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[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Jabba, just for the record, you are not estimating probabilities, you are plucking them out of the aether.

You have no idea what the probabilities are.

Nobody has any idea what the probabilities are.

Every probability you give is a wild stab in the dark with a blunt spoon.

Seriously, have you tried what I suggested earlier, changing the input probabilities to see what effect that has on the results?

If not, why not?

It would be what I would do as a scientist.

If you have a result that depends to any extent on the assumptions in your hypothesis then you should alter the input parameters to see what effect it has.

If the results alter wildly with different input parameters then it means that your hypothesis is so model dependent that it is worthless.

When it comes to science it's the assumptions you make that will kill your hypothesis.
 
Kwalish Kid said:
Is it your religious position that every possible conscious being will be created?
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Kid,

- I abbreviate names because I'm a 2 finger typist. If you really wish me to use your whole name, just let me know.

- "Yes," or "no," isn't quite sufficient, but I can start with "yes."
- Mostly, I believe that there is much more to reality than what science and logic currently seem to demand, and what we currently consider supernatural, will some day be recognized as totally natural. I think that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and life and consciousness are emergent -- and sort of "spooky" properties. I also think that there are enormous implications in our individual awarenesses that most of us fail to recognize -- something like, I assume, the implications of the water that fish simply take for granted as if the water isn't even there.
- My best guess is that each of us is part of an infinitely divisible drop of consciousness from an infinitely divisible bucket of consciousness, and are really just one, and conscious all the time (whatever time is).
- Gotta go.

--- Jabba
 
^
Ah, yes.
The breakfast nook logic.

Jabba said:
.. what we currently consider supernatural, will some day be recognized as totally natural. ...
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What do you think is supernatural, Jabba?
 
pakeha said:
...What do you think is supernatural, Jabba?
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Pakeha,
- Currently, ESP, precognition, etc. are considered to be supernatural -- if, in fact, they exist. I think that they do exist, but that they are, in fact, natural. We just don't understand them yet.
--- Jabba
 
Jabba said:
Pakeha,
- Currently, ESP, precognition, etc. are considered to be supernatural -- if, in fact, they exist. I think that they do exist, but that they are, in fact, natural. We just don't understand them yet.
--- Jabba
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1. Do you have any evidence that they exist, or do you just believe in them because it would be nice if they existed? I've got quite a bit of time for believing in things for that reason, so long as there isn't any obvious downside if it turns out your wrong. Also, surely it's not a questions of "we don't understand them"... "we don't know how to do them in a way that their non-existence can be dismissed" would surely be better? I'll be amazed if understanding is harder than proving their existence. Finding the Higgs Boson seems to have been easier.

2. You seem in your previous post to be taking individual consciousness as your jumping off point and then somehow getting to everybody being connected to some kind of infinite unending meta-consciousness. How do you get from the jumping off point to the conclusion? Personally I think the qualia experience of consciousness indicates that there is more to reality than that which is directly observable... but I don't see how one goes from that to claiming that any of the unending number of non-observable/supernatural possibilities exist.
 
Jabba, why haven't you tried my suggestion of changing the input probabilities in your Bayesian formula?

Are you worried about what the results might be?
 
Jabba said:
- My basic effort here is to evaluate the scientific hypothesis that -- at most -- we each have but one short life to live
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So what is this 'scientific' hypothesis supposed to explain, and how is it falsifiable?
 
Weak Kitten said:
Wow, that link is amazing! I had never head about immortal cell lines before, that's pretty strange and cool. I love it when people post links like that.
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The irony is they're immortal because they're cancer cells. I don't want to achieve immortality as a tumour.
 
Weak Kitten said:
Wow, that link is amazing! I had never head about immortal cell lines before, that's pretty strange and cool. I love it when people post links like that.
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You're welcome. I just figured that since the OP wasn't really talking about immortal things, someone had to. :D
 
dlorde said:
So what is this 'scientific' hypothesis supposed to explain, and how is it falsifiable?
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dlorde,
- Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing, what I'm calling the "scientific" model, or hypothesis, is that we selves/souls/individual awarenesses have -- at most -- just one short life to live in all of eternity (if there be such a thing as "eternity").
- This is more of an evidentiary description than it is an explanation.
- It describes what appears to be the human "lot." Scientifically, anything more seems to be wishful thinking.
- But, I'm claiming that it's "falsifiable" via Bayesian statistics. If the numbers I've inserted into the formula are correct, this "scientific" model is essentially impossible.
- But, that's where the real issues lie -- are my numbers correct?
--- Jabba
 
I don't think it's good usage of the word Scientific to apply it to a position on whether or not undetectable entities (i.e. souls, or what ever you want to call them) are, or are not, spatially or temporally bounded. Surely the "Scientific" view would be to say that the question is unscientific and move on to something more productive?
 
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