Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[Mojo]

Mojo,
- You and I are 2 of Susan Blackmore's illusional selves. According to OOFLam, each of our particular illusional selves can exist only once -- if at all. There is nothing to say that you or I had to ever exist. How many potential illusional selves might there be?

The hypothesis you are trying to defeat is that consciousness is produced by the brain.

As you point out, the "selves" are illusions. Your consciousness is just what your particular brain does, whatever it happens to be doing, my consciousness is what my brain does. Once your body exists, and has a functioning nervous system, the probability of your consciousness existing is one.

There are no "selves" competing for incorporation, just consciousness produced by brains. Where that consciousness is self-conscious, it has the illusion of a self. The selves are not real, and your self is not some constant entity. If you include such an entity in the premises of your argument for the existence of souls, then you are begging the question.

 

[The Sparrow]

Mojo,
- You and I are 2 of Susan Blackmore's illusional selves. According to OOFLam, each of our particular illusional selves can exist only once -- if at all. There is nothing to say that you or I had to ever exist. How many potential illusional selves might there be?

Fringe reset!!!

 

[Mojo]

Jabba, you can't prove the existence of immaterial souls using an argument that relies on assuming the existence of immaterial souls.

Mojo,
- Why do you think that's what I'm trying to do?

Because that's where you get the "infinity" in your "seven billion over infinity".

Mojo,
- You and I are 2 of Susan Blackmore's illusional selves. According to OOFLam, each of our particular illusional selves can exist only once -- if at all. There is nothing to say that you or I had to ever exist. How many potential illusional selves might there be?

And, Jabba, statements like this are the reason people can tell that you are trying to prove the existence of immaterial souls using an argument that relies on assuming the existence of immaterial souls.

 

[Hokulele]

Mojo,
- You and I are 2 of Susan Blackmore's illusional selves. According to OOFLam, each of our particular illusional selves can exist only once -- if at all. There is nothing to say that you or I had to ever exist. How many potential illusional selves might there be?

Zero. Such a thing does not exist.

 

[Jabba]

The hypothesis you are trying to defeat is that consciousness is produced by the brain.

As you point out, the "selves" are illusions. Your consciousness is just what your particular brain does, whatever it happens to be doing, my consciousness is what my brain does. Once your body exists, and has a functioning nervous system, the probability of your consciousness existing is one.

There are no "selves" competing for incorporation, just consciousness produced by brains. Where that consciousness is self-conscious, it has the illusion of a self. The selves are not real, and your self is not some constant entity. If you include such an entity in the premises of your argument for the existence of souls, then you are begging the question.

Mojo,
- But the same brain will never occur again, nor will the same self illusion ever occur again.
- Is there any logical (not physical) limitation on how many different brains could be produced? If not, we have an infinity of potential brains (and, of so-called "selves").

 

[Pixel42]

... and we're back to the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.

 

[John Jones]

With a tad of the Sentient Puddle for good measure.

 

[Hokulele]

Mojo,
- But the same brain will never occur again, nor will the same self illusion ever occur again.
- Is there any logical (not physical) limitation on how many different brains could be produced? If not, we have an infinity of potential brains (and, of so-called "selves").

There is a physical limitation, so even though this argument is based on a flawed assumption, it is still wrong.

 

[Mojo]

Mojo,
- But the same brain will never occur again...

But it has occurred, Jabba. And once it occurs, under the hypothesis you are trying to defeat, your consciousness occurs.

...nor will the same self illusion ever occur again.

The "same self illusion" won't occur tomorrow, it didn't occur yesterday, it didn't occur five minutes ago. Your consciousness is a process.

If your survival depends on the "same self" persisting, then the Jabba of five minutes ago is already dead.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Mojo,
- But the same brain will never occur again, nor will the same self illusion ever occur again.
- Is there any logical (not physical) limitation on how many different brains could be produced? If not, we have an infinity of potential brains (and, of so-called "selves").

Yes, Jabba. Thank darwiness you're an unique and unrepeatable soulless being.

But, what does that to do with this thread's topic?

Other reasoning matching the sturdiness of this thread's logic:

Five by eight, forty, I'll wait for you at the soda fountain.
Bayes' theorem and the price of panda teddy bears in China are mutually exclusive when time tends to infinity.

 

[aleCcowaN]

But it has occurred, Jabba. And once it occurs, under the hypothesis you are trying to defeat, your consciousness occurs.

Benzodiazepines change "self illusions", so some aspects of the so-called souls depend on proprietary chemistry. Do humans who have OD'ed live baked like a cake eternally in the afterlife or do they experience a hangover of Olympian duration?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Mojo,
- You and I are 2 of Susan Blackmore's illusional selves. According to OOFLam, each of our particular illusional selves can exist only once -- if at all. There is nothing to say that you or I had to ever exist. How many potential illusional selves might there be?

My Dear Mr. Savage:

If you continue to ignore my questions, I will realize that your "illusional selves" thing is just one more attempt to appeal to something, the very existence for which you cannot support with the lest crumb of actual evidence.

You claim it works on others--why not on your unsupported musings?

I remain effectively yours, &ct.

