[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Jabba said:
Humots,
- Yeah. I'm here. My grand kids have been sick.
- But also, I've been trying to put it all together at once, and have just now given up on that idea...

Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...

No.

The "anthropic principle" is an example of the fallacy formally known as "shaking the dog at the stick". You have it backwards. This planet is not "fine-tuned" for life--life, as we know it, has evolved in response to (at least part of some of) the conditions on this planet. Life as we know it is "fine-tuned" for the conditions under which it developed (the small part of this planet that is not inimical to life).

Come spend tonight sleeping in my garden...you will not survive to the dawn. How is that "fine-tuning"?
 
Jabba said:
Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
The anthropic principle was originally simply the observation that, since life exists, the fundamental laws and constants of the universe must be such that it is possible for life to exist. As such it requires no explanation. It's just a quick way of ruling out lots of possibilities that are theoretically possible but, since they are incompatible with the existence of life, are obviously not how the universe actually works.

There have since been lots of attempts to make much more of it than that, leading to a great deal of confusion and disagreement. The claim that the universe is "fine tuned" for life is based on a version of it. There are plenty of threads demolishing that claim, if you care to look for them.
 
Jabba said:
Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...

No, that is not correct. I don't understand where you would have gotten such an idea.
 
Jabba, this question is not irrelevant to the last few posts.

Do you remember puddles or puddle analogies being mentioned anywhere in this thread?
 
Pixel42 said:
The anthropic principle was originally simply the observation that, since life exists, the fundamental laws and constants of the universe must be such that it is possible for life to exist. As such it requires no explanation. It's just a quick way of ruling out lots of possibilities that are theoretically possible but, since they are incompatible with the existence of life, are obviously not how the universe actually works.

There have since been lots of attempts to make much more of it than that, leading to a great deal of confusion and disagreement. The claim that the universe is "fine tuned" for life is based on a version of it. There are plenty of threads demolishing that claim, if you care to look for them.
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Pixel,
- I'm not interested in threads. What I want is a link to scientist demolishing the appearance of enormous coincidence.
- Otherwise, I see a universe that happens to allow for life as the first enormous coincidence allowing for my current existence.
 
Pixel,
- Stenger proposes an argument against fine-tuning; in no way does he demolish fine-tuning; and as provided in Wikipedia, no way is his argument even convincing. Mostly, he's saying, "Maybe."
 
Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- Give me a link.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Wiki, as ever, is only a starting point, I simply couldn't be bothered to do any more of your research for you than point you to that starting point.

For more links look at any of the threads on the subject, which are full of them, or start with the talkorigins link given above.
 
Mr. Savage:

You may have missed this, in another thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9744854#post9744854

Gawdzilla said:
Or perhaps just explain these numbers*:

~99.9999% of the Universe is hard vacuum.

~99.9999% of what's left is flaming nuclear fireballs.

~99.9999% of what's left from that is cold interstellar gas.

~99.9999% of what's left from that is barren, airless balls of rock or gas giants, neither of which can sustain life.

~99.9999% of what's left from that is barely habitable planets like Mars.

Then we come to Earth.


*Numbers approximated, of course, but "close enough for your purposes" according to three separate astronomers.
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Please explain how this reality supports the idea of fine-tuning.
 
Jabba said:
Humots,
- Yeah. I'm here. My grand kids have been sick.
- But also, I've been trying to put it all together at once, and have just now given up on that idea...

Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...

No. It could be that the physical constants leading to the universe as we know it can't be anything but what they are.
 
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Jabba said:
Pixel,

- Stenger proposes an argument against fine-tuning; in no way does he demolish fine-tuning; and as provided in Wikipedia, no way is his argument even convincing. Mostly, he's saying, "Maybe."
Click to expand...

I have Stenger's book, and I can assure you that he is not saying "maybe", and that he is carefully demolishing every single argument put forth by fine-tuners, and he is not even using the multiverse argument.
 
Jabba said:
Humots,
- Yeah. I'm here. My grand kids have been sick.
- But also, I've been trying to put it all together at once, and have just now given up on that idea...

Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...

Evasion noted
 
Jabba said:
Anybody,
- As I understand it, the only explanation for the Anthropic Principle -- besides an amazing coincidence -- is multiverses. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
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.
 
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What does the AP have to do with immortality, anyway?
 
Agatha said:
What does the AP have to do with immortality, anyway?
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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."
 
I don't doubt that is where Jabba is headed, Humots.

And yet, at some point in the next 100 years or so, everyone posting in this thread will be dead and gone, pushing up the daisies, dust in the wind, as dead as the Norwegian Blue parrot.

Our individual consciousnesses will be gone, and the only immortality any of us will have is in the memories of those we leave behind. Oh, and our musings on the internet, found by the 22nd century's equivalent of google cache.
 
Agatha said:
Our individual consciousnesses will be gone, and the only immortality any of us will have is in the memories of those we leave behind. Oh, and our musings on the internet, found by the 22nd century's equivalent of google cache.
Click to expand...

You do realise that you've just become a meme in 2114, don't you?

Well, if you're reading this, future, then the greatest singer of 2014 is Miley Cyrus, the president of the USA is Barrat O'Barmy, and our primary means of communicating is through MySpace. Casually drop those facts into conversation with your HistoryTeacherBot, and it'll be impressed.
 
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