Proof of Immortality II

[HighRiser]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

That's about the size of it.

You'd probably have better success arguing against (and for) positions you have some understanding of.

 

[Jabba]

...
Also, if you had done any kind of online research at all, you would know that the idea that the human brain has one holistic and one analytical hemisphere was discredited a long time ago...

- Actually, I had done all sorts of online research -- but most of it was done several years ago... Since your objection, I have done some more research, and see what you mean -- though, I wouldn't say it so decidedly, I do need to do some more on-line research, and so far, I still think that we tend to be dominated by a way of thinking, if not a particular hemisphere.
- I'll do some more research.

 

[carlitos]

Jabba-- A polite response would have been "I'm sorry, I see that I was wrong. Thank you for the correction."

 

[godless dave]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

Correct.

 

[Akhenaten]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

Jabba,

- Please state for the record, why are you posting this nilfisking, nitpickery nonsense rather than answering the 873 outstanding questions that you've promised you'd get back to?

 

[godless dave]

I still think that we tend to be dominated by a way of thinking,

Yes, some people tend toward ratinoal thinking, and some people tend toward irrational thinking.

Millennia of human experience tell us which one is more reliable.

 

[Jabba]

...
6. So, in the Bayesian formula, the likelihood of me ever existing, given A, is much smaller than the prior probability of A being incorrect...

...I don't think those are the two numbers you compare in a Bayesian formula.

…-Why do you think that? From my perspective, those are exactly the obvious numbers to be compared. The only real issue is my mathematical right to use the likelihood of my specific current existence, given “A,” in the formula, rather than the likelihood of someone/anyone’s current existence, given “A.”…

Looks like you answered your own question.

Dave,
- I think that I understand what you meant by that, and basically agree... The likelihood of me ever existing, given A, is much smaller than the prior probability of A being incorrect – only if I use the likelihood of my specific current existence, given “A,” as P(me|A), in the formula...

 

[Loss Leader]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

A's a pretty big thing. I would say that you have failed to show any reason why your existence is incompatible with current scientific education. You have failed to create doubt that the mind (soul, consciousness, whatever) is anything other than the working process of a healthy, living body. All of your evidence (which is, basically, that you exist) is predicted by our current understanding of biology.

 

[Akhenaten]

- Actually, I had done all sorts of online research -- but most of it was done several years ago...

And quite clearly in the wrong places. Your views about the hemispherical functioning of the brain were wrong when you first published them on your website, were wronger still when you copypasted them here and they then descended into pure slapstick when you attempted to slip them back into the argument in a flailing attempt to distract attention from your abysmal failure to demonstrate a valid implementation of Bayesian Statistics.

Since your objection, I have done some more research, and see what you mean -- though, I wouldn't say it so decidedly, I do need to do some more on-line research, and so far, I still think that we tend to be dominated by a way of thinking, if not a particular hemisphere.

Perhaps you'd like to start a thread on it rather than once again attempting to derail this one.

- I'll do some more research.

Lucky for you a kind soul organised this reading list for you.

Are you trying to tell us that your online search missed these?

1. Richard A Griggs - "Psychology: A Concise Introduction"
   
   
2. Jared A Nielsen, A Brandon, Michael A Zielinski, Janet Ferguson, and Jeffrey S. Anderson - "An Evaluation of the Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Hypothesis with Resting State Functional Connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging." (PLOS ONE, 14 August 2013)
   
   
3. Westen et al. - "2006 Psychology: Australian and New Zealand edition"
   
   
4. AW Toga and PM Thompson - "Mapping brain asymmetry" (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4) (2003) PMID 12511860
   
   
5. MB Pulsifer, J Brandt, CF Salorio, EP Vining, BS Carson, J Freeman - "The cognitive outcome of hemispherectomy in 71 children" (2004) PMID 15009226
   
   
6. S Knecht, B Dräger, M Deppe, L Bobe, H Lohmann, A Flöel A, EB Ringelstein, H Henningsen - "Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans (Brain: a journal of neurology) (2000) PMID 11099452
   
   
7. M Schönwiesner, R Rübsamen, DY von Cramon - "Hemispheric asymmetry for spectral and temporal processing in the human antero-lateral auditory belt cortex" (European Journal of Neuroscience 22) (2005) PMID 16190905
   
