Jabba
Philosopher
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Mojo,
- Does that mean that the odds are zero that you would live again?
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[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics
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- Does that mean that the odds are zero that you would live again?
Jabba
Philosopher
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- Or, that I would live again?
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
nonexistent
Jabba
Philosopher
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- But, why would the odds that I would live again be any less than the odds that I would live the first time?
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
What is less than zero?
"You" are an emergent property of "your" neurosystem. A "duplicate" of "your" neurosystem would not be "your" neurosystem, but another neurosystem like "yours". "You" will continue to be an emergent property of "your" neurosystem only as long as "your" neurosystem functions (and, as in the case of traumatic damage, which yu continue to rudely ignore, itis even possible for "your" neurosystem to go one without "you"--but not the other way 'round).
"You" are not "immortal". "You" will not "live again".
The "odds" are not 1/∞, or 1/0, but 0/0.
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
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Because there is no known mechanism in the scientific model for someone to live more than once. Once the brain starts to decompose or is destroyed, it's gone and cannot be rebuilt.
Edited to add: the odds of a duplicate of you existing in the future might be nonzero, but would be very low, because history does not repeat itself to that level of detail. You would have to rerun the entire history of the universe to get a duplicate of you.
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Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
1-6811, inclusive.
I think Godless Dave put it as clearly and minimally as possible: congratulations!
Jabba, there will be 2 identical yous, each with an identical sense of self. But two, so if you die you are dead forever; but the duplicate will survive and will have no reason to think that they are not you. So you will die, but one of the two of you would live on. They would think that they were you, and they would have your body and continue your thoughts, continue your sense of self, unless by initial location or clothing after Xeroxing that they would know they were the copy.
If it helps, at least some of your molecules, and one of your physical DNA strands, may continue on in your children after you die, contributed by your sperm. Of course, apoptosis, necrosis and just wear and tear may have degraded and excreted those molecules, but there is some chance that one strand of DNA, out of the trillions that are in your child's body, came from you and is still there (recombined, etc, but still from part of you). Interestingly, there is evidence that some whole cells from the mom continue in the child's body for awhile, at least. So you and your wife may be immortal after all, in a very small way.
Jabba, there will be 2 identical yous, each with an identical sense of self. But two, so if you die you are dead forever; but the duplicate will survive and will have no reason to think that they are not you. So you will die, but one of the two of you would live on. They would think that they were you, and they would have your body and continue your thoughts, continue your sense of self, unless by initial location or clothing after Xeroxing that they would know they were the copy.
If it helps, at least some of your molecules, and one of your physical DNA strands, may continue on in your children after you die, contributed by your sperm. Of course, apoptosis, necrosis and just wear and tear may have degraded and excreted those molecules, but there is some chance that one strand of DNA, out of the trillions that are in your child's body, came from you and is still there (recombined, etc, but still from part of you). Interestingly, there is evidence that some whole cells from the mom continue in the child's body for awhile, at least. So you and your wife may be immortal after all, in a very small way.
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Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
Within our actual body of scientific knowledge ?
zero.
0.
nada.
niet.
Null.
Once you are dead, that's it. You are gone. For ever. Even if another brain with the same neuron position and content would be created 1 minutes after your death, YOU the curernt you would still be dead, finito. A new persons with the same habits and bizarre belief would live, but from your current point of view perspective you would be dead, and that new individual is somebody else.
But i do expect you will ignore all the persons which told you zero.
It is after all, the second of February today.
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
For the same reason that one plus one is more than one.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
You wouldn't "live again" because it wouldn't be you; it would be a replica of you. Your scenario doesn't involve you living again.
Your question is like asking, "if I have two apples, does that mean that the odds are zero that one of them is an orange?"
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Jaaba,
There is no getting away from it by changing the words or altering the definitions: by the standard scientific model, once your brain is dead you are dead! In your hypothetical situation, there may remain someone who thinks and looks like you, has (at time 0) the identical sense of self. Under your hypothetical situation, they would even think that they are you. But one yourself, the original version, would be dead. But this is all purely hypothetical, and leads to subjective ideas like: if I replaced the head of Washington's axe twice and the handle three times, is it still Washington's axe? It is a time waste.
Why not drop this stupidly impossible experiment and just get to the proof you promised: that an immortal "self" exists. I understand that you first have to prove that there is a non-material self that is separate from the physical brain. This might be hard. It is certainly NOT part of the current scientific model. But, please go ahead.
There is no getting away from it by changing the words or altering the definitions: by the standard scientific model, once your brain is dead you are dead! In your hypothetical situation, there may remain someone who thinks and looks like you, has (at time 0) the identical sense of self. Under your hypothetical situation, they would even think that they are you. But one yourself, the original version, would be dead. But this is all purely hypothetical, and leads to subjective ideas like: if I replaced the head of Washington's axe twice and the handle three times, is it still Washington's axe? It is a time waste.
Why not drop this stupidly impossible experiment and just get to the proof you promised: that an immortal "self" exists. I understand that you first have to prove that there is a non-material self that is separate from the physical brain. This might be hard. It is certainly NOT part of the current scientific model. But, please go ahead.
I personally am much more fascinated by the idea that some of Mom's cells might live on in her baby (at least for a few years) and some of the baby's cells might live on in the Mom (again, at least for a few years). I guess the former, although not true immortality, begins to approach it. The latter is a terrifying thought for many moms (O my god, will I never be rid of him?) but is kind of nice too.
It is also interesting that single cell organisms, like bacteria, are "immortal" in a way because they themselves become their daughters, and grand-daughters, although of course individual cells can die. True death only came about with sexual replication where we set aside only some of our cells as gametes. And of course our children are not identical to either parent, but both parents contribute some DNA. I don't regret the latter- I think my kids are significant improvements compared to me. That is why I don't understand why Jabba hopes to be immortal- I would rather have better beings, my kids, take my place.
It is also interesting that single cell organisms, like bacteria, are "immortal" in a way because they themselves become their daughters, and grand-daughters, although of course individual cells can die. True death only came about with sexual replication where we set aside only some of our cells as gametes. And of course our children are not identical to either parent, but both parents contribute some DNA. I don't regret the latter- I think my kids are significant improvements compared to me. That is why I don't understand why Jabba hopes to be immortal- I would rather have better beings, my kids, take my place.
godless dave
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