Clearly, if you observed that you were 1,000,000,000 years old, this would support the theory that you are immortal. But you observe that you not that old, but much less. Therefore, by Bayes theorem, it becomes more probable that you are not immortal. Since you assign odds of 100% to not being presented with such evidence, this means you should be willing to wager any amount, against nothing, that you would not receive such evidence. You may therefore now send me all your money.
If I am immortal I am ageless. I may look a certain way, but that is irrelevant. Even if I was born, in the normal human way, I’d still be ageless, and I’d still be immortal. That I took human form for a few years is irrelevant. Unless you can show that no immortals were ever born, in the normal human way, and appeared to age, and even appeared to die (immortals can’t really die), your ‘evidence’ does not constitute evidence.
“100%” can’t denote odds. And, being an immortal, I’m not a betting man.
Even if it is possible that you always existed, you do not remember always existing. If you remembered always existing, this would increase the chance that you are immortal. Since you observe your lack of memory of always existing, your chances of being mortal increase.
As for this :”Unless you can show that no immortals were ever born...” etc., I do not need to show this unless I want to prove with 100% certainty that you are not immortal. However, I do not need to prove this: it is enough to give some evidence, however limited, that you are mortal, and I have done this.
I may have memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant. If I told you about it, and you accepted my evidence, and presented it back to me as evidence, it could only represent evidence of my immortality. I require evidence, from you, of my mortality.
I may have no memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant also, given that human beings, apparently, (and, for all anybody knows, immortals) have no knowledge of the rules governing immortality. Perhaps immortals don’t have such memory. Plenty of human beings suffering amnesia have no memory of having lived in previous periods. That doesn’t constitute evidence that they didn’t live in those periods.
Do you have any evidence of my mortality to present to me or don’t you? Please, don’t respond with any more links to other site pages in lieu of original, rational thought and coherent argument.
The article you were linked to explains exactly what you’re getting wrong. i looked it up to give it to you before I saw that Unknowns already had. It is a waste of everyone’s time to repeat the the argument the article makes in are own words. It is extremely short. If you can’t be bothered to read it then everyone is going to assume that you aren’t arguing in good faith. They would be right to do so.
If we are all to just read the articles, what’s the point of having a discussion forum? If Unknowns wants to use the content of that article to make his argument, then he should do so, and make the argument in his own words. It is sheer laziness (and verging on the plagiaristic) to just point to articles and say “My argument is in there somewhere. Please respond as soon as you identify it. Of course, I’ll get all bent out of shape if you misinterpret what I meant to say, although I’m prepared to accept some associated praise for having ALSO thought that which the article’s author has taken the time to write down and publish.”
“If you can’t be bothered to read it then everyone is going to assume that you aren’t arguing in good faith.”
I’m taking the time to construct original arguments here. I’m also taking the time to read all original responses that people offer, and respond to those. I’m receiving some responses to those arguments in the form of links to articles penned by third parties. And you have the audacity to threaten me that people will assume my motives are unwholesome if I refuse to accept that sort of lazy response as legitimate (in the non-geek sense of the word), and to inform me that they would be right to do so? Suppose, in lieu of this response to you, I just directed you to The Collected Works of Friedrich Nietzsche? Would you read them and get back to me with your rebuttal? If the article is as short as you say, shouldn’t Unknowns have the common courtesy to paraphrase it here?
I made a prediction. So far it has come true. Nobody has yet presented me with any evidence of my mortality. If that pains any of you to the point of abusing the privilege of this site’s forward-thinking voting system, please, take a moment to give yourself a good slap.
The point in you reading the articles is that the inferential distance between you and the rest of the members of this community is so large that communication becomes unwieldy. Like it or not, the members of Less Wrong (like the members of most communities which engage in specialized discourse) chunk specific, technical concepts into single words. When you do not understand the precise meaning of the words as they are being used, there is a disconnect between you and the members of the community.
The specific problem here is in the use of the word “evidence.” By evidence, we mean (roughly) “any observation which updates the probability of a hypothesis being true.” By probability, we mean Bayesianprobability. I’m not going to go through the probability calculation, but other commenters are correct: given the evidence that you are not really, really old, you should revise the probability assigned to your hypothesis of immortality down significantly.
If you are not going to do the requisite reading that would enable you to participate in this discussion community, it would probably be best for both you and everyone here if you just left now. If you do feel like participating, I highly recommend going through the sequences.
