[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Let's keep it going for the craic. What the hell. There are about 456 trillion trillion atoms in the brain. The possible combinations are 456000000000000000000000!. If you turned all the matter in the universe into ink then you still wouldn't have enough ink to write that number down. The idea that two brains could be identical is laughable. And even if a miracle occured and two brains during the short course of human history were identical then that still has nothing to do with immortalty.
 
Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- My suspicion of a continuous non-physical existence between physical iterations seems to me like the best explanation for my current existence.
- As you know, based upon its statistical requirements, I think that the scientific theory that each of us has only one finite period of consciousness is extremely unlikely to be correct, and that my consciousness either exists continuously (in one form or another), or it returns periodically.
- There IS some further logic involved, but probably the primary "evidence" which has me thinking that we're continuous rather than periodic is what I've read about reincarnation and near death experiences. Clearly, you do not perceive much, if any, credibility in such reports -- but I do, and for better or worse, those reports probably are the "evidence" most responsible for my selection here.
- If I can find the time, I'll try to describe the "further logic" in my choice.
Click to expand...


Mr. Savage:

Thank you for your attempt to explain. I fear I am unable to respond without being accused of being "condescending".

Do you understand that your "suspicion", "seeming" (to you) to be the "best explanation" for anything is a frail, frail reed? Why does what you want to be true, what you wish were an explanation, "seem" like the best explanation, to you?

You have made it clear that you want it to be "unlikely" that each of us has "only one finite period of consciousness", but you have not even begun to explain why you think that possible, much less likely--to say nothing of identifying even a plausible mechanism for how it would happen. "If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak" as Jane said...

What is missing (among other things) is even the hint of a plausible mechanism whereby your "consciousness" might exist after, beyond, or between iterations of different brains. If what you are calling "consciousness" is that emergent property of brains that others call "consciousness", how are you claiming that it can be, at all, absent a brain of which it might an emergent property be?

If the brain containing, or expressing the consciousness (out of which the consciousness emerges) is a different brain than last time, would it not, by any reasonable definition, be a different consciousness?

The same question might be posed of "reincarnation", what is it, exactly, that you want to be able to claim is, n fact, "reincarnated"? What evidence do you offer for the answer you will advance?

Why do you think the experience of not dying is a learning guide for what it is like to die? Why are NDEs reproducible with physical stress?

If all you have is your opinion, and your perfervid desires, say so.
 
Toontown said:
One more time. The U-brain hypothesis specified the target. It says this is the target that had to be hit from 14.7 billion light years away to light up my jungle, and that's exactly what happened, expectation 0.0000000......1, implied by the U-brain requirement. Not by me. I didn't predict anything.

Well, I kinda do know which one, Dave. It's kinda hard not to know. And I kinda do have a rough idea how ridiculous the expected likelihood of this one being hit is. So what am I supposed to do, pretend I don't know that? Fly up in the air and say,

'Well, there are a lot of targets down there, and some of them are sure to be hit, and the sum of all their hit expectations isn't so ridiculous if the set of all possible targets isn't too large. So I should definitely adopt the sum of all the hit expectations of all the targets as my expectation, because...well, because that's a bigger number, and I am definitely among that crowd. I'm not the whole crowd, and only Dave knows how my expectation of being among the crowd is affected in the least by those manipulations, but...whatever.

And I should do all that to avoid rejecting H0 and accepting H1 because________________?
Click to expand...

...and the fact that you did not, in fact, "predict" anything means that when you pretend to "discover" a "target" "hit by" a "bullet", you are creating the target ex post facto. Ya'll'r doin' a dandy job, there, Tex.

...except that it still has nothing to do with immortality.
 
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dafydd said:
No, all naplam bombs of the same type are identical, if I showed you one and then put in a pile of identical bombs then you would have to guess if I asked you to pick out the one I showed you.
Click to expand...

Identical and unique do not mean the same thing. All those identical but unique bombs can be differentiated by their locations relative to each other.
 
dafydd said:
Let's keep it going for the craic. What the hell. There are about 456 trillion trillion atoms in the brain. The possible combinations are 456000000000000000000000!. If you turned all the matter in the universe into ink then you still wouldn't have enough ink to write that number down. The idea that two brains could be identical is laughable. And even if a miracle occured and two brains during the short course of human history were identical then that still has nothing to do with immortalty.
Click to expand...

You must have thought I said something like that. I didn't.

Doesn't matter anyway. A brain identical to yours wouldn't be any more likely to be 'you' than any other.
 
Slowvehicle said:
...and the fact that you did not, in fact, "predict" anything means that when you pretend to "discover" a "target" "hit by" a "bullet", you are creating the target ex post facto. Ya'll'r doin' a dandy job, there, Tex.
Click to expand...

No.

If the U-brain assumption is true, then the target always existed. It was always the prerequisite to my existence. My U-brain did not become the supposed prerequisite brain after I discovered it was me. It already was the prerequisite brain, or there is no unique brain requirement.

That's what a target is. It defines a space which determines what is a hit and what is a miss. I did not define the target space. the U-brain assumption defines the target space.

The alternative to the U-brain assumption is that there is no defined target space. That gets the jungles lit up nicely.
 
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Toontown said:
No.

If the U-brain assumption is true, then the target always existed. It was always the prerequisite to my existence. My U-brain did not become the supposed prerequisite brain after I discovered it was me. It already was the prerequisite brain, or there is no unique brain requirement.