 

[Nonpareil]

By Bayes' Theorem, we have:

(Posterior odds of cheating) = (Bayes factor) × (Prior odds of cheating)
(Posterior odds of cheating) = 33,333 × (Prior odds of cheating)

So, whatever the prior odds of cheating are, once we've observed the player getting the royal flush, the odds that he is cheating increase by a factor of over 33,000. Are you seriously trying to tell us that an observation that increases the odds of X by more than a factor of 33,000 is not evidence for X? Clearly, it is. Furthermore, it is evidence for X regardless of what the prior odds of X were. It's the change in the odds of X brought about by an observation that determines whether the observation is evidence for X, not the value of the odds themselves.

Somebody better pick up that phone, because I called it.

 

[Mojo]

My Dear Mr. Savage:

If you continue to ignore my questions, I will realize that your "illusional selves" thing is just one more attempt to appeal to something, the very existence for which you cannot support with the lest crumb of actual evidence.

I realise that whether or not he ignores your questions.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Somebody better pick up that phone, because I called it.

Well, the last cartoon of the comic strip does little to help anyone understand what's it about, except the certainty it is some kind of joke.

Don't worry much about those 33x or 850. They're just handwaving in numeric disguise.

When the subject in question applies Bayes to the three-door dilemma (the one with the two goats and a special prize) we'll continue the discussion.

[nine hours left, then travelling again to better landscapes, see you all again on Thursday]

 

[jsfisher]

Mojo,
- But the same brain will never occur again, nor will the same self illusion ever occur again.
- Is there any logical (not physical) limitation on how many different brains could be produced? If not, we have an infinity of potential brains (and, of so-called "selves").

Dress it up as fancy as you like, it still comes down to P(E) = 1.

...and expanding that out to be P(E|H) x P(H) + P(E|~H) x P(~H) only helps you obscure things in the denominator. It is still unity, though.

 

[Nonpareil]

Well, the last cartoon of the comic strip does little to help anyone understand what's it about, except the certainty it is some kind of joke.

Don't worry much about those 33x or 850. They're just handwaving in numeric disguise.

When the subject in question applies Bayes to the three-door dilemma (the one with the two goats and a special prize) we'll continue the discussion.

[nine hours left, then travelling again to better landscapes, see you all again on Thursday]

And this is all, again, without addressing the fact that you can substitute literally anything for "cheating", so long as it ends with "so I drew a royal flush" - and, according to jt512, the presence of a royal flush is therefore evidence of this being true.

"An evil wizard wanted to make my opponent lose"? Evidence.

"Incredible luck is my superpower?" Evidence.

"My opponent reverse-cheated in my favor so that no one would suspect him of cheating"? Still evidence. Equally strong evidence, in fact, since the 33,333 doesn't change in any of these equations.

And, funnily enough, this holds all the way up to and including "the dealer happened to, entirely unintentionally, shuffle the deck in such a way that I would draw a royal flush".

Pick your poison, ladies and gents; anything is evidence for anything, and it's all happening today at Mister Bayes' Nonsense Emporium!

 

[Jedi]

Nope. Still missing the point. Review the odds form of Bayes theorem, and get straight what terms you are talking about.

I don't even think you know what you're getting at. I think you still don't understand the difference between the Bayes factor (or weight of the evidence) and the probability (or odds) of a hypothesis.

i'm truly enjoying your transparent efforts to try, really hard, to change the subject so you can avoid answering questions lol! and trying to bait me by telling me 'you don't understand' this or that, etc. hoping i go down another of your rabbit holes. problem is that i do understand, and to remind you and everyone, here is what you've been avoiding, for pages:

1. why do you accept anecdotal evidence that people survived due to God? why do you accept anecdotal evidence at all?
you responded before by telling me you 'refuse to answer' then you thought you gave me an answer by explaining how big-pharma operated in the stone age. refusing to answer is actually evidence that you and I both understand exactly what i'm asking! thus the constant subject changing.

2. explain why your bayes formulation re God is not a trivial argument. why wouldn't it work if we replaced 'God' with 'Toaster'?

you remind me of a comment Brad Efron (for those who don't know him, he's prof of statistics at Stanford and one of the most well known/accomplished statisticians) said. he was discussing some of the cons of bayesian statisticians and said (to paraphrase), 'one of the problem some bayesians have is that they spend all their time dealing with the technicalities associated with making estimates from their models (Gibbs sampler, MCMC, etc.) when they should be spending more time understanding study design, controls, and bias reduction'

this describes you exactly. you haggle over the math and your proclamations of 'you don't understand' when the only issue i have with you is your biased used of data... you accept anecdotes (and refuse to say why!) and you make trivial arguments. you've updated your old tactic of just refusing to say why, and take the new tactic of trying to change the subject!

transparent. isn't working. see if you can answer questions 1 and 2.

 

[Belz...]

The fractal arguments have become so complex that they developed sentience.

 

[Jabba]

But it has occurred, Jabba. And once it occurs, under the hypothesis you are trying to defeat, your consciousness occurs.




The "same self illusion" won't occur tomorrow, it didn't occur yesterday, it didn't occur five minutes ago. Your consciousness is a process.

If your survival depends on the "same self" persisting, then the Jabba of five minutes ago is already dead.

Mojo,
- So, every instant my particular self dies and is replaced by a different self. Will it be replaced when my brain dies?