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Proof of Immortality, the IV league

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This isn't circular, spherical, or toroidal reasoning. This is Moebius reasoning: one surface, one edge, one gobble, one degook, forever'n ever amen.

Jabba, there's such a thing as terminal boredom.
 
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LL,
- Let's try soundbites.
:confused:

- I am trying to show that some other explanation besides the neurosystem is at least possible.

Of course it is possible. At least it cannot be proved to be impossible.

- More specifically, I'm trying to show that some of our perceptions cannot be explained by the physical neurosystem alone -- and consequently, there has to be something more in the explanation.

Ehr, no you are not. You are saying that you will try to do so, but so far, you have done nothing.

Hans
 
LL,
- Currently, I'm claiming that if the anecdotes are true, there has to be something immaterial going on -- something not explained by the physical neurosystem alone.
- Consequently, I need to provide evidence that at least some of the anecdotes are true.
Evidence is falsifiably and repeatably testable. Nothing else is evidence. I agree, you need evidence. Go get some.
 
LL,
- Currently, I'm claiming that if the anecdotes are true, there has to be something immaterial going on -- something not explained by the physical neurosystem alone.
- Consequently, I need to provide evidence that at least some of the anecdotes are true.

OK, get on with it, then.

Hans
 
LL,
- Let's try soundbites.
- I am trying to show that some other explanation besides the neurosystem is at least possible.
- More specifically, I'm trying to show that some of our perceptions cannot be explained by the physical neurosystem alone -- and consequently, there has to be something more in the explanation.
Jabba, this is s bizzare post, especially following my last couple. I have explained in detail that I understood your ultimate aim. I have explained in excruciating detail that I understood your current aim. In fact, the contours of your current step were defined by our conversation.
I agree, you must show that noon-physical perception is true. Unless and until you do, you cannot argue that souls are even possible and cannot then speculate as to the odds of immortality being a better explanation than mortal neurosystems.
Why are we repeating this? As per your own words, please show that some preceptor cannot be explained by physical neurosystems. Make sure your evidence is testable, falsifiable and repeatable. Otherwise you will not have shown anything.
LL,

- I was leading up to the need for me to provide evidence, and consequently the need for you and I to agree upon what constitutes evidence.
- Previously, I had provided Wikipedia's (and my) definition of evidence, i.e.
Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion.[1] This support may be strong or weak. The strongest type of evidence is that which provides direct proof of the truth of an assertion. At the other extreme is evidence that is merely consistent with an assertion but does not rule out other, contradictory assertions, as in circumstantial evidence.

- My next claim is that the anecdotes do provide support for the existence of immateriality.
 
Even if every one of those anecdotes that you mention were true, so what? You end up with a lot of evidence that some people have had experiences that they perceive as NDE or OoBE.

I have had two out-of-body-experiences, as explained earlier on this thread. Those experiences do not do anything to support the idea that there's anything immaterial going on. They are completely explicable by what we understand about the physical neurosystem.
 
'Pologies, Jabba

...

Jabba, there's such a thing as terminal boredom.

I'm sorry I didn't define my terminology.

Terminal boredom is the state or condition of sitting in a station waiting for a train that WILL NEVER arrive.

Rather how I imagine eternity.
 
- My next claim is that the anecdotes do provide support for the existence of immateriality.
I don't agree that they do, but just for a moment I'll follow this claim.

Even if you were to show that there's something immaterial going on, it's a very big and unsupported leap to claim that immateriality means immortality. You still have to overcome the hurdle that this immateriality (if it exists) doesn't appear to be able to survive the death of the organism.
 
Evidence is falsifiably and repeatably testable. Nothing else is evidence. I agree, you need evidence. Go get some.
LL,
- This seems to be our primary disagreement at this point -- and, what I was trying to get at.
- My claim is that some evidence is not falsifiably and repeatably testable. I claim that evidence is any information that supports (or, "dissupports"?) a hypothesis.
- Then, I claim that the anecdotes of which I am aware do support the existence of immateriality. To me, the question is to what extent do they support it. That may be very slight. But to me, they do provide some support -- and therefore, evidence -- for immateriality.
-
 
- Currently, I'm claiming that if the anecdotes are true, there has to be something immaterial going on -- something not explained by the physical neurosystem alone.
- Consequently, I need to provide evidence that at least some of the anecdotes are true.

NO.

Even if the anecdotes are true, they provide no observation that cannot be explained in terms of a functioning organic brain. Further, you have a specific thing you need to prove, not something vaguely supernatural.
 
My claim is that some evidence is not falsifiably and repeatably testable.

Evidence purporting a previously unknown causation must be falsifiable and testable if it is to have any scientific value. Your claim is wrong in light of what you intend to prove. Shall I point you to the thread where you completely fell flat on your face when attempting to discuss the nature of evidence? Or are you still pretending it doesn't exist?

