Proof of Immortality II

[jond]

- Yeah. But duplicating a DNA combination would not bring the specific experiencer back to life. The new brain would house a different experiencer.
- And, consequently, a finite number of DNA combinations does not limit the number of different experiencers.

You still refuse to acknolowedge that the "experiencer" is not a separate thing, rather it is an ongoing process. Why is that? You refuse to even address this critical issue. Why is that?

 

[Jabba]

…
- I’m suggesting that these potential persons who never had a chance due to timing are just as real (as potentials) as are those potential persons which in your figuring did have a chance due to timing…

And I'm asking why you are suggesting that...

Dave,
- If we were able to bring those reproductive cells together, we’d have a person just as real and distinct as you or me. This potential person, represented by the combination of one of your Dad’s sperm cells and one of Cleo’s ova was just never conceived – due (in part) to timing.
- But then, all the potential combinations (besides you and your siblings) between your dad’s sperm cells and concurrent ova were never conceived either – due to other, less obvious, reasons.
- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

 

[Jabba]

You still refuse to acknolowedge that the "experiencer" is not a separate thing, rather it is an ongoing process. Why is that? You refuse to even address this critical issue. Why is that?

jond,
- You'll need to clarify what difference that would make.

 

[jond]

jond,
- You'll need to clarify what difference that would make.

As has been pointed out numerous times: if, as is the scientific view, the "self/experiencer/soul" is a process, an emergent property of the brain, then there is no separate entity that could possibly be immortal. Do you believe brains are immortal?

If you wish to keep insisting that the "self/experiencer/soul" exists as a actual, separate entity, you need to present evidence for same. By which, obviously, we mean actual evidence, not simply what you want to believe. Further, if you're going to posit such a thing, you'll need to explain how it interacts with the neurons in the brain. Remember the video that Pixy Misa linked that demonstrates that no such thing is possible? Remember your discussion with Susan Blackmore and the reading she suggested?

 

[pakeha]

Dave,
- If we were able to bring those reproductive cells together, we’d have a person just as real and distinct as you or me. This potential person, represented by the combination of one of your Dad’s sperm cells and one of Cleo’s ova was just never conceived – due (in part) to timing
- But then, all the potential combinations (besides you and your siblings) between your dad’s sperm cells and concurrent ova were never conceived either – due to other, less obvious, reasons.
- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

What?
Does the hilited bit have anything to do with immortality?

 

[Jabba]

What?
Does the hilited bit have anything to do with immortality?

- It has to do with the critical P(me|A) in the Bayesian formula that I'm using to try to show that the scientific belief/model about one, finite life is wrong.

 

[jond]

Imagine my surprise that Jabba asked for a clarification then promptly ignored it...

 

[pakeha]

- It has to do with the critical P(me|A) in the Bayesian formula that I'm using to try to show that the scientific belief/model about one, finite life is wrong.

How so?
What does the impossible have to do with the critical P?
How is me anything other than part of an emergent property of a functioning human neurosystem?

 

[John Jones]

- It has to do with the critical P(me|A) in the Bayesian formula that I'm using to try to show that the scientific belief/model about one, finite life is wrong.

Not having any success, are you?

 

[Giordano]

Deleted post. Sorry wrong thread. While I am here: I will just offer good luck to all.

 

[Akhenaten]

- Yeah. But duplicating a DNA combination would not bring the specific experiencer back to life.

No, it wouldn't. That experiencer* would be gone forever. Its singular experience would have come to an end.




* there's really no such thing. As the Noble Apteryx keeps pointing out to you, what you're calling an experiencer is nothing more than an emergent property (or perhaps, if we were to be generous, a suite of emergent properties) of a living neurosystem.

The new brain would house a different experiencer.

I'm finding it difficult to understand that you can't see how strongly this statement of the bleeding obvious speaks against the immortality for which you were claiming to have proof.

- And, consequently, a finite number of DNA combinations does not limit the number of different experiencers.

The only thing this ridiculous assertion demonstrates is an abysmal lack of understanding of basic arithmetic.

 

[Mojo]

No, it wouldn't. That experiencer would be gone forever.

The experiencer that Jabba's brain was producing five minutes ago is gone forever. It's different now.

