Proof of Immortality, VI

[Jabba]

There are several things wrong with this analogy.

First of all, even if your shots all ended up close together, we don't know that you actually hit what you were aiming at because you never said where you intended to hit. Because you never specified your target, we can't actually say that you hit your intended target because we have no idea what the intended target was...

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.
- That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

 

[jt512]

Whether or not you find yourself "ordinary" with respect to others of your kind, I say you should be extremely surprised that you, specifically, find yourself, in particular, among the chosen, against the giganogargantuan odds that were stacked against you...

I just shuffled a deck of cards and the sequence I got was JC, QS, 9H, 3H, JS, KH, 5D, 10H, JD, 6S, 5S, 8S, 5H, 7H, 6H, QC, JH, 4C, KS, QH, 3D, 7D, 3C, 9C, 10S, 5C, KC, 3S, 10D, 7S, 7C, 8D, 2S, 6D, AD, QD, 9D, AC, 9S, 2H, 2D, AS, 6C, 8H, 8C, 4H, 2C, 4D, AH, KD, 10C, 4S. You can't believe how surprised I am. The odds against this sequence were nearly 1 in 10⁶⁸. I never would have predicted it!*

*And, importantly, I didn't.

 

[jond]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.
- That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

I thought you were going to respond to JayUtah? Surely his points should be easy for you to address?

 

[The Norseman]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.
- That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

Oh, stop it already.

There's no such thing as "targetness". Something is either a target or it isn't. You choose to aim at something or you do not. You may choose more than one target, of course.

But face it: you yourself did not know what the target was until after the shot. Nobody did. You're just claiming how special it was after the fact. It looks like with this current post, you're claiming YOU knew the target before shooting, but you didn't.

 

[Hokulele]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.
- That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

But the barn in question doesn't have splotches of paint. It has one single hole you simply declared as being special. Your analogy has nothing to do with your actual argument.

 

[John Jones]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
[...]

Targetness is not even a word. You make up ******** because you have neither evidence nor logic to support the random electrical noise between your ears.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."

There is one degree of Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You're using it.

 

[Toontown]

Whether or not you find yourself "ordinary" with respect to others of your kind, I say you should be extremely surprised that you, specifically, find yourself, in particular, among the chosen, against the giganogargantuan odds that were stacked against you...

I just shuffled a deck of cards and the sequence I got was JC, QS, 9H, 3H, JS, KH, 5D, 10H, JD, 6S, 5S, 8S, 5H, 7H, 6H, QC, JH, 4C, KS, QH, 3D, 7D, 3C, 9C, 10S, 5C, KC, 3S, 10D, 7S, 7C, 8D, 2S, 6D, AD, QD, 9D, AC, 9S, 2H, 2D, AS, 6C, 8H, 8C, 4H, 2C, 4D, AH, KD, 10C, 4S. You can't believe how surprised I am. The odds against this sequence were nearly 1 in 10⁶⁸. I never would have predicted it!*

*And, importantly, I didn't.

I don't believe that sequence would surprise you at all. Nor should it. It means nothing, signifies nothing.

Nor is your analogy equivalent to Jabba's (subjective) formula. You're just once again defaulting to an objective viewpoint which is not relevant to Jabba's formula. In your objectively oriented analogy, a random sequence of cards came off a deck, signifying nothing.

I'll tell you what would surprise you, if you're not a P-zombie. And even if you are a P-zombie, you would be compelled to simulate surprise...

Your random sequence of cards turns out to be a code which, when keyed into cyberspace, invokes a Genie who materializes and grants you one wish. The Genie marvels at your luck, explaining that there is a different card sequence code corresponding to every person on the planet. But a valid code can only invoke the Genie if the code is specifically communicated to another person.

And you would owe it all to me, for triggering you to post that particular sequence.

 

[Toontown]

In what way is it valid and how would you suggest it be solved?

The formula is valid in the subjective sense to which it is tailored. The formula does not address an observation that is sigfnificant to everyone on the planet. The formula addresses an observation that is significant to the user only.

I would not suggest that any solution should be made available to the public. Doing so might cause millions of suicides, giving rise to a compulsion to designate a scapegoat.

If I were to attempt a possible solution, I might rely on classical field theory rather than the "Self".

I might even attempt multiple solutions, if I were gonna. But I'm not gonna.

 

[JesseCuster]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."

I have no idea what "targetness" means. It's not a word, and in the context in which you're using it, I simply don't know what you mean by it.

Can you define what you mean by targetness and what it means for targetness to have degrees? Can you give real world examples of targetness of different degrees?

 

[JesseCuster]

- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.

But you never specified that you were aiming at a splotch of paint. That's the whole point of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. You're declaring after the fact that what you hit was your target.

If you wanted to prove that you were a good shot, you'd tell me that you were going to shoot a splotch of paint on the barn. If you then took several shots which all hit or came close to the splotch of paint, then I'd agree that you were indeed a good shot.

