Proof of Immortality, VI

[abaddon]

I was disagreeing with one of Loss Leader's obviously flawed contentions. That does not imply agreement with Jabba.

Jabba has plenty of detractors, and I've joined their ranks a few times.

However, as I've repeatedly stated down through the ages, there is one particular element of Jabba's pitch I have no problem with, and that is the {form) of the formula Jabba originally presented. That does not mean I agree with any numbers Jabba may have plugged into the formula, or any interpretative spin Jabba may have put on it.

I recognize that the formula is specifically tailored to a specific subjective viewpoint. I consider that viewpoint as valid as the objective viewpoint, and I've previously shown why. However, I have publicly asserted directly to Jabba that, while the formula may be valid and quite informative to the subjective user, depending on how it is used, it is useless for "virtually proving" any alternative to Jabba's interpretation of "H" to anyone else, partucularly those who do not acknowledge the validity of the subjective treatment. Jabba disagreed and went on to try to objectify the formula, if I recall correctly, which doesn't work.

Not bad for (subjectively) ruling out Jabba's interpretation of "H" though. But I already knew that, decades before Jabba showed up.

The "form of the formula"? The form is perfectly fine. The bone of contention is largely centered on the arbitrary values Jabba inserts into it for no viable reason other than he just wants to do so.

Jabba's latest foray seems to be the claim that so many unlikely events occurred to give rise to himself between the big bang and now that the likelyhood of himself occurring is somehow special and indicates he must have an immortal soul. When it is pointed out that this applies to everything that exists, special pleading and Texas Sharpshooter gets wheeled out.

He entirely ignores the simple fact that if, perforce, everything that exists now since the big bang is equally unlikely then the very concept of "special" ceases to have any meaning whatsoever.

Anyone can transcribe a Bayesian formula. Big deal. What matters is what one does next. Shovel garbage in and what do you think the output will be?

 

[Toontown]

Congratulations. You seem to grasp the fundamental idea that there can be separate but identical objects and that they are not the same object, apparently about as well as one could expect.

Oh. That's your story?

That fact was re-established back in post #464, after a periodic absence. The identical fact was then re-re-established several times thereafter, in quick succession.

So your entire inquisition was nothing but a waste of my time from the outset. Deja vu all over again.

I had to be sure before directing you to explain it to Jabba. He has some odd notion about "looking out of two sets of eyes." Would you be a dear and disabuse him of the idea?

Did you now. Well, that's just precious.

Based on your recent performance and my admittedly hazy memory of some of Jabba's quickly scanned posts, I seriously doubt the accuracy of your interpretation of Jabba's alleged notion. At any rate, my recent posts should serve as disabusement enough.

 

[Fudbucker]

And this is the issue I've been screaming into night for years in this discussion.

Our current linguistic and social concept "identity" and "self" and similar related concepts don't account for level of nuance people are beating each over the head with in this discussion.

"Would an identical but separate me be me" is not a valid question. The concept of "me" developed in a world where that doesn't happen so the question isn't a question, it's an invitation to nothing but dueling arbitrary definitions.

Sure it is. The answer is "no". A duplicate of me is not me, it's a duplicate. Teleportation is suicide.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Oh. That's your story?

That fact was re-established back in post #464, after a periodic absence. The identical fact was then re-re-established several times thereafter, in quick succession.

So your entire inquisition was nothing but a waste of my time from the outset. Deja vu all over again.

I'm not sure about your time as it doesn't seem to have much value. How you waste it is your prerogative.

Did you now. Well, that's just precious.

Based on your recent performance and my admittedly hazy memory of some of Jabba's quickly scanned posts, I seriously doubt the accuracy of your interpretation of Jabba's alleged notion.

So you do have frequent false positives!

At any rate, my recent posts should serve as disabusement enough.

I would recommend if you really enjoy wasting time that you address Jabba directly. You may have forgotten that none of your recent posts did. Actually, none of them answered my questions either. Maybe Jabbaness is catching.

