Proof of Immortality III

[Jabba]

It doesn't help anyone besides you unless you can state why you're suspicious, and give supportable reasons why your suspicions are based on something other than that you have a feeling that there is something more to you than the standard model would predict.

Jim,
- I suspect that I misunderstood your question about "suspicious." I'm not suspicious about my existence, I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

 

[caveman1917]

Apparently your definition of a "general positive claim like this" differs from mine.

Science tells me that if I let go off something then I can expect it to fall down. It does not tell me if that "something" I am letting go off is really real and physical, a figment of my own mind, an element of a computer simulation or anything of the sort. It merely says that if I let go off it that it will fall down.

 

[godless dave]

I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

What science is that?

 

[JayUtah]

I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

There is no such science. You have merely created the illusion that such a conclusion is based on science, when in fact it has been shown numerous times at length that it is based instead upon your preconceived belief that singularity of existence must be mysterious if it is not predictable or repeatable.

Instead, science models your existence as the product of a complex system. It is not concerned with how probable one outcome of that system is in general, or compared to another outcome.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Why stop there, Jabba? Maybe science is wrong about airplanes, too... and nutrition... and the need for oxygen.

 

[jt512]

Science tells me that if I let go off something then I can expect it to fall down. It does not tell me if that "something" I am letting go off is really real and physical, a figment of my own mind, an element of a computer simulation or anything of the sort. It merely says that if I let go off it that it will fall down.

I think you've been drinking too much of the philosophical Kool-Aid.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

Jim,
- I suspect that I misunderstood your question about "suspicious." I'm not suspicious about my existence, I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

No, I think I understood. That's why I said earlier that there is a lot of room in the phrase "depending on how you calculate it".

You think that the standard model of how a conscious human develops is wrong because you think using it to calculate how likely you are to exist gives enormous odds against your existence. So going by the standard model you would be very suspicious of the fact that you have beaten those long odds and come into existence.

I think that using the standard model to calculate the odds of your existence gives a very different outcome, and that using those odds means there isn't anything suspicious about you beating them and coming into existence.

Neither of us doubt your existence. You doubt the standard model, and that's fine. But if you want to convince anyone else that your doubt of the model is worth consideration you'll have to express those doubts clearly, then support your doubts with something other than a feeling that you plug into a statistics equation.

Note: I'm not a statistics person. I'm not sure if "odds" is the right term here. But I think it's clear what I mean. If I've screwed it up really badly I hope one of the other posters more well versed in the science will try to clear it up.

 

[jt512]

Science tells me that if I let go off something then I can expect it to fall down. It does not tell me if that "something" I am letting go off is really real and physical, a figment of my own mind, an element of a computer simulation or anything of the sort. It merely says that if I let go off it that it will fall down.

I'm pretty sure that science also tells us that radioactive decay had been going on long before any observers were around.

 

[JayUtah]

You think that the standard model of how a conscious human develops is wrong because you think using it to calculate how likely you are to exist gives enormous odds against your existence. So going by the standard model you would be very suspicious of the fact that you have beaten those long odds and come into existence.

I think that using the standard model to calculate the odds of your existence gives a very different outcome, and that using those odds means there isn't anything suspicious about you beating them and coming into existence.

Yes, parsed that way Jabba's "suspicious about the science" statement just reiterates the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy. The odds of his particular existence under the scientific model are astronomically small only if he adds the premise a priori that Jabba is the desired outcome. Then we're just back to hiking up the same Mt. Ranier as before.

 

[Loss Leader]

Yes, parsed that way Jabba's "suspicious about the science" statement just reiterates the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy. The odds of his particular existence under the scientific model are astronomically small only if he adds the premise a priori that Jabba is the desired outcome. Then we're just back to hiking up the same Mt. Ranier as before.

And he's still dismissing the clockwork universe theory. It may be that, given the universe's starting condition, everything that happened since was a necessary outcome.

Since there's no way to rule out the clockwork universe, it stands as a possible alternative ~p. And there's no way to determine if this~p is any more or less likely than Jabba's ~p.

But why quibble with the entire underlying premise of his argument?

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

But why quibble with the entire underlying premise of his argument?

Yeah, you... you... nitpicker!

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is especially important since Jabba can't seem to determine whether his line of reasoning is subjective or objective. It would be quite appropriate for Jabba to say, "I feel as if I have soul." That wouldn't be any kind of proof, but it would truthfully express that it's a subjective judgment.

After all these years of watching this thread find new ways to burrower deeper and deeper under the bottom of the barrel of anti-intellectual nonsense, that's still the part that I find the saddest.

At it's core all Jabba is saying is he has faith he's gonna live forever because he has a soul. That's pretty mainstream as far as Woo goes.

 

[Monza]

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

Jim,
- I suspect that I misunderstood your question about "suspicious." I'm not suspicious about my existence, I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

Effective debate is very difficult when one cannot clearly express one's views. The above is not the only example. We need less weaseling around and more clear, thought out positions.

 

[jt512]

There is no such interaction [between radioactive decay and observation].