Jabba, have you ever heard the expression "you can't cross the same river twice"? It is relevant here. You can't cross the same river twice because the water that you passed over the first time will, if you try to cross it again, have flowed away. The river is the process of water flowing, not a thing in its own right. Try to make its form permanent and you'll just have some water.

 

[Akhenaten]

…
- I’m suggesting that these potential persons who never had a chance due to timing are just as real (as potentials) as are those potential persons which in your figuring did have a chance due to timing…

And I'm asking why you are suggesting that...

Dave,
- If we were able to bring those reproductive cells together, we’d have a person just as real and distinct as you or me. This potential person, represented by the combination of one of your Dad’s sperm cells and one of Cleo’s ova was just never conceived – due (in part) to timing.

Forget Bayes, Jabba. Your current argument boils down to nothing more than:

impossible x infinity = immortality​

- But then, all the potential combinations (besides you and your siblings) between your dad’s sperm cells and concurrent ova were never conceived either – due to other, less obvious, reasons.

Your insistence that 'impossible' should be counted as a subset of 'potential' renders the ragged remains of your argument somewhat less defensible than the Alamo.

- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

No. But that has nothing to do with your vapid attempt to equate 'impossible' with 'potential'.

 

[Akhenaten]

jond,
- You'll need to clarify what difference that would make.

No, you will need to develop an understanding of that which is obvious to everyone else.

 

[Akhenaten]

- It has to do with the critical P(me|A) in the Bayesian formula that I'm using to try to show that the scientific belief/model about one, finite life is wrong.

You still fail to display any understanding whatsoever that the key part of your failure to use Bayes here is not your misunderstanding of the nature of infinity (fatal though that is) but your failure to understand the value represented by "me".

Twist and turn as much as you will, the fact remains that the very thing for which you forlornly hope to prove immortality has yet to be demonstrated to exist at all.

 

[Akhenaten]

Imagine my surprise that Jabba asked for a clarification then promptly ignored it...

I'm shocked, I tell you!

Here in the midst of all this Truly Effective Debate® we encounter a Vortex of Random Obliviousness™.

What are the odds of that happening?

 

[Akhenaten]

The experiencer that Jabba's brain was producing five minutes ago is gone forever. It's different now.

I see this as being an incredibly important point.

Jabba (before he lost the plot completely) appeared to be claiming that some component of this ever-transient experiencer is immortal when it's demonstrably true that the poor, incorporeal thing doesn't even last as long as the buzz I got from my last schooner of pale ale.

Jabba, have you ever heard the expression "you can't cross the same river twice"? It is relevant here. You can't cross the same river twice because the water that you passed over the first time will, if you try to cross it again, have flowed away. The river is the process of water flowing, not a thing in its own right. Try to make its form permanent and you'll just have some water.

With nasty, big, bitey teeth in it.

 

[Giordano]

- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

I can't resist:if the probability of the event is zero, then the "potential" of it occurring is zero and can be ignored. Conceptually (bad pun) I might have a baby with Cleopatra, but the probability is zero, so why bother to include it in any formula? Conceptually I might have a baby with Scarlet Johansson, and although the probability is extremely near zero (please, don't tell me it is exactly zero) one can include it in a formula. However, one would have to assign very little probability to it. These zero probability and very unlikely events could be inserted in a formula (properly assigning zero or very low probabilities to each), but adding these factors would change the mathematical outcome very, very little. If you wish to argue for infinity, these values would not help you at all. In fact, no values would.

 

[Loss Leader]

- And, consequently, a finite number of DNA combinations does not limit the number of different experiencers.

There is no such thing as an "experiencer".

- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

YES!

Something that is impossible has a potential of zero. It cannot occur. It cannot ever have occurred.

Is rolling a 9 and a 13 on two 6-sided die less a potential than rolling a 4 and a 5? Or is there the same potential because someone at the dice factory could have chosen to engrave a 9 and a 13 but just decided not to?

 

[Akhenaten]

- Is one potential combination less a potential because one of its precluding factors is more obvious?

YES!

Something that is impossible has a potential of zero. It cannot occur. It cannot ever have occurred.

I note that I previously answered this question of Jabba's in the negative but acknowledge now that I was in error in not including zero as a valid value for potential.

Sometimes the obvious escapes us (me).