Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[JayUtah]

- Let's try a little at a time.

Don't be patronizing. The problem is not that people here don't understand your argument and need it to be spelled out a bit at a time. The problem here is that your argument is wrong, and reasons have been given why it's wrong. Repeating it doesn't fix it.

We seem to all agree that science would allow the possibility of creating an identical consciousness -- but, science would not allow for re-creating the same consciousness. Am I correct?

No, you aren't correct in claiming we all agree. You are correct that two things are more things than one thing. But you are still trying to foist a pseudo-philosophy argument that there's something magically ineffable that two identical items cannot share. Once again you're trying to impose the limits of your soul hypothesis on an explanation that does not require a soul and therefore does not suffer its limitations.

And we've been over this dozens of times.

 

[Mojo]

Are we really back to 2>1 again?

Yup. And we're back to Jabba being brought back to life if a second identical Jabba is somehow created after his death. And then when someone brings up the scenario in which Jabba is replicated while he's still alive, we'll be back to the "one self looking through two sets of eyes" strawman.

 

[Hokulele]

Jabba, if you were to be exactly duplicated in a hospital, when you woke up, would you know that you are the original or the duplicate?

 

[JayUtah]

Are we really back to 2>1 again?

We're off in that direction again, yes. As always, look at where the discussion was before the abrupt subject change: P(E|H). Jabba just made up a number and assigned it an arbitrary precision and confidence interval. He knows he just made it up, and he knows his attempts at making it look rigorous don't fool anyone. And he knows it's one of the pillars of his argument -- if he can't make it seem like he wouldn't exist without a soul, then he can't prove "mathematically" that a soul exists. It's absolutely essential that he distract from this blatantly begged question.

So he's thrown another patio chair into the path of his critics as he flees. This discussion is simply his critics chasing him in a circle around his house, 70s cop-show fashion. We all just go in circles dodging the stuff he throws behind him.

 

[MRC_Hans]

- Let's try a little at a time.
- We seem to all agree that science would allow the possibility of creating an identical consciousness -- but, science would not allow for re-creating the same consciousness. Am I correct?

That is merely semantics. Using pure logic, if you create a copy, it is not the original, no matter how perfect a copy it is.

But if I take away your computer and give you an exact replica, including an image of your hard-disk, would you say it was a different computer? If I didn't inform you of the swap, how could you find out?

Hans

 

[JayUtah]

That is merely semantics. Using pure logic, if you create a copy, it is not the original, no matter how perfect a copy it is.

And naturally Jabba wants his critics to just admit there'd be "two" of him without discussing those semantics. He's desperate for his "gotcha" moment.

But if I take away your computer and give you an exact replica...

Then we're just back to Mt Ranier. Computers and mountains can be replicated without any problem because they don't have a soul. That's different than replicating people because people have souls. Or so Jabba attempts to defuse every such analogy.

 

[theprestige]

- Let's try a little at a time.
- We seem to all agree that science would allow the possibility of creating an identical consciousness -- but, science would not allow for re-creating the same consciousness. Am I correct?

Depends what you mean by "re-creating the same consciousness".

 

[JayUtah]

Depends what you mean by "re-creating the same consciousness".

That's his equivocal point. In the scientific world, consciousness and all other aspects of the self are emergent properties of the brain. There isn't some external bugaboo for which the brain merely serves as transcoder or symbiotic host. Not so in Jabba's world. He imagines that you can recreate the physical organism, but that there's some magical "thing" that wouldn't know which brain to tickle. Jabba claims -- with no evidence -- that all the properties of memory and observation are vested in this soul.

So any time the analogy is drawn, Jabba just says the analogy doesn't hold because the analogue doesn't have a soul. Therefore the soul exist.

 

[Dabop]

I'm sure believing that gives you great comfort, but the fact is that in the time it has taken you to tap-dance around one formula, a real student could have earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics.

I dont know if my responce to that sentence should be laughter, tears or a feeling of horror....

It certainly puts things in their proper perspective doesnt it?

 

[Jabba]

- Let's try a little at a time.
- We seem to all agree that science would allow the possibility of creating an identical consciousness -- but, science would not allow for re-creating the same consciousness. Am I correct?

The two consciousnesses are distinguished only by their spacetime co-ordinates. The second one, if identical, would be a recreation of the first one, just at a different point in space and time. We've been through this before.

Pixel,
- I'm not sure what you're saying, but, I think you're saying, "Yes."

