You poor, poor dear. Go have a lie down.
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[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics
- Thread starter Jabba
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Mojo
Mostly harmless
What do you think limiting the hands to those that can be dealt from a single 52 card deck does?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Of course you can. It's all you've ever done.
The trick, however, is to have someone other than yourself accept that definition as being valid.
It hasn't ever happened though, has it? Clue there for you?
Squeegee Beckenheim
Penultimate Amazing
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You can define anything anyway you like. If, however, you want to be able to compare things fairly, then you must define them consistently. You must also realise that definition is not magic.
What you're doing is defining VWs and poker hands differently, then claiming that the different ways you've defined them are intrinsic properties of VWs and poker hands. But they're not intrinsic properties of either, they're just how you've defined them. You could just as easily swap the definitions of poker hands and VWs and prove the exact opposite of what you're attempting to prove. That's because the different definitions are completely arbitrary and are applied inconsistently.
In other words - you can play whatever linguistic games you choose, but that says nothing about reality. You cannot define things into existence.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Incidentally, does anyone know what Jabba is trying to prove with this "infinite number of Volkswagens" business?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
I think so.
Stated differently than my original post:
Infinite VWs means infinite selves means infinite souls.
Probability of one particular soul given the scientifically postulated universe is nil.
Probability of one particular soul given a universe in which God can choose souls is greater than nil.
Ergo: The universe is not the scientifically postulated one but the one with God choosing special people to create.
How about finite things made of metal and plastic vs. finite things made of cardboard and plastic? At least this is a real distinction between VWs and playing cards and then you can talk about things that you can fold with your hands. Oh wait- that doesn't help you with your fundamental problem. Never mind...
Toontown
Philosopher
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You're not even giving Jabba credit for knowing that doesn't work?
Just in case anyone doesn't know why that doesn't work: given an infinity of possible souls, the expectation that God creates a particular one is nil.
For that matter, given any giganogargantuan finite potential number of anything, the expectation that any particular potential something will happen at a particular required point in spacetime is very nearly nil, so you're all just arguing over a minute difference that is practically immaterial.
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I am a little sorry to send Jabba to Dr, Hoeri. I suspect this is finals week and time is limited for most faculty members already. If Dr. Hoeri is seeing this, I am deeply sorry to impose on your time. Please see my following post to Jabba to try to focus the question and minimize any disruption to you work obligations.
Jabba.
Why don't you make it simple for him to respond, and thereby increase the chances of this happening?
1. First, Dr. Hoeri is a statistics and math expert, not a metaphysicist. So you should ask about his special expertise: statistics and math. So I urge you to ask him primarily about your idea of intrinsic and extrinsic finity, and about your example of extrinsically finite VWs being fundamentally different from intrinsically finite card hands and lottery tickets, and your proposal that therefore there can be infinite VWs but not infinite card hands under the same hypothesis. If you email this in the form of an easy yes or no question, you are more likely to get a response. This question is why we asked you to seek a math expert in the first place.
2. I suppose you can also ask Dr. Hoeri if Bayes math can tell you anything about reincarnation. But I warn you that reincarnation is not his academic expertise, although he may have a view on it yes or no. At least he can tell you if you can legitimately mix the Bayes prediction of the previous probability of Jabba (low) vs the math that you are indeed here (high) to conclude anything.
3. Bringing up anything that is not his expertise, such as if there is a self or a soul, will increase the chances of being ignored. Trust me on this.
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Why do I have a feeling that if Dr. Hoeri does say that one can't usefully define intrinsic and extrinsic finiteness, and that card hands and VWs are the same in this regard, Jabba will just add him to the other posters here and simply conclude that Dr. Hoeri is too "left brained" to understand what Jabba means?
Toontown
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You have achieved 2 out of a possible3 correct responses. Your grade is 67.
One more incorrect response, and your grade deteriorates to 50.
Upon which time I will make my appeal to the Privy Maths Council on the grounds of misappropriation of semantics to misdefine finite as infinite.
Not that it matters to the argument. Even were we to grant yours (and Jabba's) claim, the argument fails at numerous other points.
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
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Toontown said:
Still flogging this anti-mathematical nonsense, huh?
I at least partially retract. On re-reading how you worded it, I think I was too harsh in that you are not actually equating the finite and the infinite in a mathematical sense but merely a practical sense. Am I correct?
Toontown
Philosopher
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Jabba's claim is not my claim. You don't know what my claim would be, were I to present it. Which I won't.
You've all been barking up the wrong tree, espefially Jabba.
Jabba just happened to touch on something meaningful, then immediately proceeded to bark up the wrong tree.
And your grade just went to 50.
But wait, I see you retracted the wrong response. So you've managed to cling precariously to the 67.
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Toontown
Philosopher
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Still flogging Jabba for the past...how many months has it been now?
Physician, heal thyself.
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