Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[aleCcowaN]

Jabba, I'll play. You claim the banana and the soul are different. Please enumerate the testable qualities of a soul and I will compare them to those of a banana.

Yes, but as, unlike the banana, the soul lacks any property that can't be fathomed in a material world, Jabba is going to assume its representation. That was the whole thing from the very beginning

 

[Jabba]

The likelihood is not something over infinity for E|H.

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

There is no such thing as a potential self. The self is a process, not a thing. Is there potential yellow?

 

[Mojo]

- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

Jabba,
- In the hypothesis you need to disprove there are no "potential selves": your consciousness is whatever consciousness your brain produces. Once your body exists and functions the likelihood of it producing your consciousness is 1.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

There is no limit to the number of potential bananas or potential Volkswagens.

We've been over this before.

At the time you were born, the number of potential selves that could have been born was limited by the number of humans of reproductive age and all the different ways they could combine their genetic material to produce offspring. That's a large number of possibilities, but it's not infinite.

Right now you already exist, so the number of potential selves is irrelevant to the likelihood of your current existence.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

Jabba,
- If there were an infinite number of "potential selves", what is the likelihood that the one that happened to occupy your body would think it was you?

 

[aleCcowaN]

And Jabba, the rhetorical bobo doll, achieves again dodging he being collectively trapped by the inconsistencies of his pseudo-argument and he's again repetitively discussing partial aspects of his poor reasoning with different interlocutors.

Entropy has won again.

 

[John Jones]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

This has been getting monotonous for a long time.

 

[Pixel42]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

Jabba the mistakes you are making have been explained to you patiently, in detail. and in the simplest possible terms, many many times. Why are you simply repeating them as if it was the first time you'd ever made them? Go back and read the responses you got any of the previous times you posted the same faulty arguments, and this time try to understand them.

 

[godless dave]

Maybe I can save time by anticipating Jabba's response.

Jabba will probably start talking about how P(E|H) is some number over infinity because there are an infinite number of potential selves. He will then base this on there being some aspect of the self that isn't determined by the physical body. We'll have the 2>1 discussion again. Jabba will abandon (but not retract) his claim that H includes some aspect of the self that isn't determined by the physical body. Instead he will talk about ways an immaterial self might exist whose every aspect isn't dependent on a physical body, and that if reincarnation is real, it would require the existence of just such an immaterial self. Then someone will ask him for evidence or reasoning that suggests reincarnation is real, and he'll come back to his Bayesian formula which is based on the claim that P(E|H) is some number over infinity because there are an infinite number of potential selves. He will then pretend to be surprised that we object to the claim that P(E|H) is some number over infinity. Which is where we are now.

 

[jt512]

jt,
- What if the prior probabilities are 99% for H, 1% for ~H and the likelihoods are something over infinity for E|H and about 60% for E|~H?

What if, instead, you write is this:

My basic question is whether or not we can say that an hypothesis is probably wrong, if the likelihood of an event -- given the hypothesis -- is virtually zero, and the event occurs. If the likelihood is something over infinity, would seem like we could.

 

[jond]

Maybe I can save time by anticipating Jabba's response.

Jabba will probably start talking about how P(E|H) is some number over infinity because there are an infinite number of potential selves. He will then base this on there being some aspect of the self that isn't determined by the physical body. We'll have the 2>1 discussion again. Jabba will abandon (but not retract) his claim that H includes some aspect of the self that isn't determined by the physical body. Instead he will talk about ways an immaterial self might exist whose every aspect isn't dependent on a physical body, and that if reincarnation is real, it would require the existence of just such an immaterial self. Then someone will ask him for evidence or reasoning that suggests reincarnation is real, and he'll come back to his Bayesian formula which is based on the claim that P(E|H) is some number over infinity because there are an infinite number of potential selves. He will then pretend to be surprised that we object to the claim that P(E|H) is some number over infinity. Which is where we are now.

Seems like you've been through this loop before. Seems like you've been through this loop before. Seems like you've been through this loop before...

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba what is the probability of a potential Jabba-self that's actually going to listen to anything anyone's saying?

 

[MRC_Hans]

jt,
- What if the prior probabilities are 99% for H, 1% for ~H and the likelihoods are something over infinity for E|H and about 60% for E|~H?

What if ... the moon is made of green cheese?

Hans

 

[Dancing David]

Dave,
- If there is no pool of potential selves, there is no limit to the number of of potential selves -- and, I think you've already agreed that there is no pool of potential selves.

Sophistry shall avail you not!

The body that is your 'self' changes every moment of every day... therefore however you can to slice the temporal events of the body you could say your 'self' changes for every chemical reaction that occurs in your body.

Certainly a huge number of changes for people to pretend a continuity of self over

 

[Loss Leader]

jt,
- What if the prior probabilities are 99% for H, 1% for ~H and the likelihoods are something over infinity for E|H and about 60% for E|~H?

And what if cat were spelled d..o..g?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Sophistry shall avail you not!

This doesn't even rise to the level of sophistry. It's not even semantics. It's randomness with an agenda. It's achieved a level I've never encountered before in that it's not even interesting as a fictional story.

I mean I've watched and enjoyed fictional works about aliens and Bigfoot and ghosts and government conspiracies and big old stodgy science proven wrong, as skeptical and reason-focused as I am I can enjoy those things conceptually in the abstract when removed from someone trying to argue them in real life but I'm sorry I don't see me watching a movie about some guy failing to prove immortality throughout an entire 25 season TV show where every episode follows the same script and there's no plot development.

 

[MetalPig]

And what if cat were spelled d..o..g?

It would still have 4 legs.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Jabba,
- If there were an infinite number of "potential selves", what is the likelihood that the one that happened to occupy your body would think it was you?

This.

Since a self will be the product of a sequence of variants with a virtually infinite number of possibilities, one can, of one wishes to do so, say that there is an infinite number of potential selves.

Thus, the one that currently expresses Jabba is one of a huge, but not infinite number. However, the probability that this particular self will perceive itself as Jabba is very close to 1 (certain mental disturbances can cause exceptions, but we assume that Jabba does not suffer from such).

Therefore, Jabba's claim that his existence is improbable is wrong. Any rational entity contemplating its own existence will find itself within its particular self. Water puddle or Texas sharpshooter analogies.

Hans

 

[Mojo]

Remember also that Jabba (in an attempt to dig himself out of a different hole) has defined the disembodied "self" as having no characteristics, all the characteristics of the embodied "self" being supplied by the body. By his own argument, whatever "self" wound up in his body would be Jabba.

ETA: Not that "selves" exist in the way Jabba defines them.