The rock doesn't decide anything about its age, but I guess you could say that each atom in the rock decided to wait until it was observed before deciding whether it would "present itself" in the decayed or the non-decayed state.

So, according to my g/f, who is a professor of theoretical chemistry, you are both wrong. According to her, observation "interferes" with radioactive decay; but in the absence of observation, radioactive decay proceeds at its predicted rate. You cannot predict which atoms in an ensemble will decay at which times, but given a time interval of particular length, a percentage, characteristic to the element, will decay; and each atom in the ensemble will either have definitively decayed or not decayed regardless of whether an observation has taken place. That is, each atom in the ensemble will not be in a superposition of "decayed" and "not decayed" states; rather, each atom will be in one state or the other, even in the absence of an observer.

 

[Toontown]

...

I think that using the standard model to calculate the odds of your existence gives a very different outcome, and that using those odds means there isn't anything suspicious about you beating them and coming into existence.

...

Note: I'm not a statistics person. I'm not sure if "odds" is the right term here. But I think it's clear what I mean. If I've screwed it up really badly I hope one of the other posters more well versed in the science will try to clear it up.

You've screwed up really badly.

Using the standard model, your brain coming into existence required a specific organization of an unspeakable number elementary particles to be brought together into a specific organization at specific x,y,z,t spacetime coordinates.

And this had to happen as a long term outcome of a universe-wide quantum shuffle beginning at t=10^-43 seconds, at which time a slightly different jostling of a few indeterministically behaving elementary particles could easily have eliminated the entire Milky Way galaxy.

The most conservative rigorous estimate i've seen of the prior probability of a particular person's coming into existence is 1 in 4 quadrillion, and that's far short of the mark, taking into account only the final rumblings of the immense phalanx of unlikelihood.

And even here in this thread it was generally agreed upon to grant Jabba prior odds of 1 in 10⁸⁰ to get him to stop claiming he was infinitely unlikely.

There are double-talkers in the thread who have invested themselves in an agenda of keeping Jabba tamped down. They've been hard at it for years. They consistently make ludicrous statements about probability in their zeal to whittle away at the improbability of Jabba's existence while claiming out of the other side of their mouths that it doesn't matter anyway for various bogus reasons. If they saw a rat go for a particular piece of cheese on the floor, they'd accuse the rat of committing the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. A cat startled by it's reflection in a mirror would be pointed out as a classic example of an amazed fallacious puddle.

But I have no jabba-tamping agenda. I'm telling you the cold, hard facts, just to see how you'll squirm your way out of them.

 

[Toontown]

And he's still dismissing the clockwork universe theory. It may be that, given the universe's starting condition, everything that happened since was a necessary outcome.

Everyone who is anyone dismisses the clockwork universe theory. It was popular in the 19th century. Not nemore.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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.

AIUI, under those models the term "observer" doesn't mean "conscious observer". It's something of a misleading term (in the same way that "theory" in science can be a misleading term). "Observer" simply means "something that interacts in some way". An electron can be an observer.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Whatever you think you're saying, you're just wrong. QM and radioactive decay are not nearly the same things. You might as well say that radioactive decay has an effect on the trajectory of a hurled baseball. They are two completely different systems at vastly different scales, each with their own behaviors.

Surely the mechanism in Shrödinger's Cat is radioactive decay?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The most conservative rigorous estimate i've seen of the prior probability of a particular person's coming into existence is 1 in 4 quadrillion, and that's far short of the mark, taking into account only the final rumblings of the immense phalanx of unlikelihood.

What's the probability of a different sperm fertilising the same egg and thereby producing a different person? Why should we believe the sperm that did fertilise the egg more important/significant than the ones that didn't?

 

[Jabba]

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

It doesn't help anyone besides you unless you can state why you're suspicious, and give supportable reasons why your suspicions are based on something other than that you have a feeling that there is something more to you than the standard model would predict.

Jim,
- I suspect that I misunderstood your question about "suspicious." I'm not suspicious about my existence, I'm suspicious about the science that concludes that my likelihood of existence is so incredibly small.

No, I think I understood. That's why I said earlier that there is a lot of room in the phrase "depending on how you calculate it".

You think that the standard model of how a conscious human develops is wrong because you think using it to calculate how likely you are to exist gives enormous odds against your existence. So going by the standard model you would be very suspicious of the fact that you have beaten those long odds and come into existence.

I think that using the standard model to calculate the odds of your existence gives a very different outcome, and that using those odds means there isn't anything suspicious about you beating them and coming into existence.
Neither of us doubt your existence. You doubt the standard model, and that's fine. But if you want to convince anyone else that your doubt of the model is worth consideration you'll have to express those doubts clearly, then support your doubts with something other than a feeling that you plug into a statistics equation.

Note: I'm not a statistics person. I'm not sure if "odds" is the right term here. But I think it's clear what I mean. If I've screwed it up really badly I hope one of the other posters more well versed in the science will try to clear it up.

Jim,
- I don't understand what you mean in the hilited portion.