Proof of Immortality III

[JoeMorgue]

The outside observer is disadvantaged when, due to his location, he lacks the same information or refuses to use it due to ideology.

That is not the same thing as the probability being different for the two observers because of their "perspective."

The 1st Person / 3rd Person distinction is absolutely, 100% meaningless in the context you are trying to wedge it into.

I have a D20 D&D Die in me desk right now. If I toss it on my desk I'll be the one who knows what number between 1-20 it lands on and you will not, but we don't experience different probabilistic outcomes, it's still 1 in 20 and it still lands on the same number in both our realities.

Right now in Vegas there's a guy getting dealt a hand of poker that you and I will never see. The odds of him getting dealt a natural royal flush is 1 in 649,740for him, me , you and everyone else on the planet.

"Ideology" cannot change any of this.

 

[Loss Leader]

Now with Jabba's arguments it's very, very difficult to tell which is the dog and which is the tail is this particular chase, I've never been able to grasp whether the Immortality/Shroud threads are backdoor defenses of Jabba's "Very Effective Debate" style or if Jabba's "Very Effective Debate" style is a convoluted defense of his Immortality/Shroud arguments or if it's some weird self feeding loop of both or to what degree Jabba honestly believes any of it and what degree it's some elaborate mummer's farce with the goal of "Taking the skeptics down a peg."

Jabba actually admits that his debate technique is not intended to convince either side that they are mistaken. It is to provide information to some undecided onlooker. Under his theories, he's required to keep arguing his position like a soldier is required to stand guard at Buckingham Palace.

 

[jt512]

And probability is nonexistent except in the context of sentience.

That's the most idiotic statement I have read on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Elementary counterexample: The probability that a carbon-14 atom will decay in the next 5,700 years is 0.5. This probability is a physical characteristic of carbon-14. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sentience of anything, and, in fact, would be the same if there were no sentience anywhere in the Universe.

 

[Toontown]

I was hoping to hear something new or interesting, hopefully something I hadn’t considered before.

Based on the highlighted above, I no longer have much hope. To quote someone on this thread "It's just that the one thing that is highly suspicious practically rules the story out."

Sorry. You're not likely to hear anything new or interesting here.

This is a quagmire.

 

[Toontown]

That's the most idiotic statement I have read on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Elementary counterexample: The probability that a carbon-15 atom will decay in the next 2.45 seconds is 0.5. This probability is a physical characteristic of carbon-15. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sentience of anything, and, in fact, would be the same if there were no sentience anywhere in the Universe.

The behavior is what it is. The "probability" is a model of the behavior, and is a construct of sentience.

 

[jt512]

The behavior is what it is. The "probability" is a model of the behavior and is a construct of sentience.

No. The behavior is probabilistic. The fact that a sentient being has been around to describe the behavior doesn't determine the behavior; it just describes what is naturally occurring. Radioactive isotopes behave probabilistically whether or not any sentient being is around to notice.

But I'm wasting my time on you. ...snip...

Edited by jsfisher: 

Edited for compliance with Rules 0 of the Membership Agreement.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The behavior is what it is. The "probability" is a model of the behavior, and is a construct of sentience.

No. Across the board no. Across every board no. In no way, on no level, from no angle, in any context, is this even close to anything that could be considered an accurate statement. There are no words in the language to describe how wrong that statement is. I have literally never come across a statement as far removed from accuracy as that one.

 

[Toontown]

That is not the same thing as the probability being different for the two observers because of their "perspective."

The 1st Person / 3rd Person distinction is absolutely, 100% meaningless in the context you are trying to wedge it into.

Not true. Perspective often affects what one knows. Ideology often affects what one is willing to know.

A shell game is in progress involving 2 shells and a pea. There is a dealer and a player.

the dealer knows where the pea is, therefore the dealer's probability distribution on the location of the pea is (1,0)

The player knows only that the pea is under one of he shells, therefore the player's probability distribution on the location of the pea is (0.5,0.5)

Both probability distributions are equally valid, being accurate representations of what the players know. But the dealer's perspective gives him more information.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You don't know what probability is.

It stops being a matter of probability after you have knowledge of the thing in question.

In the shell game the dealer has knowledge of the location of the pea, not a probability determination.

 

[JoeMorgue]

AND WHAT THE EVER LOVING CHUFF DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH IMMORTALITY!?

 

[Toontown]

No. The behavior is probabilistic. The fact that a sentient being has been around to describe the behavior doesn't determine the behavior; it just describes what is naturally occurring. Radioactive isotopes behave probabilistically whether or not any sentient being is around to notice.

But I'm wasting my time on you. ...snip...

Edited by jsfisher: 

Moderated text redacted.

I said "the behavior is what it is". That doesn't suggest that modeling the behavior mathematically alters the behavior, or that the behavior is not "probabilistic"

The mathematical modeling of the "probabilistic" behavior is based on a modeling method called "probability and statistics", which is a construct of sentience.

 

[Toontown]

You don't know what probability is.

It stops being a matter of probability after you have knowledge of the thing in question.

In the shell game the dealer has knowledge of the location of the pea, not a probability determination.

You don't know what probability is.

Probability ranges from 0 to 1. It doesn't stupidly stop short of 1 or 0. That would like trying to do math after removing the 1 and the 0 from the numbers. You need the 1 and the 0 because sometimes that's what it is.

Certainty is a probability. Impossibility is a probability. Here is a graph:

https://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/probability.html

 

[jt512]

I said "the behavior is what it is". That doesn't suggest that modeling the behavior mathematically alters the behavior, or that the behavior is not "probabilistic"

The mathematical modeling of the "probabilistic" behavior is based on a modeling method called "probability and statistics", which is a construct of sentience.