I claim that evidence is any information that supports (or, "dissupports"?) a hypothesis.

No. This "supports" crap is the same equivocal nonsense you tried to pull in the Shroud thread. Here, just as there, you have no actual evidence, so you try to shame your critics into accepting a lower standard of proof. You attribute some E to some H on no basis other than your fervent wish that it be so, and you try to dress that attribution up as a causal relationship by saying it is "supportive of" the conclusion.

Your belief that OBEs or NDEs must have some sort of supernatural component does not "support" your claim that you have an immortal soul.

Then, I claim that the anecdotes of which I am aware do support the existence of immateriality. To me, the question is to what extent do they support it. That may be very slight. But to me, they do provide some support -- and therefore, evidence -- for immateriality.
-

Yes, yes, we've heard this all before. You have "circumstantial evidence" for your belief. How many times, over how many years, are you going to subject your critics to this same song and dance in lieu of the promised proof?
 
LL,
- This seems to be our primary disagreement at this point -- and, what I was trying to get at.
- My claim is that some evidence is not falsifiably and repeatably testable. I claim that evidence is any information that supports (or, "dissupports"?) a hypothesis.
-


Maybe in a court of law, but definitely not in a mathematical proof.

Even if these anecdotes were evidence, you would have to show that they do not equally support other hypotheses that do not involve an immaterial soul. For example, that OOBs are merely evidence of subconscious brain activity.
 
- I was leading up to the need for me to provide evidence, and consequently the need for you and I to agree upon what constitutes evidence.
- Previously, I had provided Wikipedia's (and my) definition of evidence, i.e.
Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion.[1] This support may be strong or weak. The strongest type of evidence is that which provides direct proof of the truth of an assertion. At the other extreme is evidence that is merely consistent with an assertion but does not rule out other, contradictory assertions, as in circumstantial evidence.

- My next claim is that the anecdotes do provide support for the existence of immateriality.


Jabba,

From the very same Wikipedia article:

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence#Evidence_in_science said:
Evidence[/url]The rules for evidence used by science are collected systematically in an attempt to avoid the bias inherent to anecdotal evidence.

And from the further Wikipedia article on Scientific Evidence:

Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis. Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretation in accordance with scientific method. Standards for scientific evidence vary according to the field of inquiry, but the strength of scientific evidence is generally based on the results of statistical analysis and the strength of scientific controls.

So, by the very source that you personally quoted to me, anecdotes are not competent scientific evidence. In fact, according to your own source, the goal of scientific evidence is actually to eliminate the problems inherent in anecdotes.

I agree with you that you have found a source for a reasonable definition of scientific evidence. And I agree with that definition. Now you need to present that evidence - testable, falsifiable and repeatable.
 
...and consequently the need for you and I to agree upon what constitutes evidence.

It is non-negotiable. You either have evidence that falls under the scientific definition of it, or you do not. You have been given that definition. If you are unable to meet the scientific standard of proof, then you may not suggest that the scientific hypothesis for the self must necessarily include a soul.

My next claim is that the anecdotes do provide support for the existence of immateriality.

You are not here to prove "immateriality." Do not widen the goalposts just because you admit you cannot hit your original target.

Your anecdotes, even if true, do not prove the necessity of anything supernatural. You have listed no observation that cannot have been the product of an organic brain.
 
- My claim is that some evidence is not falsifiably and repeatably testable. I claim that evidence is any information that supports (or, "dissupports"?) a hypothesis.


Except that non-falsifiable statements aren't evidence. If they were, I could simply point to the billions (billions!) of people who claim to have personally felt God's presence as support for the existence of God. I could point to the idea that psychokinetic power fades unless everyone believes in it as evidence of psychokinesis.

Can you show me any unfalsifiable claim that recognizably contributes to the support or disproof of anything?


- Then, I claim that the anecdotes of which I am aware do support the existence of immateriality. To me, the question is to what extent do they support it. That may be very slight. But to me, they do provide some support -- and therefore, evidence -- for immateriality.
-


Once again, an anecdote cannot be evidence. Do all of the anecdotes of demonic possession make it even slightly more likely that demons exist? How about mermaids? Does my anecdote of not having a vision while near death cancel out one anecdote of someone who claims to have? Evidence is the banishment of the anecdote.

If you believe that anecdotes provide "some support" for immateriality, then you stand apart from anyone schooled in the scientific method.

If you believe that science is not the realm in which you are dealing, then you stand apart from anyone who insists on evidence before adopting a proposition.

If you believe that evidence is not a requirement for your ideas, then you stand firmly in the camp of religion and you have no business attempting to convince anyone other than yourself of anything.
 