   
8. I Taylor and M Taylor - "Psycholinguistics: Learning and using Language" (1990)
   
   
9. Regarding different languages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11181457
   
   
10. U Goswami - "Neuroscience and Education: from research to practice" (National Review of Neuroscience - 2006) PMID 16607400
    
    
11. E Kandel, J Schwartz, T Jessel "Principles of Neural Science. 4th edition" (2000) ISBN 0-8385-7701-6
    
    
12. Elaeanor Maccoby - "The Psychology of Sex Differences" (1974) ISBN 0804709742
    
    
13. D Tomasi, ND Volkow - "Laterality Patterns of Brain Functional Connectivity: Gender Effects" (2012) PMID 21878483
    
    
14. CG Boeree - "Speech and the Brain" (2004)
    
    
15. I Taylor and MM Taylor - "Psycholinguistics: Learning and using Language" (1990) ISBN 978-0-13-733817-7
    
    
16. J G Beaumont - "Introduction to Neuropsychology, Second Edition" (2008) ISBN 978-1-59385-068-5
    
    
17. ED Ross, M Monnot - "Neurology of affective prosody and its functional-anatomic organization in right hemisphere" (2008) PMID 17537499
    
    
18. MS George, PI Parekh, N Rosinsky, TA Ketter, TA Kimbrell, KM Heilman, P Herscovitch, RM Post - "Understanding Emotional Prosody Activates Right Hemisphere Regions" (1996) PMID 8929174
    
    
19. S Dehaene, E Spelke, P Pinel, R Stanescu, S Tsivkin - "Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain-imaging evidence" (1999) PMID 10320379
    
    
20. S Dehaene, M Piazza, P Pinel, L Cohen (2003). "Three parietal circuits for number processing" (2003) PMID 20957581
    
    
21. LM Levy, IL Reis, J Grafman - "Metabolic abnormalities detected by 1H-MRS in dyscalculia and dysgraphia". 1999) PMID 10449137
    
    
22. D Hecht - "Depression and the hyperactive right-hemisphere" (2010) PMID 20603163
    
    
23. CM Braun, J Delisle, A Guimond, R Daigneault - "Post unilateral lesion response biases modulate memory: crossed double dissociation of hemispheric specialisations" (2009) PMID 18991140
    
    
24. O Devinsky09). "Delusional misidentifications and duplications: right brain lesions, left brain delusions" (2009) PMID 19122035
    
    
25. A Madoz-Gúrpide A, R Hillers-Rodríguez R - "Capgras delusion: a review of aetiological theories". (2010) PMID 20387212
    
    
26. E Goldberg - "The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World" (2009) ISBN 978-0-19-532940-7
    
    
27. S Knecht, B Dräger, M Deppe, L Bobe, H Lohmann, A Flöel, EB Ringelstein, H Henningsen - "Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans" (2000) PMID 11099452
    
    
28. Terence Hines - "Left Brain/Right Brain Mythology and Implications for Management and Training" (1987) JSTOR 258066
    
    
29. JG Drenth - "Growing anti-intellectualism in Europe; a menace to science". (2003) Studia Psychologica 45 (ALLEA Annual Report 2003, pp. 61–72)
    
    
30. Sergio Della Sala - "Mind Myths: Exploring Popular Assumptions about the Mind and Brain" (1999) ISBN 0-471-98303-9
    
    
31. G Vallortigara, LJ Rogers LJ - "Survival with an asymmetrical brain: Advantages and disadvantages of cerebral lateralization" (2005) PMID 16209828
    
    
32. ME Halpern, O Güntürkün, WD Hopkin, LJ Rogers (2005). "Lateralization of the Vertebrate Brain: Taking the Side of Model Systems". (2005) PMID 16280571
    
    
33. LJ Rogers - "Light Input and the Reversal of Functional Lateralization in the Chicken Brain" (1990) PMID 2363841
    
    
34. C Deng, LJ Rogers(1997). "Differential Contributions of the Two Visual Pathways to Functional Lateralization in Chicks". (1997) PMID 9331485
    
    
35. LJ Rogers - "Evolution of Hemispheric Specialization: Advantages and Disadvantages" ( 2000) PMID 10856176

You might also want to read up on the work of Nobel Prize winner Roger Wolcott Sperry. Oddly enough, he completely disagrees with you.


