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Longest Reign!!

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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Longest Reign!!
    Posted: 12-Aug-2005 at 14:05
He has a time machine. I believe that no matter small the life expectancy is, there still can be exceptions.. so what if he was the one of the million and lifed for 90 years?
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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2005 at 05:56
Well Egypt has a LONG history. Literally there must have been hundreds upon hundreds of Pharaohs over the course of the 1st dynasty until Cleopatra gave an asp a bite of her. Is it really so improbable that in over 3000 years of history one especially distinguished man should survive until 100 years of age? Perhaps the life of this man who nearly tripled the life expectancy of his typical subject was an important influence on the Egyptians crediting their rulers with god status.
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2005 at 03:26

'No one'? How do you prove that?

 

 It is mathematical.

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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2005 at 09:18
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

'No one'? How do you prove that?

 
 It is mathematical.



Mathematics can't prove or disprove an empirical statement. However if you think you have a mathematical proof, let's have it.

You wrote previously, and i responded:


With an expected life of 18 year old, no one can live at 200 years, the variance is way to high and improbable.


How are you calculating the variance? What defines 'too high'?



Can you answer those questions? Don't be put off by assuming I don't understand the maths involved, the odds are I will.
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2005 at 20:48

Can you answer those questions? Don't be put off by assuming I don't understand the maths involved, the odds are I will.

 

 Good if you understand the maths behind you can answer it just by looking at the pyramids, so why asking me.  Look at the pyramids, the sample is not widely spread. More than 80% of the scores are within 1 standard deviation, an almost 100% within 2 standard deviation. Mathematically speaking, 100 year old peeps were a miracle in ancient egypt, or at least improbable although I never said zero. That's why I said it is very unlikely to have a person living that old.



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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Aug-2005 at 20:55

Mathematics can't prove or disprove an empirical statement. However if you think you have a mathematical proof, let's have it.

 

 It is statistical and therefore mathematical as well.

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  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 00:36
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

Can you answer those questions? Don't be put off by assuming I don't understand the maths involved, the odds are I will.



Good if you understand the maths behind you can answer it just by looking at the pyramids, so why asking me. Look at the pyramids, the sample is not widely spread. More than 80% of the scores are within 1 standard deviation, an almost 100% within 2 standard deviation. Mathematically speaking, 100 year old peeps were a miracle in ancient egypt, or at least improbable although I never said zero. That's why I said it is very unlikely to have a person living that old.



Well, you did say 'no one', so that pretty much implies 0. There's a great difference between improbable and impossible you know.

Anyway, I would argue that in Egypt, you had practically 2 societies: the peasants, which constituted 99% of the population, which were malnourished and overworked, and who therefore barely lived to be 40. Then you had the priests and the aristocrats, who had pretty good living conditions, good food and did not have to break their backs doing physical labor. It's like people from 2 different worlds! I'm leaving the military out of the discussion, as there's other factors there acting on the life expectancy. The pyramid for Egpyt as a whole would be very similar to the peasants one, since they are the great majority. I wonder what the pyramid for the aristocrats and clergy would look like? Don't you agree that for the aristocrat pyramid there might be a small percentage of people who live in their 90's?

A 100 year old peasant might be a miracle, but a 100 years old aristocrat is not that unlikely.
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 01:39

Then you had the priests and the aristocrats, who had pretty good living conditions, good food

  Apparently this statement seems to be correct on the surface but that is just apparent, why?? Having a lot of food doesn't mean you are well nourish, eating too much food is a form of malnutrition. Infact the food weren't that good, the elite had a lot of food but bad food mostly. For example the pharaohs had their teeth worn out by the consumption of bread full of tiny peebles.. The ancient egyptians hardly understand the concept behind a diet (which a rather modern concept which come by with science). So the elites suffered of malnutrition just like the poor if not worst. It can be argued who of the poor or the elite has the best diet. So don't confused the amount of food available as being an indicator for being well nourished.

  Further do you think the elites actually had better hygienes than the poor. Proper hygiene is a rather modern concepts too. You know the barbarians had better hygienes than the romans, Romans cities were filthy and the Gauls sacking romes would die of diseases (whereas barbarian villages were amasingly clean with proper waste disposal). When you argue you should not think as it is now but as it was. Nowadays the better educated wealthy people actually behave more like the poor of the past (with balance diet, restricting the amount of food they eat) and whereas the poor behaves like the elites of the past eating way too much food thus suffering from diseases associated with over-nutrition.



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  Quote Sharrukin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 03:11

We do in fact have a contemporary inscription of Pepi II which reveals that he was living in the year after the thirty-first cattle count of his reign.   A cattle count took place on the first year of the reigning king and every other year afterward, which thus indicates that at least he was still reigning in his 64th year.  Another interesting thing is that he was not the only centenarian of the time.  We also know of a certain Pepiankh who declared that he reached the age of 100.  There are other examples of Egyptian longevity here:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/oldage.htm

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 03:19
They were less stressed and therefore they lived longer. 

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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 04:04
Originally posted by Maju

They were less stressed and therefore they lived longer. 


Darn right, if I sat on a throne all my life and didn't even have to go to the effort of wiping my own backside (fact of life for the Pharaohs) you can be sure as anything I wouldn't be suffering a premature death from stress or overwork!

With regard to food there are some valid points. But when you are wealthier it must be kept in mind that a far greater variety of foodstuffs is at your disposal. The average peasant would spend day after day most of their life eating the same grain based produce and very rarely would enjoy fruits, meats, fish etc. Such hard to produce luxuries were typically the preserve of the wealthy. As is to be expected, a diet which is limited to grainstuffs is unhealthy. The body needs a variety of minerals, vitamins etc and access to proteins and fats which crusty bread simply doesn't have. The greater variety in diet of the wealthy would surely have been a help in living longer. Not to mention the Pharaoh himself would never have been expected to put up with dirty water, undisposed of sewage, a dirty house etc.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 04:04
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

Mathematics can't prove or disprove an empirical statement. However if you think you have a mathematical proof, let's have it.

