Proof of Immortality II

[Slowvehicle]

<respectful focus snip>[W]ho here thinks that our self or our identity (use any of Jabba's words for it), does not require the continued function of our physical brain to exist?

Certainly not I (or me, or "ME", or Me^I).

 

[Humots]

So, let's again try focusing on a point crucial for your theory: who here thinks that our self or our identity (use any of Jabba's words for it), does not require the continued function of our physical brain to exist?

Not me.

 

[xtifr]

Dave,
- OK... You're saying that if you were somehow able to follow my biochemical recipe at the same time and place that it was followed before, you could bring ME back to life?

That was me that said that, and I didn't say "follow the ... recipe" because that's not really a proper description. (The closest thing to a recipe is the chain of causality that led you to exist, and that's not what would have to be replicated.) I said that if our hypothetical perfect copy were to replace you within Planck time, it would be the same as if nothing had happened.

- I’m not back up to speed on the limits thing, but as to our issue, I would say something like zero is the limit of Y as X approaches infinity in the formula Y = 1/X… Hopefully, that’s close enough to the official verbiage in order to make sense.

And the problem with your (and with Toontown's) hypothesis is that consciousness is a feature of the brain, and there aren't an infinite number of potential brains. So the limit isn't approaching infinity. It's approaching something more on the order of 10^80 factorial or something.

REALLYBIGNUMBER (no matter how big) is infinitely smaller than infinity. And if you roll a quadrillion-sided die, one of the sides has to come up, even though there's only a one-in-a-quadrillion chance for any given number. Including the one that actually came up. So as long as the chances are finite, you can't dismiss it.

(And in fact, the chance of your existence is actually higher than the pure total number of possibilities would suggest, because of the chain of causality that actually led to your existence. But that's an argument for later.)

- After that, all I’m really saying for sure is that the materialistic model of my existence (that I would exist for only one finite lifetime at most) is wrong

You said you were going to prove this, though, and so far, you haven't come close. Your limit-approaches-infinity model is not what the "materialistic" model says. The materialistic model says that the universe is finite and finitely divisible, and therefore has a finite number of arrangements of particles, and the total number of SELVES is limited by that finite number of possible arrangements.

I mean, you're welcome to believe whatever you want, but when you say you can prove something, then some of us would like to see that proof.

Basically, all you've done so far is prove that your idea of the soul is incompatible with the scientific model. That's not really a big surprise, since the soul isn't part of the scientific model, but the simple fact is that not all concepts of the soul are incompatible with the scientific model (even though they're outside it), so you haven't even forced a choice between soul and science. Merely between your idea of infinitely-variable souls and science.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- OK... You're saying that if you were somehow able to follow my biochemical recipe at the same time and place that it was followed before, you could bring ME back to life?

If I could follow it at the same time and place as it was followed before, I would have to use time travel and go back to the time and place you were brought to life the first time. It wouldn't be bringing you back to life because we would have to start at a time before you ever existed.

 

[godless dave]

Reanimating your corpse would bring you back to life. That's because you are your body. Your consciousness is inseparable from your brain.

I suggest you read xtifr's most recent post. It really is a great explanation of why we disagree with you.

Jabba, have you read the post by xtifr I linked to?

In the meantime, here's a little brain exercise.

Yesterday I brewed a brown ale. I used a recipe I've used many times in the past. My hope is that, in six to eight weeks, if all goes well, I will end up with a beer that tastes exactly like the brown ales I've brewed many times over the last fifteen years.

There is no recipe that I could follow that would bring one of those previous batches back. Once my friends and I have drunk it all, it's gone. All I can hope to do is brew another batch that tastes exactly like it.

With all that in mind, did the batch I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming into existence?

 

[PixyMisa]

Possibly Jabba's claim to the effect that (the probability of his conditional perspective constitutes evidence) is wrong, and his interpretation is wrong, which you have done nothing to demonstrate.

We know that people aren't immortal. We know that immaterial souls do not exist. So anyone who believes they have a statistical "proof" that people are immortal, and thinks that immaterial souls exist, is wrong; all we need do is point out their errors.