That's what a target is. It defines a space which determines what is a hit and what is a miss. I did not define the target space. the U-brain assumption defines the target space.

The alternative to the U-brain assumption is that there is no defined target space. That gets the jungles lit up nicely.
Click to expand...

...which, even if it were remotely accurate, and not just another attempt to hand-wave away classic TSF, has...what...to do with immortality?
 
Slowvehicle said:
...which, even if it were remotely accurate, and not just another attempt to hand-wave away classic TSF,
Click to expand...

It isn't just remotely true, it's standard probability, and it is how hypotheses are tested. You look at the existing observations, and you ask "given these observations, how likely is it that the hypothesis is true?" You can do that because the hypothesis gives certain expectations about the observations.

The expected frequency or likelihood is not considered a property of the observed system. It is considered a property of the hypothesis. You simply compare the observed frequency to the expected frequency as a test. There are statistical formulas which accurately convert the variance into a probability that the hypothesis is true, given the observations. I showed you one of them. Aside from complaining about the fact that I brought it up, you ignored it.

Slowvehicle said:
has...what...to do with immortality?
Click to expand...

If you don't think any of this has anything to do with immortality, then stop talking about it. Don't talk to me about it, I won't talk to you about it.

I never intended to go any further than explaining why I reject the U-brain assumption, and you don't even get that. So why would I try to interpret the alternative for you?
 
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Toontown said:
It isn't just remotely true, it's standard probability, and it is how hypotheses are tested. You look at the existing observations, and you ask "given these observations, how likely is it that the hypothesis is true?" You can do that because the hypothesis gives certain expectations about the observations.

The expected frequency or likelihood is not considered a property of the observed system. It is considered a property of the hypothesis. You simply compare the observed frequency to the expected frequency as a test. There are statistical formulas which accurately convert the variance into a probability that the hypothesis is true, given the observations. I showed you one of them. Aside from complaining about the fact that I brought it up, you ignored it.

If you don't think any of this has anything to do with immortality, then stop talking about it. Don't talk to me about it, I won't talk to you about it.

I never intended to go any further than explaining why I reject the U-brain assumption, and you don't even get that. So why would I try to interpret the alternative for you?
Click to expand...

Misstating actuality does not make it true.

Or on topic.
 
Jabba said:
Slowvehicle,
- My suspicion of a continuous non-physical existence between physical iterations seems to me like the best explanation for my current existence. - As you know, based upon its statistical requirements, I think that the scientific theory that each of us has only one finite period of consciousness is extremely unlikely to be correct, and that my consciousness either exists continuously (in one form or another), or it returns periodically.
- There IS some further logic involved, but probably the primary "evidence" which has me thinking that we're continuous rather than periodic is what I've read about reincarnation and near death experiences. Clearly, you do not perceive much, if any, credibility in such reports -- but I do, and for better or worse, those reports probably are the "evidence" most responsible for my selection here.
- If I can find the time, I'll try to describe the "further logic" in my choice.
Click to expand...

Your mother is the best explanation for your current existence.
 
Toontown said:
One more time. The U-brain hypothesis specified the target. It says this is the target that had to be hit from 14.7 billion light years away to light up my jungle, and that's exactly what happened, expectation 0.0000000......1, implied by the U-brain requirement. Not by me. I didn't predict anything.



Well, I kinda do know which one, Dave. It's kinda hard not to know. And I kinda do have a rough idea how ridiculous the expected likelihood of this one being hit is. So what am I supposed to do, pretend I don't know that? Fly up in the air and say,

'Well, there are a lot of targets down there, and some of them are sure to be hit, and the sum of all their hit expectations isn't so ridiculous if the set of all possible targets isn't too large. So I should definitely adopt the sum of all the hit expectations of all the targets as my expectation, because...well, because that's a bigger number, and I am definitely among that crowd. I'm not the whole crowd, and only Dave knows how my expectation of being among the crowd is affected in the least by those manipulations, but...whatever.

And I should do all that to avoid rejecting H0 and accepting H1 because________________?
Click to expand...

"I think it's English, Jim, just not English as we know it".
 
dafydd said:
Let's keep it going for the craic. What the hell. There are about 456 trillion trillion atoms in the brain. The possible combinations are 456000000000000000000000!. If you turned all the matter in the universe into ink then you still wouldn't have enough ink to write that number down. The idea that two brains could be identical is laughable. And even if a miracle occured and two brains during the short course of human history were identical then that still has nothing to do with immortalty.
Click to expand...

Even if two brains were identical, their environment would differ so they would develop differently.
 
Toontown said:
No.

If the U-brain assumption is true, then the target always existed. It was always the prerequisite to my existence. My U-brain did not become the supposed prerequisite brain after I discovered it was me. It already was the prerequisite brain, or there is no unique brain requirement.

That's what a target is. It defines a space which determines what is a hit and what is a miss. I did not define the target space. the U-brain assumption defines the target space.

The alternative to the U-brain assumption is that there is no defined target space. That gets the jungles lit up nicely.
Click to expand...

Must be hard to sleep in that jungle what with all the light and napalm going off.
 
Toontown said:
Why haven't you made good on your promise to put me on ignore?

Every napalm munition is unique, but any of them will light up your jungle.
Click to expand...

Many think they are blazing a new trail when actually they are helplessly lost in the jungle.
 
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