[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Not in post 2558, no.
Agatha,
- I'll get back to this. In asking my question above, I didn't realize that I was going off topic. The topic I want to focus on right now is the false dichotomy claim.
 
Not "at most": it should be "exactly". We do not have less than one life, and we do not have more than one life. We have exactly one life.
The above seems relevant. If Jabba cared to, he could ask one of his immortal and / or reincarnated friends to post here and explain how it works. I won't hold my breath.

If no reincarnated and /or immortal people can be found, there are several logical conclusions:
- immortality and reincarnation only start with Jabba's generation?
- When you reincarnate, you don't remember your prior life?
- It's all ********.

There are other possibilities that I have missed, so others please free to add.
 
- The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.

- Does everyone accept my dichotomy now?
 
- Yeah.
- I had been trying to show that immortality was "essentially" the complement of one finite existence, before I showed why the complement "essentially" had to be true -- but, that was surely a mistake.

Good morning, Mr. Savage!

At the risk of being accused of being "condescending", would you mind explaining, finally, what you mean by "essentially", in these and the rest of your contexts?
 
- The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.

- Does everyone accept my dichotomy now?

Or that this is all a computer simulation and we're all programs who think they're humans. Or that the universe sprung into being 30 seconds ago and we just think that it's older. Or that I, Squeegee Beckenheim, am the only person who exists and everything else is a hallucination of mine.

And so on, and so forth.
 
- The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.

- Does everyone accept my dichotomy now?


No. You haven't changed anything. You must define both things at once and they must cover all possibilities.

If one side is that "my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes," the other side must be defined as anything other than that. That includes: that the universe is deterministic, that you are mortal, that other people are mortal, that other people are immortal, that the universe is ten minutes old, and every other possible thing that can be imagined.

It is meaningless for you to state one side of a complementary model. You must state both sides.

This has been explained over and over. You cannot say that immortality is the complement to mortality. It is not. You appeared to say that you were going to try to create real complementary options, but then you just posted the same thing you've been claiming.

You need to be more thorough.
 
- The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.

- Does everyone accept my dichotomy now?

No. You are talking about a soul, a religious concept. If you mean reincarnation then why don't you just say so?
 
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Or that I, Squeegee Beckenheim, am the only person who exists and everything else is a hallucination of mine.


I think that we can grant that Jabba exists, at least from his perspective. It is actually the only fact he can know for certain.
 
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Jabba, do you understand that in the scientific model, there is no soul, and the self is the same thing as the human brain and the body that contains it?
 
- The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.

- Does everyone accept my dichotomy now?

That's the problem, though, Jabba. There's not just one complementary model.

Example:

At the moment, all evidence indicates that the sky appears blue. Doesn't matter why the sky appears blue; that's the current scientific model, so to speak. If I want to argue that the current scientific model regarding the apparent color of the sky is wrong and posit that the opposite is true, I have to define what that opposite scenario is.

I might be tempted to assume that the opposite of blue is orange; therefore, if the sky isn't blue, it must be orange, but the opposite of blue isn't orange. The opposite of blue, for the sake of this example, is everything that is not blue, so I have to take into account every other color possibility that exists, not just orange.

The opposite of one finite life isn't eternal life. The opposite of one finite life is every possible scenario that would fall under the category of not one finite life. Eternal life, or however you're definiting immortality, is just one scenario, but there are plenty of others.
 
- Reviewing the last two pages, I found the following issues.
1. Deterministic universe? (My answer @ #2558.)


Sorry, but no. The answer is 42.



2. Why aren’t the rest of us special? (My answer @ #2540.)


Nope. Still 42, I'm afraid.



3. False dichotomy. (My answer @ #2560.)


Not a chance.

The only answer to this issue is always going to be "both".



4. Why “at most”?


Because "at least" is too minimalist.



5. Validity of my numbers?


1/∞


6. Other life forms?


Why would your silly theory only apply to life forms?



- I’ll start by elaborating re #3.


Because starting at the beginning is just so 2013.



- As for my definitions of p and ~p -- assuming that P is what I'm calling the "Scientific Model" -- specifically, this model holds that my self will exist for only one finite life at most. The complementary model is that my self will exist and it will exist continuously, or for multiple lifetimes.


Yeah, that's the trouble with personal definitions, isn't it?

They make absolutely no sense to anyone else.



- At this point, I have to admit that my model is not quite complementary.


You don't have to admit it.

Everyone else already knew.



My model is that I am immortal -- that I will exist continuously or periodically ... forever.


What's both good and bad for you is that you'll never get to find out that you're completely wrong.



- I think that what I would like to do now is shift over to the real complementary model and see if I can establish that its posterior probability is unimaginably large (I had it backwards before) -- given my current existence. If I can do that, I'll come back to the immortality model and argue it.[/i]


I think that before you shift over to the "real complementary model" (have you been pretending up until now?) you should perhaps explain exactly what you mean by the non-complementary model because frankly the idea that there's such a thing as a scientific model that states "that [Jabba's] self will exist for only one finite life at most" is well beyond bizarre.



- Questions?


Yeah, but you won't answer them.
 
The opposite of one finite life is dead or never existed in the first place.


No. The only two choices available if all scientific knowledge is true are either one finite life or none. Logically, however, we must embrace the far broader picture of every possibility other than living one finite life in a random universe.
 
No. The only two choices available if all scientific knowledge is true are either one finite life or none. Logically, however, we must embrace the far broader picture of every possibility other than living one finite life in a random universe.

Then sir, logic is an ass!
 
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