Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[Belz...]

This is utter crap (not to mention that you've blatantly contradicted your own argument...I've absolutely no doubt you haven't a clue where or how) but it's late so I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out why.

Utter crap! You can't prove love! You can't prove consciousness!

What? No. I never said I believed in souls!! Prove it!!!

 

[Loss Leader]

All you've said in your very long post is that anecdotes are evidence that someone is telling an anecdote. They are. But they are not evidence of the truth of the matter asserted.

I imagine an fMRI would show differences between the person who thinks he "remembers" betting abducted by aliens and the person making up a story on the spot.

We've then collected evidence of how the brain works when telling am anecdote, but we still have no evidence as to whether the anecdote is true.

The difference is what you're testing for: whether someone believes their anecdote (love, alien abduction, dogs are better than cats) or whether such belief had a truth value.

Jabba is attempting to use anecdotes as evidence of the truth of the matter asserted, not as evidence that the subjects believed their own stories . In such vein, unscientifically gathered anecdotes have no truth value whatsoever.

But you knew all this. You're just goofing around.

 

[Hokulele]

"I love my wife" isn't an anecdote, it is a claim. "I bought my wife roses" or "I kicked my wife in the head" are anecdotes.

Annnnoid, when you claimed you understood the meaning of anecdote, what definition were you using?

 

[JayUtah]

"I love my wife" isn't an anecdote, it is a claim. "I bought my wife roses" or "I kicked my wife in the head" are anecdotes.

And they have no evidentiary value vis-a-vis his alleged love for his wife because they can be applied to several other relevant hypotheses. "I bought my wife roses" isn't evidence of his love if his wife is allergic to roses. "I kicked my wife in the head" isn't counterindicative of love if that's what they're into. Without additional information we don't know to what relative extend any of those hypotheses is supported, hence no truth value. Those conditions may seem uncommon, but that's the point. Anecdotal evidence invites us inappropriately to judge based not on what is known, but upon what is merely supposed, assumed, or taken as conventional. Even applying the "I bought my wife roses" in the conventional sense as a token of affection falls flat if other, more systematically collected, evidence shows he bought his wife roses in order to attempt to placate her after he spent the rest of the week carousing with a younger woman.

And like you, I've had a terrible time getting annnnoid to reconcile what he thinks an anecdote is with what one really is.

 

[Belz...]

And they have no evidentiary value vis-a-vis his alleged love for his wife because they can be applied to several other relevant hypotheses. "I bought my wife roses" isn't evidence of his love if his wife is allergic to roses. "I kicked my wife in the head" isn't counterindicative of love if that's what they're into.

No, but I think that you can take the sum total of one's behaviours towards one's wife to show that they indeed love and care for her. Of course, with machines we can look into the brain and see the process of love take place, as well.

 

[annnnoid]

Again, annnnoid, you are fooling no one. You have argued, repeatedly and vociferously, that we have no idea whas consciousness is. Your almost violent reaction to the idea that consciousness is formed in the brain is clear indication of what you believe.

Utter crap! You can't prove love! You can't prove consciousness!

What? No. I never said I believed in souls!! Prove it!!!

So you respond to a request for evidence with yet more hyperbole, hand waving, and bare assertions.

You do nothing but confirm that your arguments are an utter waste of my time.

Edited by jsfisher: 

<snip> Edited for compliance with Rules 11 and 12.

All you've said in your very long post is that anecdotes are evidence that someone is telling an anecdote. They are. But they are not evidence of the truth of the matter asserted.

I imagine an fMRI would show differences between the person who thinks he "remembers" betting abducted by aliens and the person making up a story on the spot.

We've then collected evidence of how the brain works when telling am anecdote, but we still have no evidence as to whether the anecdote is true.

The difference is what you're testing for: whether someone believes their anecdote (love, alien abduction, dogs are better than cats) or whether such belief had a truth value.

Jabba is attempting to use anecdotes as evidence of the truth of the matter asserted, not as evidence that the subjects believed their own stories . In such vein, unscientifically gathered anecdotes have no truth value whatsoever.

But you knew all this. You're just goofing around.

…once again you ignored the question. Here it is....again:

I love my wife.

Please explain how this anecdote has zero truth value. Please explain how this anecdote 'cannot be evidence of what it is asserting'...????

"I love my wife" isn't an anecdote, it is a claim. "I bought my wife roses" or "I kicked my wife in the head" are anecdotes.

Annnnoid, when you claimed you understood the meaning of anecdote, what definition were you using?

Do let me know when you want to contribute something relevant to the discussion.

Anecdotal: “not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research”

Any variety of ‘personal account’ can be considered anecdotal. Thus...that post of yours is anecdotal. Which doesn’t really matter of course. What really matters is the issue in question…which you are doing your best to pretend you don’t have to address.

