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Existing....


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#1 AgentNyder

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Posted 08 September 2003 - 12:55 PM


First of all, there are infinite past events before we are born. But assuming chaos theory, let's say every little thing did add up to a pattern that could be predicted. Yet so many different things happened leading to the events of your birth that one little interruption to the flow could have ended your probability of existence forever...

Lets travel to the point where your parents met. How many factors could have conspired against their eventual coupling? Many. Yet they met anyway - and you started out as a mere sperm, manufactured in your father, containing the information needed to develop into the full human that you are today...

Sperm can only live 30 days inside the testes, so you didn't have long. Luckily conception did take place, but then you had to beat the other 200-600 million sperm (if your father was fertile) from getting to that egg. This is probably the single most greatest event for all of us life forms - the biggest most monumental hurdle that we ever have to face...

(Of course there are many other hurdles, which I won't go into)

So you're conceived - but then you have to face the risk of not even being born alive. If you are in Sudan you have a total: 65.59/1,000 risk of infant mortality. If you are in France it is 4.37/1,000.

So it is an immense achievement to be born, and I commend every human for surviving those odds.

This of course leads on to all of the other threats to life that are mentioned in this section of the Imminst forums, but I'd just thought I'd mention that YOUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ONE GREAT MIRACLE IN ITSELF. Your survival from then on seems small by comparison. [":)]

#2 tbeal

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Posted 10 September 2003 - 07:02 PM

not so if you support determinsm for that simply means that your life was inevitable

#3 80srich

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Posted 13 September 2003 - 10:26 PM

Theres a multi-verse theory that there are an infinite number of universes where each different action is played out.

Meaning say in another universe i would of died at birth, in another i would of died in the next instance and so on, with each universe having only one quantum difference. Though i admit my understanding of this is tenuous.

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#4 JonesGuy

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Posted 14 September 2003 - 01:42 AM

Well, if the multiple universe theory AND Descartes are correct, then you just have to keep on 'switching' to the universe where you don't die!

Sure, in THIS universe, it might appear to others that I died. But, as long as I doubt my existence (Descartes), the conscious me should continue to exist.

Okay, Mr. Nyder, how about test-tube manufactured babies, huh? They will be designed, so the likelyhood of their existence is pretty strong. It's the multiple factors of Nurture which will then define them. ;)

edit: tough to be taken seriously when you can't spel rite

Edited by QJones, 14 September 2003 - 05:49 PM.


#5 AgentNyder

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 05:23 AM

Okay, Mr. Nyder, how about test-tube manufactured babies, huh?  They will be designed, so the likelyhood of their existence is pretty strong.  It's the multiple factors of Nurture which will then define them. ;)

edit: tough to be taken seriously when you can't spel rite


It's not only the likelihood that you will be born, but every other factor as well, which is what I'm saying.

For example, my entire existence was based on whether my grandfather decided whether or not to attend a dance one night (if he hadn't, he would never have met my grandmother,...).

When you think of it that way - I guess you could say it is determinism. Because the probability that you exist would have to be infinitely small. So either I'm VERY VERY BLOODY LUCKY or my existence is as predictable as the cycles of the earth around the sun. [huh]

#6 chubtoad

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 07:38 AM

This is an interesting idea, now let me ask you a question. Since about 14% of people who ever lived are alive today does this mean that, if the world ended right after you read this, your probability of living right now is .14(probability of ever living) and your probability of living at some time before now but not being here now is .86(probability of ever living)? The 14% is the percentage of people living now so it can be thought of as (# people living now)/(# people ever lived). So if the world didn't end right now wouldn't it follow that your probability of being here now (probability of ever living)(# people living now)/(# people ever going to live). Since your alive you don't have to worry about your odds of ever living so your odds of living at a certain time are (# of people living at certain time period)/(number people ever going to live). So if you were going to be alive sometime there is a 14% chance it would be now, if there was no future. This probability shrinks as the number of people ever living increases, so being here now you would expect a fairly low number of people to ever live. If there is a low # of people who ever live you would expect a future where everyone dies in the near future, or people start living forever and population levels off. Is this kind of predicting the future viable or was there a flaw in my reasoning?

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#7 AgentNyder

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 08:08 AM

chubtoad,

This is an interesting idea, now let me ask you a question.  Since about 14% of people who ever lived are alive today does this mean that, if the world ended right after you read this, your probability of living right now is .14(probability of ever living) and your probability of living at some time before now but not being here now  is .86(probability of ever living)? The 14% is the percentage of people living now so it can be thought of as (# people living now)/(# people ever lived). So if the world didn't end right now wouldn't it follow that your probability of being here now (probability of ever living)(# people living now)/(# people ever going to live).  Since your alive you don't have to worry about your odds of ever living so your odds of living at a certain time are (# of people living at certain time period)/(number people ever going to live). So if you were going to be alive sometime there is a 14% chance it would be now, if there was no future.  This probability shrinks as the number of people ever living increases, so being here now you would expect a fairly low number of people to ever live.  If there is a low # of people who ever live you would expect a future where everyone dies in the near future, or people start living forever and population levels off.  Is this kind of predicting the future viable or was there a flaw in my reasoning?


The easiest way to imagine that is if you had every single human who ever lived in a fishbowl - and you decided to randomly pick one out; then the probability is 0.14 that the human will be currently alive, and a 0.86 probability that the human will not be currently alive.

It's a bit hard to see how you can use this to determine your individual probability of existence though. Because my contention in this thread is the probability that YOU (or I) exist not the probability that a human, if randomly selected will exist in a certain period of time.




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