[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Giordano]

- I'm just saying that we can divide things like I have, and have different kinds of finiteness.

Have you found any mathematician who agrees with you? Even you have stated this lack of agreement in a prior post. Even you must realize that your attempt to illustrate this false distinction, by comparing VWs and card hands, shows in fact you are wrong. There is no difference between VWs and card hands.

 

[Slowvehicle]

- Oh.
- No.
- Or at least, not the "inconsistency" we're talking about here.
- Here, "inconsistency" just means a "difference." We can argue that both sets of possibilities are finite -- but, one set of possibilities is due entirely to the specified variables, the other set depends upon unspecified variables. There is a difference between the finiteness of those two sets of possibilities.

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

Here, you said:

- I agree with both of you except That it doesn't matter that I haven't applied my criteria consistently. In a sense, that's the whole point -- I'm saying that we can set up a situation in which the possibilities are intrinsically finite, and others where the possibilities are only extrinsically finite.
- The main point is that the limits on the number of possibilities possible can be determined by factors solely "internal" to the situation defined, or, they can be determined by factors external to the situation defined.
- Poker hands and lottery tickets are "closed" by definition; Volkswagens are "open."

It is only your inconsistent imposition of limits that allows you to pretend that the number of hands that can be made form a finite deck of cards and the number of Beetles that can be made from an imaginary "infinite" amount of resources are different in kind.

Limit the number of VWs to the parts in one warehouse; or, expand the number of hands to include infinite decks, and you are making a proper comparison, a comparison which indicates that the number of hands and the number of Bugs are the same kind of number: finite, limited by resource.

 

[Slowvehicle]

- I'm just saying that we can divide things like I have, and have different kinds of finiteness.

...but only by applying a different standard to the resources used to deal hands or build VWs...

 

[Slowvehicle]

Sounds like a big job. Might want to get one of those casino shuffling machines.

Job security...

 

[Giordano]

Does Jabba have most of the people here on ignore? The intrinsic/extrinsic thing has been explained in several different fashions that should help anyone understand Jabba's logical error.

It's weird, he responds to both Slow Vehicle and Loss Leader. Both of them have posted clear, unambiguous, and correct explanations regarding poker hands and VWs in the past hour. Yet his latest comments seem as if he has not read these replies at all.

Although that has generally been my assumption: that he has a lot of people on ignore. But I am puzzled as are you. He clearly responds to some posts by certain people, but ignores other posts by the same individual that clearly present the problems with his "proof." My only interpretation is that he has absolutely nothing to say in response to these critical posts, that he cannot answer the problems pointed out that exist in his posts, and that he somehow thinks that ignoring the problems means that the problems don't exist.

 

[Slowvehicle]

- Material, factories, workers.

-number of decks.

 

[Giordano]

- Oh.
- No.
- Or at least, not the "inconsistency" we're talking about here.
- Here, "inconsistency" just means a "difference." We can argue that both sets of possibilities are finite -- but, one set of possibilities is due entirely to the specified variables, the other set depends upon unspecified variables. There is a difference between the finiteness of those two sets of possibilities.

No, "inconsistency" referred to the fact that you chose two things that are not different, VWs and card hands or lottery tickets, and claimed that they are different. This is inconsistent!

 

[carlitos]

- I'm just saying that we can divide things like I have, and have different kinds of finiteness.

I really don't see how. The limits are there whether we specify them or not. Failure to specify them is just sloppy thinking.

what you're doing is sleight of hand, rather than something that has any kind of mathematical merit.

This. "Different kinds of finiteness" is sloppy thinking. It's what two stoned college kids would talk about. Pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo. Nonsense.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Does Jabba have most of the people here on ignore? The intrinsic/extrinsic thing has been explained in several different fashions that should help anyone understand Jabba's logical error.

It's weird, he responds to both Slow Vehicle and Loss Leader*. Both of them have posted clear, unambiguous, and correct explanations regarding poker hands and VWs in the past hour. Yet his latest comments seem as if he has not read these replies at all.


* Edited to add Squeegee Beckenheim, jsfisher, Giordano, and godless dave

See Akhenaten's explanation of the Least Critical Poster^TM.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9887703#post9887703

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9898300#post9898300
(and others)

Sic transit inermiam

 

[zooterkin]

- Sure. But you have added variables. Such is not necessary re possible poker hands.

There is a finite number of poker hands you can produce using the cards in a pack.

There is a finite number of Volkswagens you can produce using the atoms in the universe.

Please explain where the difference is.

 

[Giordano]

- I don't understand how the ability to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic finiteness would take us into religion.

It doesn't. Your proposal about intrinsic vs extrinsic "finiteness" is wrong, not religion. Your concept of infinite "selves" is what takes us into religion. So does your implication that someone or something must chose from this infinity to make certain that twins get similar selves.

