[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[tsig]

How about you stop messing around and tell us what the thread's actually about?

Where does immortality come in?

I suspect that you're going to have to be immortal to get an answer to your questions.

 

[abaddon]

Zoo,

- My basic effort here is to evaluate the scientific hypothesis that -- at most -- we each have but one short life to live.

I suspect you will get general agreement there.

- My basic claim is that my own existence right now is relevant to that evaluation

Your claim that you are somehow special is toast

-- strongly weighing against that hypothesis, and therefore suggesting "something like" immortality.

And you just made that up.

- I gave four possible alternative hypotheses (suggestions) along those lines: 1)I am a basic and eternal part of reality; 2) reincarnation; 3) "now" isn't what we think it is; and, 4) We aren't nearly as smart as we think we are (I just added the "nearly"). And, there might be more.

And you made that up as well.

- You guys raise at least two objections: 1) since I already exist, the probability of my existence is 1.00 -- which consequently, blows my conclusion out of the water; and 2) every specific event is highly improbable (in the sense that I mean it), but they happen anyway…

Neither of which you addressed, nor the 5 questions Agatha posed. Because you cannot, and so chose to try to brush them under the carpet.

- Do you agree with my description so far?

--- Jabba

No.

 

[Loss Leader]

Zoo,

- My basic effort here is to evaluate the scientific hypothesis that -- at most -- we each have but one short life to live.
- My basic claim is that my own existence right now is relevant to that evaluation -- strongly weighing against that hypothesis, and therefore suggesting "something like" immortality.
- I gave four possible alternative hypotheses (suggestions) along those lines: 1)I am a basic and eternal part of reality; 2) reincarnation; 3) "now" isn't what we think it is; and, 4) We aren't nearly as smart as we think we are (I just added the "nearly"). And, there might be more.
- You guys raise at least two objections: 1) since I already exist, the probability of my existence is 1.00 -- which consequently, blows my conclusion out of the water; and 2) every specific event is highly improbable (in the sense that I mean it), but they happen anyway…

- Do you agree with my description so far?

--- Jabba

Just to be sociable, I would agree with this. I'd like to see where you go with it next.

 

[Giordano]

Jabba,

Why don't you answer Agatha's questions before you go any further? They are central issues that need to be addressed at the very beginning of your proof to establish whether your approach is legitimate or not. Currently everyone here is convinced that your approach has serious fundamental flaws, for the reasons already discussed. If you want people to be willing to be open minded as to the rest of your proof, you will need to change their minds. Answering Agatha's questions may do that and you may save yourself and everyone else a lot of time.

 

[ehcks]

Truth of knowns is Boolean. 1=true, 0=false. Probability gives a range from 0 (false) to 1 (true) for unknowns.

If something already is known to be true, its probability is 1.

It is known that you are alive. The probability of your existence is 1.

 

[The Norseman]

...and therefore suggesting "something like" immortality...

Ah, I see.

You could have saved an awful lot of time and energy just by putting that into your thread title: "Something Like Immortality & Something Like Bayesian Statistics".

Would have been much more honest.

 

[AdMan]

Bumping these up again.

Jabba, will you please answer these questions (bolding mine):

1) Where did you get your numbers from?

2) Do you agree with Humots that your maths shows the probability of the non-religious hypothesis to be much more likely than the religious hypothesis?

3) Do you understand that you are calculating the probability of 'you' existing in 2012 as if you were performing the calculation 20,000 years ago?

4) Do you understand why this is a foolish thing to do, given that we are in 2012 and all the things that had to happen to produce you (or any of the 7 billion people in the world) have already happened?

5) Do you understand what people are getting at when they give you analogies such as a puddle thinking the hole is made for it, or the wine thinking the glass is made for it?

It takes one post to answer those five questions. It takes one post to lay out the rest of the argument (again, you should have put your entire argument into your first post). One post. In the words of Nike, just do it.

And please, don't tell us how you've read all the posts and you're overwhelmed by the number of questions and comments, and you need to go back and think about them, and you'd like it if we chose one person to ask questions, and you only have an hour a day to spend on this thread, and you've forgotten most of your sources, and you need to try and look them up, etc., etc., etc.

That is just plain evasive BS. Everyone can see that.

Just answer the questions.

 

[abaddon]

Bumping these up again.

Jabba, will you please answer these questions (bolding mine):



And please, don't tell us how you've read all the posts and you're overwhelmed by the number of questions and comments, and you need to go back and think about them, and you'd like it if we chose one person to ask questions, and you only have an hour a day to spend on this thread, and you've forgotten most of your sources, and you need to try and look them up, etc., etc., etc.

That is just plain evasive BS. Everyone can see that.

Just answer the questions.

seconded.

 

[Jabba]

In the time you took to tell us that you'd eventually get round to answering the criticisms of your post #215, you could have posted the remainder of your supposed proof of immortality, and also answered some of those criticisms.

Honestly, Jabba, do you have any idea how damaging it is to your credibility that you act like this? It was bad enough that you took two weeks to post what should have been in the first post, but now you are doing what you have done in the shroud thread. Instead of answering people, you waste post upon post in telling us that you intend to answer at some indeterminate time in the future, instead of just answering.

Despite your attempt to inject a little levity, you don't have 2^64 questions to answer. You just have five.

1) Where did you get your numbers from?

2) Do you agree with Humots that your maths shows the probability of the non-religious hypothesis to be much more likely than the religious hypothesis?

3) Do you understand that you are calculating the probability of 'you' existing in 2012 as if you were performing the calculation 20,000 years ago?