So I give you a generous 1 chance in 3 of being right, without resorting to any variable weighting.

He has zero chance of being right, because he has reached a conclusion already established to be false. Any approach that gives him some other probability of being correct is thus also known to be false.

Obviously I am far more skeptical of your probabilistic insight than you are, since I'm not giving it any advantageous weighting.

But we aren't relying on probabilistic insight. We're just pointing out Jabba's errors of logic, mathematics, and scientific fact.

 

[PixyMisa]

But just think how much easier it is to dismiss your conditional perspective if you're only a 4 quadrillion : 1 shot. That's practically a shoo-in. A dead mortal cinch. A mere 4 quadrillion : 1 longshot coming in isn't going to rule out any assumptions. Well, except to a certainty of 1-(1/4 quadrillion). :

4e15:1 events happen all the time. That's about the rate of unrecoverable bit errors in a working enterprise hard drive. When you're managing 1.5e15 bytes of data, with processes constantly reading, updating, and indexing it - which is what I do in my day job - you see incredibly unlikely events on a regular basis.

Infinity:1 events do not happen. Ever. By definition.

That's why Jabba needs to stick infinity into his formula. Without it, it doesn't say anything. And of course, there is no infinity for him to validly stick, so it says nothing. Which was pointed out to him within seconds of his posting his formula, lo these many months ago, and he's been wriggling ever since.

 

[Jabba]

144

Dave,
- I never should have used the term, “self-awareness.” Apparently, "self-awareness" means something to me that it doesn’t mean to anyone else...
- The following is Wikipedia’s definition of what I’m calling the “SELF.”
…In phenomenology, it is conceived as what experiences, and there isn't any experiencing without an experiencer, the self. The self is therefore an "immediate given", an intrinsic dimension of the fact of experiencing phenomena…
- I’m saying that there seems to be no bio-chemical recipe exclusive to a particular "experiencer," or SELF.- In that regard, Mojo seems to agree with me.

That's exactly what I, and I suspect pretty much everyone else, thought you meant. The experiencer is an emergent property of the brain. Anything else you want to call it? Still an emergent property of the brain. Because, in the scientific model, there is nothing about an individual that isn't a property of the body or brain.
And I've pointed out why that's irrelevant several times. A separate brain is a separate entity, formed of a different set of atoms, even if the arrangement is identical. You can't untie the mind from the body, because the mind is an emergent property of the body. The moment you propose a part of the mind that's separate from the body, you're outside the scientific model, and lose the ability to use that proposal to disprove the scientific model.
You can go 'round and 'round with this all you want, Jabba, looking for new names, but the bottom line is: in the scientific model, everything about the mind is an emergent property of the brain and body. Everything!
You're free to believe in a soul if you want. Many people do. You're not free to inject the soul into the scientific model, and then claim that the resulting contradiction disproves the scientific model!
Nobody here agrees that the scientific model includes any part of the mind being separable from the body.* Mojo said that consciousness is not "pre-existing", and that there are no "pools" where they live when they're not attached to a body. Which is fully consistent with the idea that consciousness emerges from the brain, and is a process of that brain, and cannot exist when the brain is not present and operating, any more than running can exist when legs are not present and operating. How you managed to interpret that any other way is truly beyond me.
* Even the hypothetical, science-fictional concept of "uploading" the self into a computer requires a body-analogue (a computer) to host the process we call the self or consciousness or the experiencer.

xtifr,
- You seem to be accepting that my claim that there is no biochemical recipe exclusive to a particular "experiencer," or SELF is true – it just isn’t relevant (to my claims of infinity). Is that correct?

 

[Mojo]

144

Gross!

xtifr,
- You seem to be accepting that my claim that there is no biochemical recipe exclusive to a particular "experiencer," or SELF is true – it just isn’t relevant (to my claims of infinity). Is that correct?

Nothing that xtifr wrote suggests that that is correct. In fact, xtirf's statement that "in the scientific model, everything about the mind is an emergent property of the brain and body" suggests that xtifr disagrees with your claim, unless he disagrees with the scientific model.

 

[Jabba]

Jabba, have you read the post by xtifr I linked to?