The SM, as you call it, does not allow for infinite potential selves; in this model the "self" arises directly from the physical brain and is constrained to a finite number of potential selves based on the physical structure of the brain (which depends on its genetics, random chance, and on its experiences from day 0). This number may be very large, but is not infinity, as much as you would like to divide 1/infinity to make your equation fit your pre-existing goals.

In fact, the SM implies that every human brain will inevitably form a "self," a self-perspective. That "self" may not be Jabba per se; it may have been your sibling, or me, or one of 7 billion others. But it will inevitably form a "self" of some form (probability "essentially" =1) that is based on the physical brain.

As previously explained multiple times: in advance (posterior probability), that "self" had a low chance or being a Jabba per se, but it certainly it had to be someone. You happened to be Jabba. I happened to be me. I am holding a particular number in my hand from a large set of lottery tickets, although that particular number was highly improbable for me to select before I selected it. What is hard to see about this?

 

[Giordano]

- Sure. But you have added variables. Such is not necessary re possible poker hands.

You don't know what a "variable" is in math or in science, do you?

 

[Garrette]

Ok, so that likelihood term, P(me|SM,B), can be written in terms of three events: the data, "me"; the hypothesis, SM; and the background information, B. Which of these events are the "selves" you are referring to a part of?

- If I understand your question, the selves are the data.

But we have no evidence that the types of "selves" you have been referring to actually exist. Therefore, they are not data. So, if you are using their existence as data, your entire argument is invalid.

Jabba (and everybody else), did you miss this? Your argument is dead.

I saw it, and I agree, but while yours is perhaps the clearest and most concise dagger thrust into the heart of Jabba's argument, it is not the only one.

This is the Murder on the Orient Express of refutations in that we all killed the argument. The only difference is that in this case Poirot is not solving the murder; he is holding the argument's corpse upright, moving its lips with his hand, and refusing to accept it is dead.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I saw it, and I agree, but while yours is perhaps the clearest and most concise dagger thrust into the heart of Jabba's argument, it is not the only one.

This is the Murder on the Orient Express of refutations in that we all killed the argument. The only difference is that in this case Poirot is not solving the murder; he is holding the argument's corpse upright, moving its lips with his hand, and refusing to accept it is dead.

You are the winner of one internet.

 

[Garrette]

You are the winner of one internet.

Excellent. Mine refuses to visit any but one kind of website. I can never remember: Is the internet optimized or broken when all I get is the porn pop-up windows?

 

[pakeha]

No, Jabba.
It DOES matter that you haven't applied your criteria consistently.
It matters because you've crossed a line from science to religion, where anything goes.

- I don't understand how the ability to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic finiteness would take us into religion.

It's like religion in that anything goes. Only in theology can you apply criteria inconsistently and get away with it.

Nailed it, godless dave. Could this cherry-picking be a variant of the True Scotsman fallacy?

- Oh.
- No.
- Or at least, not the "inconsistency" we're talking about here.
- Here, "inconsistency" just means a "difference." ...

Making up definitions also takes us into religion, Jabba, for obvious reasons.

If you need an explicative example, one might be the jargon used by Scientologists.

...This is the Murder on the Orient Express of refutations in that we all killed the argument. The only difference is that in this case Poirot is not solving the murder; he is holding the argument's corpse upright, moving its lips with his hand, and refusing to accept it is dead.

You might call this the Jahi McMath of arguments.

 

[Garrette]

You might call this the Jahi McMath of arguments.

Ouch. I will agree to the accuracy of the analogy, but it's a bit too real for me to participate.

 

[jt512]

I saw it, and I agree, but while yours is perhaps the clearest and most concise dagger thrust into the heart of Jabba's argument, it is not the only one.

This is the Murder on the Orient Express of refutations in that we all killed the argument.

An excellent metaphor.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Excellent. Mine refuses to visit any but one kind of website. I can never remember: Is the internet optimized or broken when all I get is the porn pop-up windows?

Depending on the kind of porn pop-up, I would speak of that as the -40° point (where C and F intersect); that is, you might have it the sweet spot where "borked" and "optimized" are indistinguishable. Essentially.

 

[Monza]

Although that has generally been my assumption: that he has a lot of people on ignore. But I am puzzled as are you. He clearly responds to some posts by certain people, but ignores other posts by the same individual that clearly present the problems with his "proof." My only interpretation is that he has absolutely nothing to say in response to these critical posts, that he cannot answer the problems pointed out that exist in his posts, and that he somehow thinks that ignoring the problems means that the problems don't exist.

<sigh> And all it takes is a quick, "Oops, I was mistaken." But I don't think that will happen.

See Akhenaten's explanation of the Least Critical Poster^TM.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9887703#post9887703

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9898300#post9898300
(and others)

Sic transit inermiam

Ah yes, I'm afraid I do not have the honorable status of Least Critical Poster^TM.