All of adefinitemaybe's Comments + Replies

Looks like people are getting fatigued with downvoting you, so I'll be deleting all your comments from now on. I can't say I'm happy that you got so many replies, either; but I suppose if the community were sufficiently annoyed with the repliers, they could downvote the replies.

Would it be accurate to summarize your views as follows: (1) There is zero evidence for the proposition that you are mortal (2) There is zero evidence for the proposition that you are immortal Therefore: You will act as though you are immortal ?

You do have some evidence that you are similar to other people. Consequently, if you had evidence for the mortality of someone else, this would be evidence for your own mortality. You have admitted that it is possible to have evidence for the mortality of someone else, and therefore it is possible for you to have evidence of your own mortality.

I'm really curious why you didn't take Jack's $5 above.

It is the result of a net negative or zero vote on each. Independent of any action by other members, I know I've upvoted three of your posts-- "I've already retracted the word "legitimate" as being redundant..." "I may have memory of always existing..." and "Anyway, not to worry. We can still be sure of taxes." I am not sure why you would doubt me on this. Did you read any of the articles here or on Overcoming Bias before signing up?

Oh no. I've been quite convinced by this thread. It is clearly impossible to present you with anything you'll recognize as evidence of your mortality. I'm serious about the bet though. Or does your belief that there is no evidence that you are mortal not change the your belief that you are indeed mortal?

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.

Rationale behind my prediction: I don't dislike you (I've upvoted some of your comments, downvoted others, and left some alone entirely), but people who are being consistently downvoted have been told to leave in the past. You match that profile the best of anyone I've seen on this site-- better than someone who Eliezer recently asked to leave. Eliezer was himself downvoted when he announced that, so I'm not sure whether this rule is still in effect, which is why I estimated sixty-five percent instead of ninety.

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.

You're being downvoted because people think you're either being irrational or trolling. New Year's prediction: adefinitemaybe will be banned from Less Wrong. Sixty-five percent.

It sounds like you are posting in good faith. Just go easy on the "but I'm winning! lolz, groupthink!" stuff, that tends to be a tipping point. I do recommend you look a bit closer at what people are telling you about 'evidence', it's important. I have been involved with communities in which finding clever ways to say "That isn't evidence. Where is your evidence?" in response to any given piece of evidence is rewarded with status and the stronger the evidence ignored the more respect is granted. This, for most part, isn't one of them. If you continue to speak nonsense and fail to comprehend those who are engaged with you you'll just be voted down to oblivion.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/

So if I showed you that there was a 90% chance of that happening, you would still say there is no legitimate evidence, just because a 10% chance would be enough for a reasonable doubt?

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.

The bet would (quite obviously) be on whether you are provided evidence of your individual mortality. No, you have it backwards. Chewbacca was born on Kashyyyk but lives on Endor. Orthonormal was kind enough to provide you with an explanation of what evidence means. You already have overwhelming evidence of your mortality. Providing more by beating you with a rubber chicken until you were bloody and bruised would just be icing. Votes would have hovered around 0 if you had let it go when it turned out your joke didn't quite work. Meanwhile, I had best not reply further lest I be found to violate the "don't feed the trolls" injunction.

Right, sorry. You say (presumably jokingly) that there's no "legitimate" evidence for your mortality, but surely the fact that you're human and humans have been known to die eventually is probabilistic evidence that you are mortal. I was trying to hint at this by indicating that there were hidden assumptions in the word legitimate, but on reflection I might have been misusing/overloading the taboo terminology. Do downvote the grandparent.

Click the 'Taboo' link in the grandparent comment of this one.

Zack M Davis's point is explained by the article he has linked to. The tl;dr version is that your use of a certain word (in this case "legitimate") is not helping a productive conversation. Instead, explain exactly what you mean when you say "legitimate", because the word can mean different things, so it's not clear which meaning you're using.

Did you click on the link?

Are you a human being, adefinitemaybe? It seems that all humans in the past have died, and all humans currently alive appear to be following the same pattern that leads to eventual death. How are you different from other humans who are known to be mortal? Your suggestion that you are immortal is basically the same as saying, "cars are known to break down under certain conditions, and my car is just like the others, but this specific car hasn't broken down yet so I'll assume that it will never break down."