In the meantime, here's a little brain exercise.

Yesterday I brewed a brown ale. I used a recipe I've used many times in the past. My hope is that, in six to eight weeks, if all goes well, I will end up with a beer that tastes exactly like the brown ales I've brewed many times over the last fifteen years.

There is no recipe that I could follow that would bring one of those previous batches back. Once my friends and I have drunk it all, it's gone. All I can hope to do is brew another batch that tastes exactly like it.

With all that in mind, did the batch I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming into existence?

Dave,
- To make your question a little more specific, I would have asked, "Did the same batch as I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming back into existence?" Hopefully, that's what you meant -- only, a little more explicit.
- My answer to that question is, "No. It would have a zero chance of coming back into existence."

 

[godless dave]

Jabba, I was trying to draw an analogy with your statement that a particular self has a 1/infinity chance of coming into existence the first time.

So my question is, did the batch I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming into existence before I brewed it?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Dave,
- To make your question a little more specific, I would have asked, "Did the same batch as I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming back into existence?" Hopefully, that's what you meant -- only, a little more explicit.
- My answer to that question is, "No. It would have a zero chance of coming back into existence."

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

I wonder if you see that implications of the highlighted bit?

 

[Jabba]

Dave,
- OK... You're saying that if you were somehow able to follow my biochemical recipe at the same time and place that it was followed before, you could bring ME back to life?

That was me that said that, and I didn't say "follow the ... recipe" because that's not really a proper description. (The closest thing to a recipe is the chain of causality that led you to exist, and that's not what would have to be replicated.) I said that if our hypothetical perfect copy were to replace you within Planck time, it would be the same as if nothing had happened...

- And, that perfect copy would be ME?

 

[Jabba]

Jabba, I was trying to draw an analogy with your statement that a particular self has a 1/infinity chance of coming into existence the first time.

So my question is, did the batch I brewed yesterday have a 1/infinity likelihood of coming into existence before I brewed it?

Dave,
- If I understand your question, the answer is, "No -- but, the likelihood would be 1/(a HUMUNGUS number)."

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- If I understand your question, the answer is, "No -- but, the likelihood would be 1/(a HUMUNGUS number)."

Correct.

So why do you think the likelihood is different for selves?

 

[Mojo]

- And, that perfect copy would be ME?

No, it would be a copy of you.

 

[zooterkin]

- And, that perfect copy would be ME?

How could it be?

 

[Hokulele]

144


xtifr,
- You seem to be accepting that my claim that there is no biochemical recipe exclusive to a particular "experiencer," or SELF is true – it just isn’t relevant (to my claims of infinity). Is that correct?

There is no such thing as an "experiencer" or SELF. Consciousness is a process, not a thing.

 

[Giordano]

- And, that perfect copy would be ME?

Would godless daves's precisely replicated batch of beer, if somehow a perfect duplicate of the first, be the first batch? Would, if the first Mona Lisa was destroyed in a fire hundreds of years ago, and Leonardo painted (somehow) an exact duplicate, would the duplicate un-burn the original Mona Lisa? Beer and paintings have no "soul" or "sense of self" identity, but once gone, they can only be duplicated into an exact duplicate, not re-painted or undrunk to bring back to life the original. The same is true of "you" for the very same reasons: no soul or self required to explain it. Maybe some distant day we can learn to use in practice a biochemical recipe to recreate an exact Jabba that has all the thoughts and sense of self as the original Jabba. It would fully believe it was indeed you.

Every time you fall asleep and wake up, you believe it is the same Jabba, but is it really? A lot has changed in you since last night. Maybe you only think it is the same Jabba, just like the exact duplicate would. That is the level of question you are asking. We might as well discuss if an axe whose blade was replaced twice and handle three time, was still George Washington's axe. What if you replaced both at the same time? It depends on you definition, not on physics. In fact, almost all of you (if not all of you) has been replaced by new macromolecules several times since you were born. You still define yourself as "you" but that is an illusion. It is not some cosmic ID: it is just the way your physical brain finds useful to think of it.

 

[carlitos]

Is that correct?

no.