[ly3xqhl8g9]

"The occurrence of conjoined twins is rare. Its actual prevalence is unknown, but it is estimated to range from 1:50,000 to 1:200,000" [1]. 1 in 200,000 would raise it to 99.9995%. But as pointed again and again in the other comments, the pointless, hyperbolic figure is irrelevant. When cutting the planarian worm head, the regeneration is always, 100% a head, if no change in the bioelectrical gradients. The argument was about the deterministic computation done by biology in the morphospace.

[1] Importance of Angiographic Study in Preoperative Planning of Conjoined Twins Case Report, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S180759322...

[caylus]

> pointless, hyperbolic figure is irrelevant

Then why not simply give the correct, still impressive, figure, as I suggested?

> the regeneration is always, 100% a head, if no change in the bioelectrical gradients

This is also a meaningless statement. It's correct 100% of the time, except when something goes wrong and it's not.

Can you quantify the likelihood of something going wrong with the "bioelectrical gradient"? I'm not familiar with this organism but I suspect it's several nines, but less than 7.

In general, probabilities less than a certain amount stop being meaningful, because it's more likely that the model used generate the probability fails to reflect reality. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AJ9dX59QXokZb35fk/when-not-t...

[ly3xqhl8g9]

The figure you suggested is also wrong, as per the article I linked, and I can no longer edit the original comment.

The change in the bioelectrical gradient is a human intervention over the organism. Watch the video I linked above. There is 0% chance of "something going wrong with the bioelectrical gradients", it's at the experimenter's will. If you are not familiar then why do you suspect? Your statement is not even meaningless.

[caylus]

> I can no longer edit the original comment

Okay, great, we're getting somewhere. So you concede that the true number of human birth defects is on the order of 4-5 nines.

We know this because we've observed a huge sample size of human births. Meanwhile, the experiment you reference only observed a small set of planarian worm amputations. So we can't conclude there are even 4-5 nines of reliability there, let alone "100%".

Otherwise, we could simply observe a few hundred human births, observe no defects, and conclude that human births are also "100%" reliable.

In our original debate, we were both slightly wrong about the number of nines of reliability in human births. However, you are now infinitely wrong by claiming an infinite number of nines of reliability in planarian worm amputations. I don't know whether the actual number of nines is 5, or 10, or 20, but I can be certain that it's not infinity, because that would violate the laws of probability.

[ly3xqhl8g9]

Concede? Debate? Since you linked to pseudo-philosophical mindholes such as LessWrong I suppose it's only natural you would see it as a debate. I will no longer reply since your worldview is irreconcilable with learning and understanding beyond "I am right/less wrong, you are (infinitely) wrong".

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about, as you admitted you are not familiar with the planarian worm organism and regeneration research, and it's not a problem, we are all ignorant about various things, that's why we learn: too bad your learning appetite has been a casualty to the illusion of LessWrong "rationalism". Nevertheless, it is really funny to see you being "rational" and speculating upon things you have no understanding and no desire to learn about. I really laughed reading your now deleted comment starting with "Zero is not a probability."

Just to make it clear for anyone else who might read this: it is impossible to throw a ball in the air and see it flying in the air forever. There is 0% chance of that ever happening. There are no "laws of probability" to be violated in this "experiment". Just the same, when you amputate a planarian worm head, regardless if you did it once, never, or 100,000 times before, it will always 100% regenerate a head, if you, the experimenter, haven't altered the bioelectrical gradients of the worm [1]. The planarian worm regeneration is still being researched and it is revealing biology as a deterministic computation in the morphospace with abilities far exceeding what we currently can muster with our CPUs.

[1] Planarian regeneration as a model of anatomical homeostasis: Recent progress in biophysical and computational approaches, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10849...