However, that's not what you're doing. What you're doing is declaring that you're a great shot. You're then taking aim at the barn and firing off several shots without declaring where on the barn you're actually trying to hit. You're then declaring after the fact that where the bullets hit the barn was where you were aiming at.

No matter how you slice and dice it, you are repeatedly making the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It sounds like you're just rewording the Texas sharpshooter fallacy in various ways in the hope that people will not notice that you're actually making the fallacy.

That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

Like I said in my previous post, I have no idea what "degree of targetness" means. You're going to have to explain what that actually means. I suspect it means nothing at all.

If you wanted to prove that you were a good shot and could reliably hit a target on your barn, why would you do it in such a way that the person you're trying to prove your shooting skills at has to try and make a "pretty good guess" after the fact that what you hit was what you were aiming at? Surely you'd either put an actual target on the barn to make it obvious what you're aiming at or simply declare before you shoot exactly where on the barn you're trying to hit.

This is all beside the point however. The main problem with your analogy is that you're not actually firing off several shots which all hit the barn in roughly the same place, allowing people to make a "pretty good guess" that area of the barn where the bulletholes are clustered was what you were aiming at and therefore you actually hit your target, (which wasn't really a target at all, just a random area of the side of the barn, which you are declaring after the fact was the target you were aiming at).

No, what you've done is fired exactly one shot, which hit a random spot on the side of the barn. Remember, that according to this analogy, you're the target and the bullet is a "potential self" that hit you. There is no cluster of bullet holes close together that allow people to make a "pretty good guess" that the area of the barn that were aiming at. Instead, there is simply one bullet hole in a random area of the barn and you're trying to use dodgy mathematics to prove that you must be a crack shot because the barn is huge and the chances of randomly hitting that particular spot on the barn is tiny, therefore you mustn't have simply taken a wild shot at the barn with your rifle, you must have taken exact aim at that particular spot and hit it because of how awesome a shot you are.

Your debating tactic simply isn't going to work. You can't just keep repeating the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, rewording it in various ways, making up your own oddball meaningless terminology ("degrees of targetness" or "pre-specified targets vs. pre-selected targets") and hope that no-one will notice that you're just repeating the same fallacious argument over and over and over and over....

 

[Pixel42]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.

And that analogy is to what? No-one's existence, including yours, is analogous to a shot group centered around a splotch of paint, we are all just single, random, shots.

You are not a special snowflake, Jabba. You are just a snowflake like any other. Even if there was such a thing as a scale of 'targetness' your score on that scale would still be a big fat zero.

 

[Mojo]

Jesse,
- There are degrees of "targetness."
- I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue. I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.
- That being the case, you might not know where exactly I was shooting, but you'd have a pretty good guess. There was a degree of targetness.

Jabba,
- If someone else existed in your place, and advanced the same argument for immortality as you are advancing, would that argument be valid?

 

[Jabba]

<snip>

- I'm currently trying to focus on the sharpshooter issue, so I'll go back to the following:

Jesse,
- Pre-specified means that you have told someone, or have otherwise indicated your selection, prior to shooting. I'm saying that there are ways for others to know what your target was, without be told.

No. For the purposes of determining how to evaluate the significance of the data in your model, "telling someone else" or "others knowing about it" has nothing to do with it. Please stop just making stuff up.

Jay,
- Sure it does. That way we know what the shooter is shooting at, and we can give him a score accordingly. I must not understand your objection...

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for Rule 11, Moderated thread.

 

[JayUtah]

There are degrees of "targetness."

No. "Targetness" is just your latest made-up word that magically seems to save you from the glaring fallacy you're committing. You've been asked to show how you determine the significance of data in your model, and you can't get past the notion that the supposedly miraculous significance lies simply in its having arisen.

I shouldn't have said that the shot group centered around a small hole on the side of the barn -- that confused the issue.

Yes, your entire analogy tried to obfuscate the very simple issue that the significance of data in your model is decided when you see the data, not before.

I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.

Cool story, bro. It has nothing to do with your data-selection methods, which are the topic we're discussing. As I said, posing a hypothetical problem that has an obviously correct solution doesn't make it appropriate to your claim. You are begging the question that analogies in which the target is pre-selected correspond to your statistical model for immortality, in which the target is not pre-selected.

There was a degree of targetness.

No, there's no such thing as "targetness."

 

[JayUtah]

We walk back to the barn and find a tiny shot group centered around a small hole in the barn wall.

Your analogies relate less and less to your argument the more you tell them. While it might be fun to tell stories about the many ways to shoot at a barn, the eponymous one that illustrates the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is the one that relates to your data-sampling error, and therefore the only one we should be discussing. Telling different stories doesn't fix your error. It does, however, aim to distract the people who are trying to question your actual argument, and who have helpfully created a digest of your major errors that you seem to be assiduously avoiding. Can you please kindly let us know when you'll be returning to your proof of immortality?