I'll be back.

 

[zooterkin]

Lucky for you a kind soul organised this reading list for you.

Aha!

 

[Akhenaten]

Dave,
- I think that I understand what you meant by that, and basically agree... The likelihood of me ever existing, given A, is much smaller than the prior probability of A being incorrect – only if I use the likelihood of my specific current existence, given “A,” as P(me|A), in the formula...

What a complete load of velociraptor vomit. Your ridiculously contrived definition of 'A' doesn't in any way address likelihoods. Do you even remember what you mean by 'A'?

And that's ignoring, for the moment, that your definition of 'me' has yet to rise above the level of "the entire breakfast nook resonates with my specialness!"

 

[Akhenaten]

Aha!

Ohnoes! I am undone!

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I think that I understand what you meant by that, and basically agree... The likelihood of me ever existing, given A, is much smaller than the prior probability of A being incorrect – only if I use the likelihood of my specific current existence, given “A,” as P(me|A), in the formula...

You still haven't given us any reason to think you are a special case.

 

[Giordano]

- Actually, I had done all sorts of online research -- but most of it was done several years ago... Since your objection, I have done some more research, and see what you mean -- though, I wouldn't say it so decidedly, I do need to do some more on-line research, and so far, I still think that we tend to be dominated by a way of thinking, if not a particular hemisphere.
- I'll do some more research.

Do that please. Suggestions where to start have already been made. And let us know how your review of Bayesian statistics goes, please.

 

[Jabba]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

Correct.

- Unless you want to explain why none of my evidence provided any reasonable doubt, I'm happy just to say that I disagree, and to claim that most natural scientists would also disagree.

 

[Giordano]

dave,
- Just to make sure, and to nail down the wording, you believe that I have failed to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct?

Just to make it clear, the main problem is that you have failed to show any evidence of reincarnation.


Subsets of this include your failure to show any reasonable doubt that "A" is correct, your failure to show that you understand what "A" is under the scientific model, your failure to show any evidence that consciousness is a "thing" rather than a "process", your failure to show that the numbers you use in your formula are anything but random, your failure to show that infinity is a number that can be used in the Bayesian formula, your faillure to show that ~A must mean reincarnation, and yet more. We can add to that your failure to rebut or to incorporate into your theory any of the corrective suggestions that have been posted here. You can start to work on any of these, but please remember your title in the OP when doing so And that apparently even if your theory of reincarnation is correct, your consciousness may end up in the Bucket O' Souls, or in an insect, and so you may have only a limited time to get to your evidence.

 

[Mojo]

- Unless you want to explain why none of my evidence provided any reasonable doubt...

Because your "evidence" is entirely compatible with "A".

I'm happy just to say that I disagree, and to claim that most natural scientists would also disagree.

Do you have any evidence for that?

 

[Akhenaten]

- Unless you want to explain why none of my evidence provided any reasonable doubt, I'm happy just to say that I disagree, and to claim that most natural scientists would also disagree.

Excellent!

Now you can set all of that aside and concentrate on presenting your evidence for the existence of immortal souls.

 

[John Jones]

Just to make it clear, the main problem is that you have failed to show any evidence of reincarnation.

Or immortality
or souls

 

[Giordano]

- Unless you want to explain why none of my evidence provided any reasonable doubt, I'm happy just to say that I disagree, and to claim that most natural scientists would also disagree.

Closer: you disagree or believe otherwise. I can accept that. But it is your claim that most natural scientists would also disagree: what evidence do you have that indicates that? From my own experience, I would say the exact opposite. Do you mean that most natural scientists think that the advance probability of obtaining Jabba in particular is small? I can believe that. But most natural scientists think that there was a very good chance of your parents producing someone, anyone (A is almost 1, if my understanding of your last definition of "A" is correct), and recognize that some of these people might retrospectively commit a Texas Sharpshooter error and think that they were a pre-destined, special target.

I should point out that there are a lot of natural scientists on this thread, all of whom appear to disagree with you. I am one of them. You have simply ignored their posted concerns for two years. We must be an non-representative sample if we have not accepted your claim, right?...