Tuesday 23 August 2011

Statistically, are we mortal?

There's a type of bad statistics that's used whenever you only have only one piece of information... it's called a point estimate.

Here's how it works in this context:

I am currently alive, therefore chances are that I am normally alive.

Of course this is bad statistics, because one needs many samples for statistics to be accurate, something which cannot be done, because we are each only one consciousness / soul / point of experience... whatever you want to call it.

Another way to say this is: I existed after presumably having not existed (before being born), therefore it is probably possible to exist again (in a different form of course).

Another way to do a point estimate like this is, to try and calculate the odds of now being a point in time in which you're alive: e.g. 13 billion years / 70 years = presuming you only exist once, the chance that you're currently alive now is 1 in 185,714,285. That means either you're REALLY lucky, or you don't just exist once.

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