 

[godless dave]

Jabba, remember the last time we had the "same self" conversation?

And the scientific explanation for that is that the memory and ability to observe are all done by a physical brain, and the identity - just like everything else's identity - just refers to which one it is.
We would have no idea how to do that because when you make a copy of something, you have two things, not one. This is true for everything in reality that we know of. I can't think of any case where we can follow the same steps twice and end up with one thing, not two.
The reason science has no explanation for such a phenomenon is because there is no evidence that phenomenon has ever happened. When you make a copy of something, the copy is always separate from the original, even if they are absolutely identical.
Why not? What would be the difference between the two observers? In what way would they be different from each other?

Dave,

- I finally see your point...

- Let's see if I can explain what I've been thinking.
- I've been thinking that science should be able to explain -- in biological, or chemical terms -- why the observers would not be the same observers (and not just absolutely identical). Now, I need to see if I can still make my case.
- I think I can -- but I do, all of a sudden, see one of your points...

 

[Pixel42]

Pixel,
- I'm not sure what you're saying, but, I think you're saying, "Yes."

Guess again.

 

[JayUtah]

Pixel,
- I'm not sure what you're saying, but, I think you're saying, "Yes."

The groveling for agreement and the fairly blatant shoving of your words into other people's mouths as part of that groveling really gets old, Jabba. Your critics are lucky if they get two or three posts from you a day in the "2-3 hours" you say you have to devote to this forum. From now on it would be less insulting to your critics if you addressed their points rather than keep trying to pretend people agree with you.

 

[JayUtah]

Jabba, remember the last time we had the "same self" conversation?

Jabba's concessions are never meant to last.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Pixel,
- I'm not sure what you're saying, but, I think you're saying, "Yes."

Why do we shy back from this?

Yes, Jabba, if you make an identical copy of something, anything, it will not be the original, it will be the copy. While the two may be indistinguishable, they are two individual entities.

So what?

Hans

 

[Jabba]

- Let's try a little at a time.
- We seem to all agree that science would allow the possibility of creating an identical consciousness -- but, science would not allow for re-creating the same consciousness. Am I correct?

Are we really back to 2>1 again?

Dave,
- I guess so. I'm starting with a premise that I think we all agree upon. I just think that there are important implications attached to that premise -- i.e., the only way we could re-create me (according to toon, pixel, my science fiction story and modern science) is to travel back in time and run my film all over again...
- And, that being the case, there is no limited pool of potential selves that we came from -- each of us just "popped up," came from nowhere, was a "brand new" entity -- and any theoretical 'pool' of potential selves is infinite...
- This will take some discussion.

 

[Slowvehicle]

...but the fact is that in the time it has taken you to tap-dance around one formula, a real student could have earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics...

QFT

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I guess so. I'm starting with a premise that I think we all agree upon. I just think that there are important implications attached to that premise -- i.e., the only way we could re-create me (according to toon, pixel, my science fiction story and modern science) is to travel back in time and run my film all over again...
- And, that being the case, there is no limited pool of potential selves that we came from -- each of us just "popped up," came from nowhere, was a "brand new" entity -- and any theoretical 'pool' of potential selves is infinite...

There is no pool of selves at all. Science does not attempt to account for immaterial souls because there is no credible evidence they exist.

Selves don't come from nowhere, they come from the matter that makes up a physical brain. If you recreated a brain, you would have two brains, not one. For exactly the same reason, you would have two selves, not one.

I can imagine Superman flying. But wait! The scientific understanding of gravity does not account for people flying like Superman. Does that mean I should doubt the scientific understanding of gravity? No, because I've only encountered people flying like Superman in works of fiction. I don't expect science to account for phenomena that only occur in fiction. I don't expect science to account for souls for the same reason I don't expect science to account for people flying like Superman.

 

[Hokulele]

Dave,
- I guess so. I'm starting with a premise that I think we all agree upon. I just think that there are important implications attached to that premise -- i.e., the only way we could re-create me (according to toon, pixel, my science fiction story and modern science) is to travel back in time and run my film all over again...
- And, that being the case, there is no limited pool of potential selves that we came from -- each of us just "popped up," came from nowhere, was a "brand new" entity -- and any theoretical 'pool' of potential selves is infinite...
- This will take some discussion.

Is there a "pool" of potential blades of grass? A "pool" of potential stars?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Jabba's concessions are never meant to last.

Like Chinese food at a Texas High School football game...