Proof of Immortality III

[godless dave]

Dave,
- The unlikelihood of my current existence.

The unlikelihood of your current existence hasn't been factored into the prior probabilities?

 

[Jabba]

The unlikelihood of your current existence hasn't been factored into the prior probabilities?

- No.

 

[JayUtah]

- I need to provide my reasoning for two claims (at least).

You have presented your reasoning, and your critics have refuted it. You need to address the refutations. Simply repeating your claim doesn't cut it.

 

[JayUtah]

- No.

Asked and answered. Your allegation of the unlikelihood of your current existence is already part of your argument as your made-up guess for that unlikelihood given only the scientific model. It is a red herring to say you must investigate the "implications" of this, or that you need to install it as a prior. You have the cart before the horse.

 

[godless dave]

- No.

I guess I don't understand. Your current existence is consistent with the OOFLam model. What about it hasn't been factored into the prior probabilities?

 

[wollery]

- I need to provide my reasoning for two claims (at least).

1. I claim that the unlikelihood of my current existence is based upon new information because the particular info i now consider was not considered in the previous estimates of prior probability.
2. I claim that we don't need a "special case" for a target as long as we have a reasonably possible alternative hypothesis. I say that because the new reasonably possible hypothesis would refer to all comers..

What implications?

Dave,
- The unlikelihood of my current existence.

The unlikelihood of your current existence hasn't been factored into the prior probabilities?

- No.

I'm sorry Jabba, are you really saying that the unlikelihood of your current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of your current existence?

Are you sure that's an argument you want to run with?

 

[Jabba]

I guess I don't understand. Your current existence is consistent with the OOFLam model. What about it hasn't been factored into the prior probabilities?

Dave,

- My claim is that 1) while my current existence is "consistent" with OOFLam -- in that it is not ruled out by OOFLam -- 2) it is all but ruled out by OOFlam. And, 3) that fact has mathematical implications re the prior probability of OOFLam that 4) I've never seen anyone include when addressing that probability.
- Certainly, I didn't include it when allowing a .99 prior probability for OOFLam.

 

[Jabba]

I'm sorry Jabba, are you really saying that the unlikelihood of your current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of your current existence?

Are you sure that's an argument you want to run with?

wollery,

-No.
- I'm not saying that the unlikelihood of my current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of my current existence.
- I'm saying, instead, that the unlikelihood of my current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of OOFLam.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,

- My claim is that 1) while my current existence is "consistent" with OOFLam -- in that it is not ruled out by OOFLam -- 2) it is all but ruled out by OOFlam.

OOFLam says that people will be born, and those people will be conscious and self aware. In what way is the existence of one particular person all but ruled out by OOFLam?

And, 3) that fact has mathematical implications re the prior probability of OOFLam that 4) I've never seen anyone include when addressing that probability.
- Certainly, I didn't include it when allowing a .99 prior probability for OOFLam.

I don't understand what those mathematical implications are.

 

[JayUtah]

My claim is that 1) while my current existence is "consistent" with OOFLam -- in that it is not ruled out by OOFLam -- 2) it is all but ruled out by OOFlam.

No. This just tries to rewrite Dave's statement to make it sound like it agrees with your claim.

And, ... that fact has mathematical implications re the prior probability of OOFLam that ... I've never seen anyone include when addressing that probability.

That's because they address it when disputing your likelihood ratio, where you already include it.

Certainly, I didn't include it when allowing a .99 prior probability for OOFLam.

Then you don't know how this works at all. If you're estimating the prior probability of H, you don't get to "factor in" items you're later going to use in the model as events in order to compute the likelihood ratio for H given that event.

Congratulations. You've now abandoned any semblance of understanding for statistical modeling. You're done.

 

[wollery]

wollery,

-No.
- I'm not saying that the unlikelihood of my current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of my current existence.
- I'm saying, instead, that the unlikelihood of my current existence hasn't been factored in to the calculations for the prior probability of OOFLam.

Then you are either doing the calculations wrong, or you're saying that you are special in some way.

 

[jt512]

- I need to provide my reasoning for two claims (at least).

1. I claim that the unlikelihood of my current existence is based upon new information because the particular info i now consider was not considered in the previous estimates of prior probability.

