How confident are you about various so called facts?

by slimboyfat 175 Replies latest social entertainment

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    Let me get this straight ...

    If you travelled to Saudi Arabia, were found guilty of committing murder/blasphemy/sorcery, and were kneeling, blindfolded, before the executioner ... as he raised his sword above his head to prepare for the single downward stroke, you would be thinking to yourself "it could be worse - I have a 5% chance of surviving this"?

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    You didn't say that you're backtracking.

    According to some accounts head transplants are just about feasible. I don't know if that's true, but some day I suppose it's bound to be. Although logically I'd call it a body transplant not a head transplant, the head surely being the important bit.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Besides I was clearly not saying there's a 5% chance of survival. I was saying there's a 5% chance that it's not true that decaoitation will always result in death. That's far from being the same thing,

    Sheesh do we need to work with such a gruesome example anyway?

  • Oubliette
    Oubliette
    The earth is an oblate spheroid rather than flat in shape. - 100%
  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    According to some accounts head transplants are just about feasible - you did a similar thing with the claims that lions can live on straw.

    You can't just accept these claims and then allow them to inform you so that you can give a % of confidence. Claims must be tested and be testable to begin with. Only then they can they inform you of things!

    Fair enough, I was backtracking and sliding around a bit. But, were you in the above situation I described, I'd like to think that you would think that you would unfortunately die, and be 100% confident of it. I know, it was an example in poor taste, but still ...

  • Simon
    Simon

    Although they are similar on a very simplistic level (yeah, todo with 'heads' coming off) I think most people would clearly see the difference between a transplant and a decapitation.

    I don't understand how changing the meaning of the question after the answer proves anything other than the questioner is trying to be clever, a dick or a clever dick.

    Who holds the air speed record?

    When you tell me the X-15 plane I say "ha, I meant imaginary sci-fi in movies too so either Superman or Santa-claus"

    What is the point?

  • Simon
    Simon
    I was saying there's a 5% chance that it's not true that decaoitation will always result in death. That's far from being the same thing,

    Again, this is semantics. Most people will reasonably interpret the question to be based in the current, in the known world and the known universe and all the laws that apply. Not some potential fictitious reality in the future. The correct answer is 100%.

    But at lest you seem to be grasping that the confidence in an answer isn't the same as the probability of the thing.

    I am 100% confident that a coin will land on heads or tails even though it may, once in a million, land on it's edge.

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    I think most people would clearly see the difference between a transplant and a decapitation.

    Agreed. My question from the start was about decapitation - Slimboyfat added the transplant element in his first answer.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    They are not the same but a transplant would involve decaptiation.

    Beisdes this discussion is taking a false turn. It's not for me to come up with exceptions to any absolute you choose to declare. It's up to you to prove that something is 100% sure. Not fair, I hear you say. I can't prove that. Which is the point!

  • slimboyfat

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