Proof of Immortality II

[Giordano]

- That being the case, there is no bio-chemical recipe exclusive to ME. Following my recipe would produce an identical me, but not ME.

As had been posted already, so beers must also have souls and be immortal. As are paintings. I feel sort of bad for the ones I drank. Beers, that is.

 

[John Jones]

- That being the case, there is no bio-chemical recipe exclusive to ME. Following my recipe would produce an identical me, but not ME.

And then?

You've had 20 some-odd months to prove or even demonstrate immortality via Bayesian probabilities or by any other means necessary.

Get on with it!

 

[xtifr]

The duplicate would be (at least in part) different atoms.

But atoms don't have any identifying labels or features. (Assuming we use the same isotopes, which is implied by "perfect copy", although I'm not honestly sure it matters.) Physically, nothing would have changed in my special example.

Different atoms matters when you end up with two identical beings, because then we have two obviously distinct sets, but if you only end up with one being, it's basically impossible to say if the atoms are different or not. Atoms are atoms. Thus copying+destruction is indistinguishable from teleportation.

So is it really Jabba? Part of it had to come from elsewhere (non-Jabba) at the moment of replication. But actually I don't care. [...] Am I me even though I replace part of my blood every few weeks?

Exactly. The body changes, consciousness changes. They're not fixed things. Consciousness, in particular, is a process, not a physical object, no matter how much Jabba might wish otherwise.

Define identity using philosophy if one wishes, but I don't think it matters all that much how one defines it.

Yes, we're getting caught up in semantics all too often in this thread. "Is someone else really you?" is a question that doesn't come up in reality, since reality doesn't include perfect copying or teleportation. Once you introduce those, the question becomes ambiguous, which makes it difficult to answer some of Jabba's questions, but the bottom line remains: consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, and cannot have a separate existence. Therefore, the number of possible consciousnesses/selves/yous/YOUs is the same as the number of possible brains.

As long as Jabba keeps trying to identify consciousness as a physical "thing" instead of a process of the brain, he's not working with the scientific model, and isn't in a position to debunk the scientific model.

 

[Giordano]

xtifir,

As I indicated, I don't think these points are worth arguing. Your last two paragraphs are a good basis of agreement.

 

[John Jones]

xtifir,

As I indicated, I don't think these points are worth arguing. Your last two paragraphs are a good basis of agreement.

Agreed.

Oh Jabba, if you are taking the trouble to read this, no one has agreed with your position as far back as I can recall.

 

[pakeha]

- That being the case, there is no bio-chemical recipe exclusive to ME. Following my recipe would produce an identical me, but not ME.

ME isn't a result or product, it's part of an emergent property of a functioning neurosystem.

Do you remember how a sense of self is defined?

 

[Mojo]

ME isn't a result or product, it's part of an emergent property of a functioning neurosystem.

In other words "ME", as Jabba uses the term, doesn't exist.

 

[pakeha]

In other words "ME", as Jabba uses the term, doesn't exist.

Just as "invisible weave", as Jabba used the term, doesn't exist.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

In other words "ME", as Jabba uses the term, doesn't exist.

Keeps the thread going a bit longer though, all this faux confusion

 

[Mojo]

In the one instance I outlined, yes, for all practical purposes, the copy would be you. There would be no way to tell it wasn't you, or that anything had happened!

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, then for all practical purposes it makes no sound.

 

[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)."

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

- The answer has multiple steps -- here's the first step.
- Because, there is no biochemical recipe exclusive to a particular "experiencer," or SELF.

There's no biochemical recipe exclusive to a particular batch of beer, either.

- That being the case, there is no bio-chemical recipe exclusive to ME. Following my recipe would produce an identical me, but not ME.

Yes, exactly like following my recipe for Brown Ale a second time.

Dave,
- Yeah. That being the case, there is no set of potential SELVES from which to draw new SELVES.

 

[zooterkin]

Dave,
- Yeah. That being the case, there is no set of potential SELVES from which to draw new SELVES.

Who said there was?

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- Yeah. That being the case, there is no set of potential SELVES from which to draw new SELVES.

Whenever he puts that in ALLCAPS I have to read it again to make sure it doesn't say "ELVES".

 

[carlitos]

Thank you. Thank you very much. /ELVIS

 

[Jabba]

...I said it's irrelevant. I certainly don't accept it, since I provided a counterexample that disproves it, but it's irrelevant in any case, so why are we even arguing about it? (Unless you want to try to establish its relevance.)...

xt,
- I am currently trying to show its relevancy in my slow dialog with Dave.
- What was your counterexample?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Dave,
- Yeah. That being the case, there is no set of potential SELVES from which to draw new SELVES.

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

I wonder if you realize that your "That being the case..." statement is a non-squitur? The reason that there is not a "pool" of "SELVES" from which to draw new ones is that the "SELF" (or "consciousness") is a process (an emergent property of a functioning neurosystem), not a thing.

You still have it backwards.

Why not present the evidence you have that there is something to consciousness that is not an emergent property of a neurosystem (that is, that the "soul" exists)?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Thank you. Thank you very much. /ELVIS

...an emergent property of a functioning pop-music delivery system...

 

[zooterkin]

Whenever he puts that in ALLCAPS I have to read it again to make sure it doesn't say "ELVES".

Or SLEEVES, up which he has nothing hidden. Oh, no.

 

[godless dave]

So there is also no set of potential batches of brown ale from which to draw a new one.

 

[Butter!]

I skipped from page 3 to this page, and it's literally the exact same argument being repeated. Self vs. SELF, blah blah blah. This dude will never listen, he's all about adventurous semantic games and brain acrobatics that allow woo to prevail in the face of what should be insurmountable floods of evidence to the contrary. And this is the SECOND part of the thread!

I'm pretty sure I've reasoned with bricks who managed to budge a little further than anything in this thread is doing or going to do. It's unbelievable. Jabba, why do you cling to this? What difference does it really make? This "debate" rolleyes is actually making negative progress, somehow.

Who cares about selves and SELVES and what-all? Seriously? We all still have to get up every day and work to put food on our tables and interact with our families and people around us, both the difficult ones and the kindred ones. None of this baloney matters even the slightest in such real, daily-grind contexts.

Is that why arguing endlessly and nonsensically about it is so important to you? Does the daily grind seem too dull, too samey, just not enough somehow? If that's the case, seek to improve it. In the real world, not in floppy philosophical woo-land, which ultimately makes no real difference and is a tremendous waste of time. Learn a new trade, take up a hobby. A real hobby, like bird-watching or tennis.

Or, if you find the siren's song of the introspective stuff simply too compelling to ignore, at least filter it into a more grounded-in-the-real-world medium, like poetry or songwriting. But for pity's sake, let this boring, cyclical parley GO.