I was going to explain this myself, in response to someone (JayUtah, I think) who said that you don't have observations/facts/data/etc. You do: you have the observation that you exist. That's the data you're using. Unfortunately, as I have repeatedly explained, you are using the observation in a fallacious manner, and hence concluding that P(E|"scientific" hypothesis) is tiny, when in fact it is 1, just as it is under your immortality hypothesis. The fallacy is that you are fitting the "scientific" hypothesis to the observation, or as the capital-S Skeptics say, you are committing the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.

2. I claim that we don't need a "special case" for a target as long as we have a reasonably possible alternative hypothesis. I say that because the new reasonably possible hypothesis would refer to all comers..

I have explained this fallacy repeatedly. You are custom fitting the hypothesis to data after you've observed it, or in the language I'm used to, you are committing the statistical error of HARKing: Hypothesizing After the Results Are Known. Once again, consider the cards example. You shuffle the deck and observe some 52-card sequence; then you calculate that the probability of that sequence given the hypothesis that the shuffle is random is 1 in 8 × 10⁶⁷; therefore, you reject the hypothesis that the shuffle is random in favor of the alternative hypothesis.

The fallacy of this reasoning stems from having failed to formulate the hypothesis before observing the data. Had you first hypothesized that that particular sequence would be produced by the shuffle, then shuffled the cards and produced that sequence, then the probability of the observation under the "random" hypothesis would be 1 in 8 × 10⁶⁷, or nearly 0. But, had the shuffle produced any other sequence, the probability of the observation would be 1 – (1 in 8 × 10⁶⁷), or nearly 1. Instead, by hypothesizing a particular sequence only after seeing that particular sequence, you erroneously assign a tiny probability to whatever sequence happened to be produced.

Analogously, you didn't predict that you would be born before you were born; rather, you fit the hypothesis to the observation after the fact. As I've said, the fallacy is easier to understand when you apply it to someone or something other than yourself. In addition to the card analogy, think about the nearest-neighbor experiment that I described in a previous post.

 

[Mojo]

Then you are either doing the calculations wrong, or you're saying that you are special in some way.

Or both.

 

[JayUtah]

I was going to explain this myself, in response to someone (JayUtah, I think) who said that you don't have observations/facts/data/etc. You do: you: you have the observation that you exist. That's the data you're using.

I don't dispute this. Where most calls come from, that Jabba has no evidence or observation, is the lack of prima facie evidence for anything like a soul. Since Jabba is trying to induce -- in statistical fashion rather than empirical -- that a soul must exist, this turns into one of the equivocal messes Jabba tends to create in order to spin his critics in circles.

[Y]ou are using the observation in a fallacious manner, and hence concluding that P(E|"scientific" hypothesis) is tiny, when in fact it is 1, just as it is under your immortality hypothesis.

This is where a lot of confusing wording arises, because Jabba simply refuses to accept this fact. This leads to a plethora of wordings and rewordings as well-meaning critics try to impress upon Jabba just how his fallacy operates, wrongly believing that if they can just find the right diction or analogy, it will suddenly "click" for him.

You're not saying anything that hasn't already been said to Jabba countless times before, but one hopes that at some point Jabba will quit trying to evade it with word games.

 

[Loss Leader]

Dave,

- My claim is that 1) while my current existence is "consistent" with OOFLam -- in that it is not ruled out by OOFLam -- 2) it is all but ruled out by OOFlam. And, 3) that fact has mathematical implications re the prior probability of OOFLam that 4) I've never seen anyone include when addressing that probability.
- Certainly, I didn't include it when allowing a .99 prior probability for OOFLam.

Well that's gibberish.

What about the infinite number of universes? Since we know that it's possible for you to exist in 1 universe, you also exist in infinite alternate universes. You also do not exist in an infinite number o of universes.

So what is the percentage chance that we wind up in a universe where you do exist? Infinty/Infinity? That's not a number. None of these are numbers.

What implications?

 

[theprestige]

Or both.

I'm pretty sure it's both.

 

[The Sparrow]

I'm completely lost.
Isn't some sort of proof of immortality coming sometime soon?

 

[MRC_Hans]

I'm completely lost.
Isn't some sort of proof of immortality coming sometime soon?

For some values of 'soon', it probably will.

Hans

 

[godless dave]

The thread itself is immortal.

 

[JayUtah]

The thread itself is immortal.

And immaterial.