Nope. The fact that someone noticed that 1 atom of X decays every Y seconds on average doesn't change the fact that 1 atom of X decays every Y seconds on average. That's the behavior. The fact that someone called the average number of decays per unit time "probability" doesn't matter in the least. Probabilistic events exist in the Universe whether or not anyone is around to call them that.

Please stop responding. We all know (1) that you're wrong and (2) that nothing any of us will ever say will convince you otherwise.

 

[Toontown]

Nope. The fact that someone noticed that 1 atom of X decays every Y seconds on average doesn't change the fact that 1 atom of X decays every Y seconds on average. That's the behavior. The fact that someone called the average number of decays per unit time "probability" doesn't matter in the least. Probabilistic events exist in the Universe whether or not anyone is around to call them that.

Do you really think I don't know that, simply because I'm using the correct terminology?

"Probability and Statistics" is the modeling method. The behavior may be called "probabilistic".

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh my God is this all just some pretentious, wordy way of saying "People estimate probability different based on the completeness of the information they have?" as if that's some hidden knowledge we don't all already know?

 

[jt512]

Do you really think I don't know that, simply because I'm using the correct terminology?

"Probability and Statistics" is the modeling method. The behavior may be called "probabilistic".

Neither of those statements has any meaningful content.

 

[Garrette]

Sorry. I can't clear any of that up without going into areas I don't intend to go into.

Then it remains unevidenced and unsupported, and your claims -- direct and indirect -- about our obtuseness in regard to this point are completely out of line.

In fact, sentience is precisely what I've been talking about, and is precisely what I should be talking about.

Then by all means do. Until I pushed you on this you have mentioned it only as an ancillary factor to the probability discussion. Finally you admit it is central.

There is no story that tells a rock it's sentience has beaten giganogargantuan odds. A rock has no sentience. A rock has not been told any such story and has no reason or ability to find such a story suspect.

And this matters not one whit. More precisely, you have not shown it matters one whit; you have merely claimed so.

A rock doesn't even exist in the same sense that sentience exists.

Further confirmation that you are presuming the consequent Jabba has claimed to be able to prove. We'll use your word, sentience, as opposed to soul, though in the manner in which you use it I see no functional difference.

You are presuming that sentience is separate from the matter and the processes of matter that gives rise to it and sneaking in the idea that it exists apart from it.

If you were Jabba (I know you're not arguing his point, but you do intersect with him here), then it would be appropriate to point out that this makes your proposition (or what can be discerned of it) less likely than the materialist model because now not only does your brain have to exist but your sentience has to exist and the two have to connect. You've have increased your gargantuan odds by many orders of magnitude.

What is it like to be a rock? Tell me about being a rock.

Tell me how this matters. Describe it in detail in relation to your point; do not simply proclaim it as if that is proof. At this point I am not inclined to take you at your word on such things.

Yes, sentience is different from rocks. Sentience is the only thing in the universe that can be experienced. That fact alone makes sentience fundamentally different from inanimate objects. There is sentient existence and there is inanimate existence. They are not the same.

And again, explain how this matters to the point. Unless you demonstrate that sentience is more than the processes of the matter that give rise to it, your distinction means nothing.

And probability is nonexistent except in the context of sentience. What can probability tell a rock? What is probability without information? What is information without sentience?

I will leave this to the far more knowledgeable jt512. He has addressed this quite well, I think.

So we have rocks, which are utterly meaningless in the absence of sentience. And we have probability, nonexistent in the absence of sentience.



I don't concede that, but even if it was true it would still be a hell of lot more than needs to be known about what you've said here.



Special compared to a rock, yeah. You, I'm not so sure about. At this point, I'm not even sure you can tell the difference.

The statistics suit me just fine. It's the story that says my sentience is next to impossible that I piss on. Because I can.



I don't concede that, but even if it was true it's still a hell of a lot more than you've got. Do you really not know the difference between sentience and a rock?

Start with this: A rock can't be told it's sentience is next to impossible, because it doesn't have any. Which means the rock can safely be ignored in questions regarding sentience.

So don't bother me about the rocks any more. Don't bother trying to tell me I need to lump my sentience and all the rocks together in one pile.

I will end with this, and it may be my last response for a while (no promises; it hinges on a few things, only one of which is my continued interest):

This is highly disappointing. It is clear that you are quite knowledgeable on many things and can be very analytical. In your knowledge of probability and statistics it was clear long ago that you know more than I do. Yet you have not used that knowledge or analytic ability to follow evidence to its end; you have inverted the process and decided that sentience is a special snowflake and are now twisting what you know in an attempt to buttress that conclusion.

 

[caveman1917]

That's the most idiotic statement I have read on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Elementary counterexample: The probability that a carbon-14 atom will decay in the next 5,700 years is 0.5. This probability is a physical characteristic of carbon-14. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sentience of anything, and, in fact, would be the same if there were no sentience anywhere in the Universe.

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM? I think in general positive claims like this are meaningless, basically for the same reason that you can't disprove solipsism.

 

[Loss Leader]

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM?

No. It would be decayed. There would just be nobody to comment on it.

That reminds me that I have to take the cat to the vet. He looks half dead.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ten bucks says someone argues a very, very bad misunderstanding of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle trying to prove everyone gets their own personal reality before too long.

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM? I think in general positive claims like this are meaningless, basically for the same reason that you can't disprove solipsism.

Okay Schrodinger vice Heisenberg. Split the difference and call it a fiver.