LL,

- I was leading up to the need for me to provide evidence, and consequently the need for you and I to agree upon what constitutes evidence.

BS. You were never going to get there. You'll continue to divert the conversation into more and more sub issues until you're comfortably unable to address the original points. That's your shtick.
 
BS. You were never going to get there. You'll continue to divert the conversation into more and more sub issues until you're comfortably unable to address the original points. That's your shtick.

Indeed it is. It's how he kept the Shroud thread going long after he admitted he couldn't prove it was real. He transformed the argument into a negotiation for what was to be considered proper evidence of authenticity, and stamped his feet and whined when no one would agree to the standard of proof he was trying to foist. That gave him the excuse he needed to insinuate he "would have" won the debate if only his critics had not been so closed-minded in contrast to unnamed others, whom he said would have been much more amenable.
 
A note on legal evidence:

The reader will note that law has standards of evidence far lower than science. There are several reasons. First is that legal proof, unlike science, is not meant to describe the world as it is. It is meant to fit the gambler's philosophy of how sure we should be of something before imposing a burden on someone else.

Probable cause, the lowest burden of proof in law, also imposes the lowest burden on others - only that they submit to further legal examination. Beyond a reasonable doubt, arguably the highest burden, only says that we're reasonably certain that a person committed a crime. Meanwhile, the definition of the crime might be subject to debate such that its truth value is moot in any case.

Importantly, the law still rejects the unfalsifiable claim. It is illegal to jail someone because he just seems likely to probably do something illegal. Nobody is sent to prison because God told a witness that the defendant was guilty.

The law also strives for the testable and repeatable. Why is DNA evidence so important an advance in forensics? Because we can falsifiably rule in or out that a suspect was at a particular place. Cross-examination exists specifically to falsifiably probe testimony. Body cameras, radar guns, red light cameras, phone histories and more are all aimed at improving falsifiability.
 
LL,

- I was leading up to the need for me to provide evidence, and consequently the need for you and I to agree upon what constitutes evidence.
- Previously, I had provided Wikipedia's (and my) definition of evidence, i.e.
Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion.[1] This support may be strong or weak. The strongest type of evidence is that which provides direct proof of the truth of an assertion. At the other extreme is evidence that is merely consistent with an assertion but does not rule out other, contradictory assertions, as in circumstantial evidence.

- My next claim is that the anecdotes do provide support for the existence of immateriality.


Oh god.
 
First is that legal proof, unlike science, is not meant to describe the world as it is. It is meant to fit the gambler's philosophy of how sure we should be of something before imposing a burden on someone else.

But it is rather in this mode that Jabba hopes the anecdotes will be used. He doesn't want to establish fact at this point. He only wants to justify asking his critics to agree there's a 1% chance his immortal soul exists. That is the same sort of gamble. You've made one cogent argument against even that, based on the notion of falsifiability. I've made a different argument on the principle of non sequitur.

Meanwhile, the definition of the crime might be subject to debate such that its truth value is moot in any case.

And this is what I have in mind when I pursue my non sequitur rejection of Jabba's claim. Under the law a complaint is insufficient if its allegations do not track the elements of some well-defined offense such as a statute with enough specific detail to permit the defendant to mount a defense. Vague allegations of general misconduct do not form a cause of action. And in science vague claims of supernatural manifestation cannot prove a specific claim not known already to be related. "Something weird happened, therefore ghosts" is not science.

Importantly, the law still rejects the unfalsifiable claim.

Indeed my understanding of the law says this is why hearsay, for example, is inadmissible. Because the originator of the evidence cannot be examined, a defense has no power to test and possible falsify it. In the larger sense, the whole purpose of a trial is to test the evidence. Evidence that can't be tested isn't admissible.

Cross-examination exists specifically to falsifiably probe testimony.

Along with that is the notion that a court may admit from lay witness may only certain kinds of testimony. The lay witness tells what he perceived through his natural senses and, to a limited extent, what could be rationally gleaned from that. A witness may testify that he heard a loud explosion. He may not testify to his conclusion that it was a terrorist bomb. Similarly anecdotes recounting the witness' belief that his soul left his body are not evidence -- legal or scientific -- of the existence of a soul. His perception of the environment from a seemingly detached perspective would be the operant observation, not his speculation for how it came about.

Body cameras, radar guns, red light cameras, phone histories and more are all aimed at improving falsifiability.
'

Body cameras especially, where reasonable suspicion leading to probable cause is at issue, and law enforcement is under increased scrutiny of how they handle stops and arrests. Defendants benefit from having a basis from which to falsify an assumption of probable cause. Prosecutors benefit from having a basis from which to falsify claims of police brutality.
 
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