prove that the potential number of them is actually infinite. Note that in this universe, the number of potential VWs is not infinite, because A. there are a finite number of particles, and B. the Planck length limitation means those particles can only have a finite number of arrangements. Show that the same is not true of souls.

 

[jt512]

It seems that either God or you doesn't understand the axioms of probability. My money's on you.

I'm interested in your thinking on this (seriously, no snark). I had thought of objecting with something along the lines of It depends on how he defines the God. I had not considered any axioms that mitigate against it.

I hope you're not expecting a theological argument, because you're going to be disappointed. My argument is based on probability theory, and is essentially the same one I made (or at least hinted at) here. Toontown's claim was not well worded, but I think what he meant is that if there are an infinite number of souls, then the probability of picking any one of them is 0. But such a statement violates the axioms of probability, which, for a discrete sample space, require that the probabilities of all the elements sum to 1. Clearly, this requirement cannot be met if the probability of each element is 0. Therefore, if we want to model God's process of choosing a soul from an infinite set of souls, the probabilities for at least some souls must be non-zero, and therefore the "expectation" for a random soul being chosen, if the expectation is defined, must be greater than 0.

Holy crap. I think I just made a theological argument.

 

[Garrette]

I hope you're not expecting a theological argument, because you're going to be disappointed. My argument is based on probability theory, and is essentially the same one I made (or at least hinted at) here. Toontown's claim was not well worded, but I think what he meant is that if there are an infinite number of souls, then the probability of picking any one of them is 0. But such a statement violates the axioms of probability, which, for a discrete sample space, require that the probabilities of all the elements sum to 1. Clearly, this requirement cannot be met if the probability of each element is 0. Therefore, if we want to model God's process of choosing a soul from an infinite set of souls, the probabilities for at least some souls must be non-zero, and therefore the "expectation" for a random soul being chosen, if the expectation is defined, must be greater than 0.

Holy crap. I think I just made a theological argument.

No, I was expecting a probability argument, but as you say, this may work as both. Thanks.

 

[Toontown]

The problem is very simple. Infinity is not a number, so you can't mechanically do math operations with it. Any math operation involving infinity, such as 1/infinity, can only be defined, and is generally defined as 0 if defined at all. The definition is not precise. It simply means 1/infinity is infinitely small, and so may, for practical purposes, be called 0.

But 1 element of an infinite set is still 1 element. Not 0.

 

[Humots]

The problem is very simple. Infinity is not a number, so you can't mechanically do math operations with it. Any math operation involving infinity, such as 1/infinity, can only be defined, and is generally defined as 0 if defined at all. The definition is not precise. It simply means 1/infinity is infinitely small, and so may, for practical purposes, be called 0.

But 1 element of an infinite set is still 1 element. Not 0.

You could say PI = 3927/1250 (3.1416) for "practical purposes", but that does not make that value correct mathematically.

We are not talking about practical purposes, we are talking about formal mathematics. Terms like "1/infinity" or "infinitely small" are too vague in this context.

You can say the limit of 1/x as x goes to zero is infinity. Meaning, pick any number and at some point, 1/x will be greater than that number.

You can say the limit of 1/x as x goes to infinity is zero. Meaning, pick any number and at some point, 1/x will be less than that number.

Jabba once said that he was a "certified statistician". This claim was based on his having a certificate that said he had passed courses in statistics.

Toontown,what formal math instruction do you have? I mean, have you studied calculus, or probability, or algebra? And I mean studied, as in taken and passed college level courses.

It's one thing to use big words. It's another to actually understand them.

 

[Mojo]

That is the goal he admits, but as Monza states, he has a hidden agenda.

At the moment it seems to be that he has a Volkswagen and is worried about eventually having to replace it, so by claiming that the potential number of Volkswagens is infinite he is attempting to prove that his Volkswagen will last forever.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

At the moment it seems to be that he has a Volkswagen and is worried about eventually having to replace it, so by claiming that the potential number of Volkswagens is infinite he is attempting to prove that his Volkswagen will last forever.

Bravo!

 

[PixyMisa]

As far as I can see, Jabba's argument goes like this:

1. There is something about humans that is unchanging.
2. Since everything material changes, this something must be immaterial.
3. Being immaterial, it's not subject to material constraints, so there's infinite number of potential whatsits.
4. Given an infinite number of potential whatsits, the probability of a specific whatsit being selected is zero.
5. I exist, therefore a specific whatsit was in fact selected.
6. Since, based on my premise, the probability of this event is zero, the premise is necessarily false.

Therefore:

7. Humans do not have immaterial whatsits.
8. There is nothing about humans that is unchanging.
9. When we die, it's over. Worms eat us.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

- Just got a note from Dr. Hoerl. Says he is skeptical also, but is willing to listen to a reasonable argument. Sounds like you guys. The following was my response.

Roger,
Thanks.
Sorry for my poor timing. A friend on the forum just reminded me that this might be a bad time of the year.
The basic idea is that the likelihood of my current existence -- given the hypothesis that each potential human “self” has but one, finite time to exist, at most – is so small (one over infinity?) as to preclude the hypothesis being correct…
I’ll be back.
Thanks, again.
Rich

All the great breakthroughs in human understanding have been revealed in tedious part-works. "Best man in the fight," remember.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Even worse, 1.9999999999999999999_ is equal to 2. (sorry I can't draw the bar right on my computer). That still bothers me some how.

As soon as I understood the axioms used to define the real numbers, this all stopped being weird and mystical. 1.999... can in any computation be made arbitrarily close to 2; therefore it is equal to 2.

 

[Jabba]

Originally Posted by Jabba.
- As far as I can tell, no one has said why those are not different types of limitations. Can you point me to a post that you think does?

Originally Posted by godless dave.
Here are three:

[The first one]
Originally Posted by Slowvehicle.
Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

If you are going to limit yourself to the number of unique combinations of 5 cards (not permutations, as the order of the cards in the hand does not matter) that can be made from the cards in one deck of cards, then to be appositive, you must limit yourself to the number of unique combinations of Volkswagen parts that can be made form one unreplenished warehouse full of VW parts.

If you are going to allow yourself to fantasize about "infinite" time, materials, space, and energy while constructing your VWs, yo must also consider how many 5-card hands could be made form an "inufinite" number of decks of playing cards.

Dave and Slowvehicle,
- Isn’t that exactly what I’m saying? These are different types of limitations.

It's exactly the opposite of what you are saying.

- I'm not trying to be appositive. I'm just saying that there are different ways in which outcomes can be limited. And Slowvehicle is actually pointing out such different ways in order to show that my attempt at apposition is misguided.