"I am mortal" and "I am immortal" are definitely two theories, and each of them can be supported or opposed by many types of evidence. Providing evidence against "you are immortal" is providing evidence for your mortality. I pointed to some such evidence in my other comment. If you do not accept this type of evidence, what is your definition of "legitimate evidence"?

I would really rather bet against you. Let's select a suitable arbitrator and translate that probability into some (finite) odds. Say, hypothetically, that every living relative of yours out to fourth cousin is captured and brought before you. They are then, every man woman and child, beaten to death with a rubber chicken. The assailant then begins to beat you with the aforementioned toy and you exhibit similar symptoms of physical decay to your previously bludgeoned kin. No unbiased arbitrator would judge that no legitimate evidence for your individual mortality has been presented to you. Short of non-occamian priors the evidence is clear.

May we define what 'you' is? For example, if 'you' is a username here on LessWrong ('adefinitemaybe'), then you could be "mortal" because your account can be deleted. Or if you identify with the atoms you are composed of, then the issue of your mortality is again different... Later edit: OK, you're 'apparently human'. Please don't respond to this message, as I plan to delete it since its apparently noise.

I shall assume that you are human (which I think is virtually certain) and speaking in good faith (which I shall assume for the sake of the conversation). You say "I don't know if I am human, in the generally accepted sense", but I do not believe you. These being so, evidence that you will die and not live again, and that you did not exist before you were conceived, lies in such observations as these: 1. The tendency of every human body to stop working within a century and then disintegrate. Not merely the observation that people die, which is as old as there have been people, but the extensive knowledge of how and why they die. 2. The absence of any reliable evidence of survival of the mind in any form thereafter. 3. The absence of any reliable evidence of existence of that mind before conception. 4. The absence of any reliable evidence of a mind existing independently of the physical body; the existence of much reliable evidence to the effect that the mind is a physical process of the brain. Further argument against the idea of any sort of intangible mental entity separate from material things, can be found here. Of course, many have argued otherwise. Not merely books, but whole libraries could be collected arguing for the existence of souls independent of the body and their immortality. But even if the matter were seriously contendable, that would not alter the existence of the evidence I have given, merely put up other evidence against it. So there is the evidence that you asked for. I am of course only summarising things here. But what else is possible? If someone who knows no mathematics at all starts babbling to me about the 4-colour theorem, what can I do but advise them to study mathematics for a few years? That being said, however, you might indeed be immortal! There is one slender chance: advances in medicine. We live at the first time in history when we can begin to see the chance of remedying the fragility of the body. Just beginning, and a

I at first assumed (when you had only the first two comments to your name) that you had been a lurker here for some time, had tried to make either a joke or a half-serious point, and might have been blindsided by the downvotes. In the intervening time, I have changed my opinion of you, and I think that Less Wrong is not suitable for you. There are plenty of Internet sites composed of people whose purpose is simply to signal that they are the cleverest person there. Although I do not expect you to be aware of this fact, Less Wrong is not primarily such a place. This community is defined by, among other things, wanting to understand others' objections before dismissing them, even should that require five minutes of reading and pondering. If you look back over your exchange, several of us have replied in good faith to clarify your assertion and expand upon the areas of disagreement. You have not shown the least interest in returning the favor. Your presence here is wasting everyone's time, including yours; you might be much happier, I think, engaging in this behavior on another forum where it is more the norm. Although you may not believe yourself to be a troll, you will almost certainly be regarded as one here.

Based on your observation that your direct evidence for human mortality is limited, you conclude that you will never receive evidence, under some definition, that you are mortal. Do you have any evidence (under the same definition) that I am mortal, or indeed that anybody else is? If yes, could you please explain the difference in conclusions from identical evidence?

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.

You use this word, "evidence". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Are you banking on subjective quantum immortality?

You have a 0% credence in every state of affairs, including ones that you haven't thought of, which include a mechanism for you (the software) to note the death of your hardware? Or do you mean something else?

Taboo legitimate.