Clearly, if you observed that you were 1,000,000,000 years old, this would support the theory that you are immortal. But you observe that you not that old, but much less. Therefore, by Bayes theorem, it becomes more probable that you are not immortal. Since you assign odds of 100% to not being presented with such evidence, this means you should be willing to wager any amount, against nothing, that you would not receive such evidence. You may therefore now send me all your money.
If I am immortal I am ageless. I may look a certain way, but that is irrelevant. Even if I was born, in the normal human way, I’d still be ageless, and I’d still be immortal. That I took human form for a few years is irrelevant. Unless you can show that no immortals were ever born, in the normal human way, and appeared to age, and even appeared to die (immortals can’t really die), your ‘evidence’ does not constitute evidence.
“100%” can’t denote odds. And, being an immortal, I’m not a betting man.
Even if it is possible that you always existed, you do not remember always existing. If you remembered always existing, this would increase the chance that you are immortal. Since you observe your lack of memory of always existing, your chances of being mortal increase.
As for this :”Unless you can show that no immortals were ever born...” etc., I do not need to show this unless I want to prove with 100% certainty that you are not immortal. However, I do not need to prove this: it is enough to give some evidence, however limited, that you are mortal, and I have done this.
No, you haven’t done that.
I may have memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant. If I told you about it, and you accepted my evidence, and presented it back to me as evidence, it could only represent evidence of my immortality. I require evidence, from you, of my mortality.
I may have no memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant also, given that human beings, apparently, (and, for all anybody knows, immortals) have no knowledge of the rules governing immortality. Perhaps immortals don’t have such memory. Plenty of human beings suffering amnesia have no memory of having lived in previous periods. That doesn’t constitute evidence that they didn’t live in those periods.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/
Do you have any evidence of my mortality to present to me or don’t you? Please, don’t respond with any more links to other site pages in lieu of original, rational thought and coherent argument.
The article you were linked to explains exactly what you’re getting wrong. i looked it up to give it to you before I saw that Unknowns already had. It is a waste of everyone’s time to repeat the the argument the article makes in are own words. It is extremely short. If you can’t be bothered to read it then everyone is going to assume that you aren’t arguing in good faith. They would be right to do so.
If we are all to just read the articles, what’s the point of having a discussion forum? If Unknowns wants to use the content of that article to make his argument, then he should do so, and make the argument in his own words. It is sheer laziness (and verging on the plagiaristic) to just point to articles and say “My argument is in there somewhere. Please respond as soon as you identify it. Of course, I’ll get all bent out of shape if you misinterpret what I meant to say, although I’m prepared to accept some associated praise for having ALSO thought that which the article’s author has taken the time to write down and publish.”
“If you can’t be bothered to read it then everyone is going to assume that you aren’t arguing in good faith.”
I’m taking the time to construct original arguments here. I’m also taking the time to read all original responses that people offer, and respond to those. I’m receiving some responses to those arguments in the form of links to articles penned by third parties. And you have the audacity to threaten me that people will assume my motives are unwholesome if I refuse to accept that sort of lazy response as legitimate (in the non-geek sense of the word), and to inform me that they would be right to do so? Suppose, in lieu of this response to you, I just directed you to The Collected Works of Friedrich Nietzsche? Would you read them and get back to me with your rebuttal? If the article is as short as you say, shouldn’t Unknowns have the common courtesy to paraphrase it here?
I made a prediction. So far it has come true. Nobody has yet presented me with any evidence of my mortality. If that pains any of you to the point of abusing the privilege of this site’s forward-thinking voting system, please, take a moment to give yourself a good slap.
The point in you reading the articles is that the inferential distance between you and the rest of the members of this community is so large that communication becomes unwieldy. Like it or not, the members of Less Wrong (like the members of most communities which engage in specialized discourse) chunk specific, technical concepts into single words. When you do not understand the precise meaning of the words as they are being used, there is a disconnect between you and the members of the community.
The specific problem here is in the use of the word “evidence.” By evidence, we mean (roughly) “any observation which updates the probability of a hypothesis being true.” By probability, we mean Bayesian probability. I’m not going to go through the probability calculation, but other commenters are correct: given the evidence that you are not really, really old, you should revise the probability assigned to your hypothesis of immortality down significantly.
If you are not going to do the requisite reading that would enable you to participate in this discussion community, it would probably be best for both you and everyone here if you just left now. If you do feel like participating, I highly recommend going through the sequences.
Anyway, not to worry. We can still be sure of taxes.