If you really want to make an issue of it...then just change the phrase to "I have been loving my wife."

 

[Belz...]

So you respond to a request for evidence with yet more hyperbole, hand waving, and bare assertions.

You've proven immune to reason and evidence, annnnoid. There's nothing left but to ridicule your position.

Edited by jsfisher: 

Moderated content redacted.

Won't make much of a difference, I gather.

Adjudicate away!

 

[Loss Leader]

"I love my wife" isn't an anecdote, it is a claim. "I bought my wife roses" or "I kicked my wife in the head" are anecdotes.

I've come around to your way of thinking. I withdraw my attempt at showing that love could be given a truth value based on evidence. All a claim of love proves is that the person making such declaration has declared it. The word itself has such a subjective and changeable meaning that its truth value cannot be measured.

Like souls, love needs to have defined characteristics in order to exist. I doubt any such characteristics would find universal agreement. The statement that one "loves" his wife has no truth value.

 

[godless dave]

In addition, the claim itself tells us very little. The claimant could be lying about loving their wife. The claimant might not even have a wife.

 

[JayUtah]

S
Do let me know when you want to contribute something relevant to the discussion.

Let me invite you to contribute by answering my question, asked for the third time: what are your formal qualifications in cognitive science?

Any variety of ‘personal account’ can be considered anecdotal.

No. You tried to sneak in the notion of a clinical interview as an "anecdote." You still haven't reconciled that.

 

[annnnoid]

I've come around to your way of thinking. I withdraw my attempt at showing that love could be given a truth value based on evidence.

…noticed something I see. There are more holes in your argument…lets see if you can find those as well. Just think of it as a legal case that you’re about to lose.

The statement that one "loves" his wife has no truth value.

I don’t think I have ever heard anything quite so ridiculous! Tell me...when you tell your wife that you love her, does she respond 'I don't believe you!'

If I took a poll of married couples and asked the question: “Do you agree, or disagree that the phrase ‘I love my wife / husband’ has zero truth value.”

…what percentage do you honestly think would agree???

If the statement has no truth value...what possible point is there in using it, or in saying anything at all ever?????

...and once again...you didn't answer the questions. Repeat...again:

I love my wife.

Please explain how this anecdote has zero truth value. Please explain how this anecdote 'cannot be evidence of what it is asserting'...????

In addition, the claim itself tells us very little. The claimant could be lying about loving their wife. The claimant might not even have a wife.

Missed the point entirely!

Let me invite you to contribute by answering my question, asked for the third time: what are your formal qualifications in cognitive science?

…and I’d be absolutely thrilled to tell you all what my qualifications are…if you can tell me how that will change the meaning of a single word that I write!

 

[Hokulele]

Any variety of ‘personal account’ can be considered anecdotal.

Incorrect. "Personal accounts" can be evidence provided they are collected in a controlled, systematic manner. "Personal accounts" can also be works of fiction, analogies, parables, and all sort of other things. To suggest that any variety of "personal account" can be considered anecdotal and therefore possible scientific evidence is just crazy talk.

 

[Hokulele]

I don’t think I have ever heard anything quite so ridiculous! Tell me...when you tell your wife that you love her, does she respond 'I don't believe you!'

Heh. My husband is New England bred and born, so him telling me "I love you..." is generally a preface to "So about what happened to your car this weekend..."

Him washing the dishes or cooking me a nice dinner has more evidentiary truth value than any claims he may make!

 

[Loss Leader]

Tell me...when you tell your wife that you love her, does she respond 'I don't believe you!'

What if I smacked her and threw her down the stairs and then said, "I love you. This is why I have to teach you proper respect. You're making me do this. I love you so much. Do you really think I enjoy hurting you?"

Would you then still consider "I love you" to be evidence of the matter asserted?

If my wife believes I love her, it is because of my actions, not my declarations.

Define love. What are its characteristics? Then we can test for those characteristics.

As to why people make statements without a truth value (except as evidence that the person said it), you would have to take that up with an evolutionary biologist and whatever a linguistic anthropologist is called. I don't know why people do illogical things.

 

[JayUtah]

I’d be absolutely thrilled to tell you all what my qualifications are…if you can tell me how that will change the meaning of a single word that I write!

I already did, but I'll repeat it since you seem to have ignored it.

In your recent entry into this thread, you contested the notion that anecdotal evidence was not probative by saying it was used commonly in cognitive science, and you described what you insinuated to be a typical example. Ordinarily, knowledge of what is or is not common knowledge or convention in a specialized field would arise only via relevant practice. You offered no external citation or reference to a recognized authority in the field supporting your claim. Hence we have to conclude you were speaking on your own authority. Before we can judge the strength of your testimony in characterizing what is known and done in the field of cognitive science, we need to know whether you have any relevant qualification. If you do, we have to consider that your declaration may have a suitable experiential basis. If not, we have to consider that it is based only on lay understanding. That affects its probative value in this discussion.