4) Do you understand why this is a foolish thing to do, given that we are in 2012 and all the things that had to happen to produce you (or any of the 7 billion people in the world) have already happened?

5) Do you understand what people are getting at when they give you analogies such as a puddle thinking the hole is made for it, or the wine thinking the glass is made for it?

It takes one post to answer those five questions. It takes one post to lay out the rest of the argument (again, you should have put your entire argument into your first post). One post. In the words of Nike, just do it.

Agatha,
- I was about to attempt an answer to Humot's #232, but at least a few of you guys would like me to attempt answers to your set of five questions instead. I can only answer one at a time.
#1.
- I've told you how I get the probability of me existing right now (or, of a particular "person" (individual consciousness) existing at a particular time), given the "scientific" (non-religious) model.
- I use 99% as the probability that the scientific model is true prior to including the fact that I exist right now. My best guess is that most scientists would not propose such a high probability.
- I naturally use the complement of that -- 1% -- as the probability that the scientific model is not true.
- For the probability of me existing given that one of the alternative models is true, I gave the SWAG of .1% as a very low-ball, yet significant estimate.
- How's that?
--- Jabba

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I can only answer one at a time.

2, 3, 4 and 5 were all yes/no questions. It would have taken less time to answer all 4 of them than it did to type the sentence I've quoted.

- How's that?

The question wasn't what numbers did you use, the question was where did you get the numbers from. Your answer seems to indicate that you made them all up.

 

[shuttlt]

- I use 99% as the probability that the scientific model is true prior to including the fact that I exist right now. My best guess is that most scientists would not propose such a high probability.

What do you mean by "the scientific model" and what would it mean to say that that model is "true"?

 

[Agatha]

I suppose a half answer is better than no answer, though not much help. You took a guess at the probability of the non-religious hypothesis (which you haven't defined) as 99%, but you have not explained where you got the 0.05 from which you used for P(me|R). Where did you get that number from, and why did you choose it?

Part of the problem here (apart from your apparent unwillingness to engage with the thread you started, or to actually post your full argument) is that you have not defined your terms or justified the numbers you chose.

So my five questions still stand, as you've not fully answered the first one. Where did the 0.05 come from and why did you chose those numbers?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Giordano,
- This has not been explained many times -- it's been claimed many times.
- We're not questioning the probability that I exist; we're questioning the probability that I exist by chance -- given the scientific hypothesis that I can exist only one, short life in all of "eternity," at most.
--- Jabba

Are you this obtuse, or are you just acting?

Hans

 

[Craig B]

Are you this obtuse, or are you just acting?

Hans

I wonder about this. It's all so very odd. But your two categories are not mutually exclusive, remember, and therein may lie the solution to the conundrum.

 

[MRC_Hans]

OK; sorry, I was just a bit annoyed.

I think Jabba's problem lies in that it is too long ago he learned statistics. Statistics is the art of making predictions about the whole reality, based on sample data.

Therefore, the probabilites we calculate are not the probability of reality existing, but the probability of our prediction to be accurate.

This explains the fact that once we make predictions about the past (such as Jabba being born), we are usually pretty accurate. However, as Jabba correctly points out, if someone had tried to predict it 20,000 years ago, it would be a different matter.

Hans

 

[Jabba]

I suppose a half answer is better than no answer, though not much help. You took a guess at the probability of the non-religious hypothesis (which you haven't defined) as 99%, but you have not explained where you got the 0.05 from which you used for P(me|R). Where did you get that number from, and why did you choose it?

Part of the problem here (apart from your apparent unwillingness to engage with the thread you started, or to actually post your full argument) is that you have not defined your terms or justified the numbers you chose.

So my five questions still stand, as you've not fully answered the first one. Where did the 0.05 come from and why did you chose those numbers?

Agatha,

- My mistake. I was thinking that I had used .1% (.001) as P(me|R) rather than .05.

- Keep in mind that the probabilities I'm giving are all estimates, and this particular estimate is the least reliable. Here, I'm estimating the probability that a particular "self" (me) would exist right now given that one of the "religious" hypotheses were correct.
- This particular probability is a particularly complicated and "nebulous" concept -- but then, I think that I'm significantly "low-balling" it in that for two of the religious hypotheses, my current existence should be pretty much assured.

- As I see it, the biggest obstacle to our communication here is that in P(me|R), I'm not considering my existence as a given, whereas in P(NR|me), I am. My claim is that this is how it's done. We're "always" trying to judge the possible explanations for something that has already happened, and this is how we do it...

- These are not easy, yes/no, questions -- even though we can phrase them as such. Something like, "Have you quit beating your wife?"
- And it naturally takes me a while to express my take in order to have any chance of effectively conveying it...

--- Jabba

 

[Jabba]

- In the above, I should have included the formula we're using.
- P(NR|me) = P(me|NR)P(NR)/(P(me|NR)P(NR)+P(me|R)P(R)).

---Jabba

 

[carlitos]

"self"

...
"religious"

...

"nebulous"

...

"low-balling"

Who in the hell are you quoting here?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

- This particular probability is a particularly complicated and "nebulous" concept -- but then, I think that I'm significantly "low-balling" it in that for two of the religious hypotheses, my current existence should be pretty much assured.

Is it your religious position that every possible conscious being will be created?

 

[Agatha]

It seems to be his position that he's one of 20 possible beings. Unless he means something else entirely by the 0.05 for P(me|R).

It's difficult to say because despite asking several times now, we still have no idea how these numbers have been calculated, nor what his religious hypotheses (two, apparently) are.

I am not even going to try to work out how any of this ties into immortality until we get some answers from Jabba.