I didn't need to pre-specify my target...

Then what's the "small hole" for in the story? Either that was your target, and it existed prior to you shooting at it, or it wasn't your target and the clustering around it is an accident. By all means argue from analogy if you wish, but please try to make some sense.

And, in this case, we'd have a high degree of targetness.

You don't define "targetness" -- you just made up yet another new word to conceal the question you're constantly trying to beg. We glean from context that you intend it to mean some sort of correlation.

Yes, in the classic exercise of target shooting, where the target exists prior to the shots being fired, a skilled shooter will cluster his shots such that a spatial correlation exists. There are mathematical methods for determining the centroid of such data points, and their central tendency. As others have noted, that correlation is independent of whether any shots hit a predetermined target point. "Targetness" by this measure is therefore meaningless. You can remain impressed by the marksman's consistency if you want, but you don't get to move the ten-ring to coincide with the shot grouping and then claim he's a wonderful marksman, especially if his shot-grouping is above the silhouette's shoulder.

But more importantly, if you intend this analogy to refer to your sample of seven billion living people, there's no "grouping" in the data. All you can tell me about what those folks have in common is that they were somehow selected. And conversely, all you can tell me about the infinite number of "potential people" waiting in the wings is that they weren't selected. That's still the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. You're walking up to the barn, drawing a circle around a subset of randomly spaced bullet holes, and telling me that your special "grouping" is whatever is in the circle you drew.

As I've said before, drawing analogies that have obviously correct answers begs the question that they accurately illustrate your argument -- they never do. Correlation among the data is not an important factor in the argument you're trying to make, and no such correlation exists in your data anyway. For the umpteenth time, the number of data points you post-select has nothing to do with the error of post-selecting them.

If my shot group wasn't all that small, we'd have a lower degree of targetness.

If you were intending to create a small shot grouping, then the first shot becomes the pre-selected target for the following shots -- just like when playing craps. If there was no such intent, then the grouping was accidental and nothing can be reliably inferred from it despite how marvelous you may think it is. Rolling a long sequence of fives on the dice may be truly improbable, but you don't get to define that as a new way to win at craps just for having done something improbable.

 

[JayUtah]

I should have said that it centered around a splotch of paint (or something similar) on the side of the barn.

That's not what's wrong with the story. Call it a small hole, a splotch of paint, a spot of pigeon crap, or a pineknot -- the problem is how you think it relates to your data grouping. Either you saw it ahead of time and were trying to hit it, in which case you preselected it before firing the shots, or you didn't see it and weren't aiming at it, in which case you'll just have cherry-picked some curious feature on the barn (from among all such features distributed over the barn wall) based on its postselected proximity to your bullet holes. There's no functional difference between "drawing a circle" and "picking the curious feature nearest the bullet hole(s)" as far as the fallacy goes.

You clearly don't understand the error you're making. Again I renew my suggestion that you try to explain to the esteemed audience here what you think the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and what makes it a fallacy. Perhaps in doing so you'll see what all your critics are trying to show you. The error you're making is not some nuanced obscurity; it's a simple, glaring error that you can't simply talk circles around and make go away.

 

[JayUtah]

Sure it does.

No, it doesn't.

That way we know what the shooter is shooting at, and we can give him a score accordingly.

The crux of the fallacy is when the significance of the data is determined, not whether that significance is communicated to someone else. You would do better to stop torturing analogies and look at your argument instead. You're conflating problems that arise only in your analogies, not in your argument.

I must not understand your objection...

Which is why I've asked you several times to attempt to explain what you think the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy.

 

[RoboTimbo]

- Sure it does. That way we know what the shooter is shooting at, and we can give him a score accordingly. I must not understand your objection...

Now we're getting somewhere.

Who did you tell before you were born that you were going to be born?

 

[JayUtah]

I'm currently trying to focus on the sharpshooter issue...

Your argument is clearly in error there, whether you understand the relevant fallacy or not. Your critics don't need your agreement or understanding in order to locate the errors in your proof. They exist whether you acknowledge them or not.

The problem with your approach is that you've wrongly identified the Texas sharpshooter fallacy as the only real problem with your proof. You've said that if you can just "get past" it, the rest of your proof just falls into place. That's not true. I've identified roughly a dozen problems with your proof, each of which is individually fatal to your claim, and none of which goes away magically by your sidestepping the one issue you're currently focused on. Those need attention too, if you want to advertise that your proof is so very close to working.

Since you've used this ever-narrowing focus in the past to bog down the debate and keep your other errors from being discussed, your critics rightly dismiss your assessment of the strength of your proof "but for" the issue of post-selected data. Can you please at least write one or two sentences for each of the previously identified fatal flaws indicating how you plan to address them should the argument eventually move forward?