Now will you please tell us what formal qualifications you have in cognitive science?

 

[JayUtah]

The word itself has such a subjective and changeable meaning that its truth value cannot be measured.

Hence the need in science for controls. We all have to agree ahead of time what "love" is, just like we all need to agree ahead of time what a "soul" is in order to avoid the Texas sharpshooter's fallacy -- hypothesization after results are known.

Some data affected by subjective judgment can be self-correcting. For example, the Rotter locus of control metric relies upon two techniques to control for subjective interpretation of the questions it asks. First, the same abstract question is asked in different ways throughout the survey, using different wording. The examiner may then apply a statistical control to determine how consistently the subject has answered the "same" question across several different rewordings. Second, for each question there is a statistical profile based on a vast administration of the instrument across a demographically disparate sample. It is thought that differences in subjective interpretation across elements of the population will "average out" and create a normal distribution for each question. A subject's answer to a particular question is considered against that distribution. In a larger sense, if we convince ourselves we have obtained a large and diverse sample, we may consider that subjective factors will to some degree cancel each other out.

Others require conscious effort. When Dr. Philip Zimbardo prepared his notorious Stanford Prison Experiment, his goal was to investigate the degree to which situational factors, as opposed to disposition, affected behavior. In order to do that, he had to acquire a sample that varied little according to disposition, such that the effects he would later observe after applying situational factors would be properly attributable to that application and not to anything the subjects brought with them. The independent variable was whether the subjects were assigned to be guards or prisoners; other than that, they were substantially identical in relevant dispositional factors. In order to establish a suitably uniform disposition, Dr. Zimbardo applied several psychometric instruments that prevailed at the time and selected a sample that varied little according to the factors those revealed. Given the small sample space from which to draw, and the uncertain empirical framework, Dr. Zimbardo could not simply count on dispositional factors in an uncontrolled sample to cancel each other out.

All of these examples are "self-reported" in the sense that the data were collected by asking subjects questions. That does not equate to their being anecdotes within the meaning that is relevant to this question. In these cases the experimenters are still able and required to apply empirical and statistical controls to quantify the meaning and stability of their findings. This is not at all similar to a book that chronicles some number of exceptional stories regardless of what informal corroboration took place.

 

[JayUtah]

Heh. My husband is New England bred and born, so him telling me "I love you..." is generally a preface to "So about what happened to your car this weekend..."

Him washing the dishes or cooking me a nice dinner has more evidentiary truth value than any claims he may make!

Context is king. "I love my wife" is, on the one hand, a claim. It could be considered anecdotal evidence if the hypothesis at hand were, as was posed in our companion thread, "Married men love their wives." It remains anecdotal evidence becase, as we have elaborated, we have not controlled for what we mean by love and how it should be codified or quantified. Similarly, if the hypothesis were "The majority of married men love their wives," then we add the burden of statistical control. It continues to be unprobatively anecdotal unless it is part of a systematic survey, and it is probative of the hypothesis only if we agree on quantification and scope. Further, in some parts of Utah and Texas, we'd have to account for multivariate responses.

Dragging this back to the context of proving the existence of an immortal soul. Jabba is just watching us spin our wheels. He wants his prior to be 1%, so that he can apply his Bayesian sledge hammer. He wants anecdotal evidence of NDEs to be the intellectual justification for P(H) to be 1%. But again this just shows how little he understands about Bayesian reasoning. He doesn't need a justification for P(H). Which is to say, he can let P(H) "float" in his model without an especially rational basis, because he is allowed to quantify belief in that part of the formula in some cases.

But what he cannot do is arbitrarily choose both P(H) and P(E|H), and this is what he proposes to do. Either P(H) or P(E|H) must have an indisputable basis in a valid Bayesian inference, and after four years Jabba cannot attain this. Since his argument hasn't changed materially in four years on this point, it is safe to say he will never attain a valid model.

So NDEs are a red herring. It simply doesn't matter whether they are true or not. They have zero empirical bearing on the existence of an immortal soul, and zero statistical bearing on whether Jabba can set his P(H) at 1% for the purposes of his proposed proof. Hence Jabba gets to sit back and watch his critics squabble over the herring.

 

[Belz...]

Yes yes yes, Jay, but: do you love your wife or not?

 

[JayUtah]

Yes yes yes, Jay, but: do you love your wife or not?

Depends on how many legs she has.

 

[Belz...]

So... it varies over time?