 

[Mojo]

- If I'm a legitimate target, OOFLam must be wrong.

Yes, if your reasoning is correct, the hypothesis that you have a body with an independently existing soul associated with it must be wrong.

 

[Toontown]

The "form of the formula"? The form is perfectly fine. The bone of contention is largely centered on the arbitrary values Jabba inserts into it for no viable reason other than he just wants to do so.

That's inevitable. Any set of values would be a huge bone of contention when presented to a biased sample of committed materialist skeptics who are here for the specific purpose of arguing, for years on end if that's what it takes to beat down the opposition.

Which does not mean I agree with what Jabba is trying to prove with the formula.

But I don't have a problem with plugging in roughly estimated values. The formula is best used as an estimation tool. Plug in estimated values and see what effect they have. Sometimes it can be illuminating.

Jabba's latest foray seems to be the claim that so many unlikely events occurred to give rise to himself between the big bang and now that the likelyhood of himself occurring is somehow special and indicates he must have an immortal soul. When it is pointed out that this applies to everything that exists, special pleading and Texas Sharpshooter gets wheeled out.

I agree with Jabba to the extent that his specific brain's existence is sufficiently ludicrously unlikely to (subjectively) cast very serious doubt on Jabba's interpretation of "H". But that's pretty much the extent of my agreement with Jabba.

I completely disagree with Jabba's detractors who erroneously point out that everything that exists is unlikely. This is the "switcheroo". Given that a big bang happened, the opposite is true. The existence of an entire universe of things is inevitable, which is the opposite of "unlikely". Only specific outcomes are "unlikely".

I say the subjective perspective glaringly illuminates the fact that requiring one's specific existence to be dependent upon one specific brain coming into existence makes the prior probability of one's specific existence unacceptably low, considering that one is currently enjoying a sentient experience. Roughly 1 in 10 ⁸⁰ (factorial) worth of unacceptably low, and that's a **** load of unacceptable.

I say the implication is that Jabba's interpretation of "H" can be (subjectively) ruled out, with supreme confidence.

But ruling out "H" does nothing to illuminate the alternative. That's a whole nother ball game, and I don't think Jabba is in it.

He entirely ignores the simple fact that if, perforce, everything that exists now since the big bang is equally unlikely then the very concept of "special" ceases to have any meaning whatsoever.

Except that's not a "simple fact" at all. Everything that exists, as a whole, is inevitable, not unlikely. Only specific things are unlikely. To equate the inevitability of everything with the likelihood of one thing is to commit the Switcheroo Fallacy.

The entire concept of "specialness" is a red herring in this context, and should never have been brought up in the first place.

 

[Toontown]

I'm not sure about your time as it doesn't seem to have much value. How you waste it is your prerogative.


So you do have frequent false positives!


I would recommend if you really enjoy wasting time that you address Jabba directly. You may have forgotten that none of your recent posts did. Actually, none of them answered my questions either. Maybe Jabbaness is catching.

I'll be the judge of all of that.

 

[Jabba]

- If I'm a legitimate target, OOFLam must be wrong.

What if Mount Rainier is a legitimate target?

- OOFLam is not relevant to Mt Rainier.
- I did want to add something to my last post -- If I'm a legitimate target and the likelihood of winning a simple lottery is analogous to the likelihood of my current existence, OOFLam must be wrong.

 

[godless dave]

- OOFLam is not relevant to Mt Rainier.

If, at the beginning of the universe, the likelihood of Mount Rainier's current existence was very small, is that a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for Mount Rainier's current existence?

If the answer is no, why is a similarly small likelihood for your current existence a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for your existence?

Why isn't OOFLam relevant to Mount Rainier? The prevailing hypothesis for the current existence of Mount Rainier is that it exists in its current form because of natural processes. That's also the scientific hypothesis for why you exist. Why one approach for mountains and a different approach for people?

 

[abaddon]

That fact was re-established back in post #464

Stop doing that. By now, you must be aware that post numbers are useless as references and that the only reliable way to refer to others posts is by link.