 

 It is statistical and therefore mathematical as well.

Obviously, but what is it? Otherwise it could well be doubted that you know what you are talking about, couldn't it?

You overlooked my other question again, too.

Don't worry, I can handle statistical analysis.

 

 

 

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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 04:12
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

Can you answer those questions? Don't be put off by assuming I don't understand the maths involved, the odds are I will.

 

 Good if you understand the maths behind you can answer it just by looking at the pyramids, so why asking me.  

It's because I understand the maths that I don't look at the pyramid. All mortality tables assume that the initial population goes to zero at some point, usually around 108-110. But people live longer than that.

Look at the pyramids, the sample is not widely spread. More than 80% of the scores are within 1 standard deviation, an almost 100% within 2 standard deviation. Mathematically speaking, 100 year old peeps were a miracle in ancient egypt, or at least improbable although I never said zero. That's why I said it is very unlikely to have a person living that old.

You said zero, not almost zero. You also said impossible, not very unlikely.  Noone is suggesting it was likely.

The analysis you appear to be using is applicable to normal distributions - bell curves if you like - which mortality isn't. But if it were the calculation would depend on the assumption that the tails of the curve go to infinity, so there would always be the possibility of someone living to any age (and in fact having a minus age at death, which somewhat pours cold water on the whole thing).

I asked how you were calculating the variance (and therefore the standard deviation). Just asserting what you think it is isn't telling me how you calculated it.

 

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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 04:15

Originally posted by Constantine XI

Originally posted by Maju

They were less stressed and therefore they lived longer. 


Darn right, if I sat on a throne all my life and didn't even have to go to the effort of wiping my own backside (fact of life for the Pharaohs) you can be sure as anything I wouldn't be suffering a premature death from stress or overwork!

Of course there might be the occasional assassination to worry about

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 09:11
The average life expectancy may have been 18, but that's for a large part because there was a very high infant mortality. Once someone survived the first 10 years of his life, he was likely to make it at least until 40 years or so.

Apart from that, I think pharoahs had a much higher life expectancy than the average Egyptian.
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 14:26
Originally posted by Mixcoatl

The average life expectancy may have been 18, but that's for a large part because there was a very high infant mortality. Once someone survived the first 10 years of his life, he was likely to make it at least until 40 years or so.


Well, I don't think that can be true. If Roman slaves, subject to the most cruel of explotation, had a life expectancy of about 20, any other group should have a much higher life expectancy... it might be as low as 40, I can't say for sure, but I believe that any prosperous ancient time's civilization, not ravaged by famine, epidemics or war, should have even greater life expectancy figures (50, maybe 60). Ancient Egypt was far more prosperous than modern Niger.

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  Quote morticia Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 16:00
Getting back to the longest reigns

On the western front, let us not forget

Fidel Castro, Cuba.
Age 77. In power since 1959.


The worlds longest-reigning dictator, Castro took advantage of the worlds preoccupation with the war in Iraq last spring to carry out his biggest roundup of nonviolent dissidents in more than a decade. He arrested 75 human-rights activists, journalists and academics, sentencing them to prison for an average of 19 years. Cuba remains a one-party state. The courts are controlled by the executive branchthat is, Castro.

Now, here's a man who I wish had NO LIFE EXPECTANCY AT ALL. What were those calculations again?

Morty
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 21:51

The analysis you appear to be using is applicable to normal distributions - bell curves if you like - which mortality isn't. But if it were the calculation would depend on the assumption that the tails of the curve go to infinity, so there would always be the possibility of someone living to any age (and in fact having a minus age at death, which somewhat pours cold water on the whole thing).

 

 What you expect me to spoon feed you by converting the crude pyramids into a normal distribution distribution . You are crazy mate, I have no time to do that in a historical forum.  The pyramids  act as a raw source of information from which I can very well estimate the standard deviation (itself a less accurate measure than the variance).

 

using this simple formula


where u = life expentancy, N is the number sampled.

 



Edited by Quetzalcoatl
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2005 at 21:58

But if it were the calculation would depend on the assumption that the tails of the curve go to infinity

 The tail goes to infinity? jesus christ what the hell you are talking about. We are talking about humans here, not gods.

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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2005 at 05:15
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl

The analysis you appear to be using is applicable to normal distributions - bell curves if you like - which mortality isn't. But if it were the calculation would depend on the assumption that the tails of the curve go to infinity, so there would always be the possibility of someone living to any age (and in fact having a minus age at death, which somewhat pours cold water on the whole thing).

 

 What you expect me to spoon feed you by converting the crude pyramids into a normal distribution distribution . You are crazy mate, I have no time to do that in a historical forum.  The pyramids  act as a raw source of information from which I can very well estimate the standard deviation (itself a less accurate measure than the variance).

 

using this simple formula


where u = life expentancy, N is the number sampled.

But as I pointed out, life expectancy is not the mean age at death, and anyway that formula only applies to normal distributions, which mortality is definitely not. A pyramid is hardly a normal distribution.

Moreover, even if the technique were valid here, if you take any sample, and categorise the results, the extreme (indeed any rare) values of the underlying population will not be represented. If a sample category contains no elements, that does not prove that the category is not represented in the general population.

And with regard to this being a historical forum, you're the one who introduced the mathematical concepts, not me.

 

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