Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Should we then assume that the two year's worth of garbage about Bayesian probability was just an ill-conceived and singularly humourless joke?
Seems legit.
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Proof of Immortality II
- Thread starter Slowvehicle
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Should we then assume that the two year's worth of garbage about Bayesian probability was just an ill-conceived and singularly humourless joke?
Seems legit.
tsig
a carbon based life-form
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The whole universe with it's billions and billions of stars and possibly billions! of sentient beings were all created just so you can have existence?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
I think you're being too kind.
It seems to me that Jabba doesn't actually have a position which he's either willing or able to defend and therefore neither agreement nor disagreement is ever going to be possible.
This entire farce is about nothing more than Jabba attempting to demonstrate that his principals of Truly Effective Debate™ can be utilised to defend any proposition, no matter how ridiculous it might be.
This thread is now at about the same stage as Shroud II. Perhaps it's time to contact the Wangers.
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Jabba
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- out there somewhere.
- My claim: there must be a bucket of infinitely divisible consciousness that we conscious beings all come from. That there are many more of us now than there used to be, just means that more than one of us was Napoleon.
- I understand that this sounds crazy, but like Sherlock Holmes used to say...
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Even the beer and the ants and the Volkswagens and the tyrannosauruses?
Dog certainly does move in mysterious ways.
godless dave
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I thought we were talking about the likelihood of your specific brain existing.
Prior to its existence, that likelihood is not 1, although what the likelihood is depends on what prior point in time we look at, since, as you said earlier, many events are required to result in your existence. The more of those events that have happened, the closer we get to likelihood of 1.
After you exist, we know the likelihood is 1.
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Mojo
Mostly harmless
Jabba
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- John, here I was just trying to nail down our basic disagreement. It seems as if I have succeeded.
Jabba
Philosopher
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Pixel,
- Yeah.
Jabba
Philosopher
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- No.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
And you're still hoping to be taken seriously, are you?
Return to the Pool of Souls - Part XVIII
I'll get to work drawing a poster . . .
No, it means that you've abandoned all pretence of making a serious argument.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
- A Scandal in Bohemia
- A Scandal in Bohemia
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Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
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I thought our basic disagreement was that you thought that your existence despite its high prior unlikelihood was a reason to be suspicious of the scientific model, and we don't think that.
jond
Illuminator
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Why must there be? Given how long the universe has existed, and how brief a period of that time conscious beings have existed, what would make you think think that there is a "bucket of infinitely divisible consciousness"? Why would that be more likely than the scientific model (consciousness is an emergent property of a functioning neurosystem)?
ETA: other than the obvious "because I want it to be so."
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Mojo
Mostly harmless
Which "basic disagreement"? The disagreement about the nature of consciousness, which you think is an object and everyone else thnks is a process? The disagreement about whether infinity is, as you claim, just a large number? The disagreement about whether your existence is "new evidence" that has any effect on the likelyhood of "the scientific model" being correct? The disagreement about what "the scientific model" actually is? The disagreement about your claim that "there must be a bucket of infinitely divisible consciousness that we conscious beings all come from"? As far as virtually everyone involved in this thread is concerned, there is "basic disagreement" with virtually everything you say.
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jond
Illuminator
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Also: doesn't "a bucket of infinitely divisible consciousness" seem a lot like a "pool of potential selves" which you've agreed doesn't exist? Further, if it's infinitely divisible, than there's no reason for there to be more than one Napoleon, there would simply be an infinite number of consciousnesses. But since consciousness isn't a thing, this is all preposterous.
Jabba, you are wrong no matter how you slice it.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
So you disagree with Jabba's agreement that we agree about the basic disagreement?
Glad we got that sorted out.
Why 'must' there be? Nothing that has been asserted by you or anyone else on this thread suggest that there is any evidence for pool or buckets of consciousness. How on earth is a process contained in a bucket/pool/whatever? How is a process divisible? You seem to be thinking of consciousness as if it were an object, a magical spirity thing that floats about waiting for an organism to be created. It's not, it's a process. When the brain which produces the consciousness as an emergent process ceases to function, that consciousness ceases.
If your imaginary bucket filled with imaginary consciousness is infinitely divisible, then that does not follow, even if you were correct about the existence of the bucket. An infinitely divisible consciousness would allow for an infinity of different consciousnesses. No reason to repeat previously existing consciousnesses.
It sounds wrong, rather than crazy. That's because it is wrong. And it is also impossible, which means Sherlock Holmes would have eliminated it. Consciousness is not a thing, divisible or pre-existing. It's a process which can only take place in a functioning neurosystem.
A candle flame is an emergent process which can only take place in the presence of a candle wick, heat and oxygen. There was never a bucket of infinitely divisible flames waiting for the candle to be lit. Snuff out the candle or allow it to burn out*, and the process ceases. The flame doesn't go anywhere.
Running is an emergent process which can only take place in the presence of legs moving in a particular way. There is no bucket of infinitely divisible running, waiting for an animal to start to run. Stop the legs from moving, or move them in a different way, and the running processes ceases. The running process doesn't go anywhere.
Our basic disagreements are many, but one important one is that consciousness is a process, and not (as you assert) a pre-existing, divisible object waiting to be 'inserted' into an animal's brain.
*Night's candles are burned out... Just to bring the thread back to Shakespeare.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
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