Currently, #464 is this http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11934804&postcount=464

Tomorrow it may not be so.

If you have some difficulty working this out, send PM and I will explain it to you rather than derailing the thread.

 

[JayUtah]

- OOFLam is not relevant to Mt Rainier.

That's right. However, materialism and immortality are relevant, both to you and to Mt Ranier. And that's what we're debating. "OOFLam" is your straw man. It has nothing to do with your critics' arguments, and almost nothing to do with your argument -- the argument you actually make. "OOFLam must be false" is little more than a slogan in your argument.

If I'm a legitimate target...

Stop. You don't get to blunder past these sorts of conditionals. A sizable portion of your argumentation takes the form of begging your critics to agree that if you had a valid argument, or if you had actual evidence, then your proof would work. You don't get to skip steps and move ahead to the point where you declare QED.

You are not a "legitimate target," as far as the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is concerned. Neither is Mt Ranier. Neither of you were specified before the initial conditions were allowed to progress. Both of you have been specified only now, exactly in terms of present-day observation. That's not retroactive. Materialism accounts for both of you having gotten this way, but not in a way that makes either of you special. You still don't understand why the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a fallacy, but it's fatal to your claim whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

I'm still hoping for some closure on your arithmetic from yesterday, while we're at it. The real numbers do not define the result of division by infinity. The extended real numbers define the result of division by infinity as zero. You have defined the results of division by infinity as a "teeny number," with zero evidence or argument in support -- and certainly not a proof, such as Newton provided for his answer. And that came a day after you said the results of division by infinity were undefined. We keep getting inconsistent, contradictory, and wrong answers from you. Despite your desire to stick with one "sub-issue" until it's resolved, we can't seem to get you to stick with this sub-issue of proper arithmetic. As soon as you're backed into a corner on what it means to divide a real number by infinity, you're back to climbing Mt Ranier.

Stay on the ball, please.

 

[jt512]

Fundamentally, the discrepancy is due to the frequentist model failing to account for prior knowledge, since even with an unbiased sample, an observed frequency of 0 will lead to an (ML) probability estimate of 0.

True. But I think we're really saying the same thing here, just approaching it from a different angle.

Suppose I'm a Bayesian and let K denote the background knowledge I use, from which I conclude that the probability of there being at least one person being convinced by Jabba is 1. Now what does K consist of? It includes me having seen people being convinced by arguments like that. If the frequentist were to include those observations in K in their sample they'd reach the same conclusion.

In other words, the problem with the frequentist model is failure to account for prior knowledge. The model involves only the sample. This is exactly what I said.

The frequentist sampling bias consists exactly of not considering the observations which the Bayesian uses as background knowledge.

In other words, the problem with the frequentist model is failure to account for prior knowledge. The model involves only the sample. This is exactly what I said.

 

[godless dave]

If, at the beginning of the universe, the likelihood of Mount Rainier's current existence was very small, is that a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for Mount Rainier's current existence?

If the answer is no, why is a similarly small likelihood for your current existence a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for your existence?

Why isn't OOFLam relevant to Mount Rainier? The prevailing hypothesis for the current existence of Mount Rainier is that it exists in its current form because of natural processes. That's also the scientific hypothesis for why you exist. Why one approach for mountains and a different approach for people?

The more I think about this the less I understand why OOFLam wouldn't be relevant to Mount Rainier.

Mount Rainier will exist for a finite length of time. It began its existence around 840,000 years ago and at some point in the future it will cease being geologically active. A long time after that it will have eroded completely away. It will be gone, never to return.

OOFLam postulates that I, like Mount Rainier, have one finite life because I, like Mount Rainier, am entirely physical.

 

[Belz...]

I'm not arguing for anything. I was initially arguing, quite successfully, against Loss Leader's Jabba-likelihood-multiplying many universes gambit , which was apparently taken to be an attack on the entire collective.

Then the collective began to attempt to adapt, and I responded disapprovingly to the attempted adaptations. As usual.

You should surrender. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

 

[Toontown]

If it were an exact duplicate then it would think the exact same thing in regard to itself. IOW, both units would believe it was the original.

Not if they knew they'd been duplicated and had a lick of sense. Then they'd have no idea which one was the original.

The fact remains, as it was from the beginning; the only way to know which one is which is to track the original's spacetime coordinates, like I said in the first place.

If for some reason you can't do that, you are condemned to not knowing which one is which. But you could invoke probability and assign a probabllity distribution of (0.5 , 0.5) to your incomplete state of knowledge. If that would make you feel any better. That way, you'd halfway know which one is which.

 

[Toontown]

The more I think about this the less I understand why OOFLam wouldn't be relevant to Mount Rainier.

Mount Rainier will exist for a finite length of time. It began its existence around 840,000 years ago and at some point in the future it will cease being geologically active. A long time after that it will have eroded completely away. It will be gone, never to return.

OOFLam postulates that I, like Mount Rainier, have one finite life because I, like Mount Rainier, am entirely physical.

Like Madonna?

I agree that your specific brain, like Mount Rainier, has one finite life because it, like Mount Ranier, is entirely physical. Well, entirely physcal if we don't quibble over details, such as the fact that the electrical impulses in your brain are manifestations of the universe-spanning electromagnetic field. As long as we don't quibble over whether the 19 universe-spanning particle fields are physical. I won't quibble over any of that if you don't. I'll stipulate that whatever exists is physical. But not necessarily local.

However

You are committing the sharpshooter fallacy when you arbitrarily focus your objective perspective on Mt. Rainier, in order to compare your subjective sentience to an arbitrarily chosen rock in the external universe.

Are you trying to reify the ridiculous prior odds against a specific brain by arbitrarily comparing your brain to a random rock in the universe? Well, that is an arbitrary choice, so whatever rock you arbitrarily choose is no less inevitable than all the rocks combined. The big bang mandated that there would be various random rocks that one might arbitrarily choose.

You are not committing the fallacy when you focus your subjective perspective on your subjective sentience. That is not an arbitrary choice. It is your subjective perspective, the only subjective perspective you have. You can choose not to use it, but you have to die to lose it. And stay dead, or you'll get another one.

The arbitrary rock, you can lose. You don't need no stinking rock to reify the odds. The odds don't need to be reified. Not supposed to be reified. The prior odds against a specific brain are unreifiably ridiculous.

 

[Hokulele]

You are not committing the fallacy when you focus your subjective perspective on your subjective sentience. That is not an arbitrary choice. It is your subjective perspective, the only subjective perspective you have. You can choose not to use it, but you have to die to lose it.

Nonsense.

 

[Jabba]

- OOFLam is not relevant to Mt Rainier...

If, at the beginning of the universe, the likelihood of Mount Rainier's current existence was very small, is that a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for Mount Rainier's current existence?

If the answer is no, why is a similarly small likelihood for your current existence a reason to doubt the materialist hypothesis for your existence?

Why isn't OOFLam relevant to Mount Rainier? The prevailing hypothesis for the current existence of Mount Rainier is that it exists in its current form because of natural processes. That's also the scientific hypothesis for why you exist. Why one approach for mountains and a different approach for people?

- Mt Rainier is assumed to not be conscious. OOFLam refers to conscious entities.

 

[Jabba]

The more I think about this the less I understand why OOFLam wouldn't be relevant to Mount Rainier.

Mount Rainier will exist for a finite length of time. It began its existence around 840,000 years ago and at some point in the future it will cease being geologically active. A long time after that it will have eroded completely away. It will be gone, never to return.

OOFLam postulates that I, like Mount Rainier, have one finite life because I, like Mount Rainier, am entirely physical.

- But, Mt Rainier is not conscious.

 

[jsfisher]

- Mt Rainier is assumed to not be conscious. OOFLam refers to conscious entities.

Moving the goalposts in an attempt to avoid an inconvenient truth?