Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[Loss Leader]

I need a word that refers to the concept (null class or not) that reincarnationists think comes back to life...

What is that thing? What are its characteristics?

If it doesn't have characteristics, it can't exist. If it can't exist, it does not exist.

We're leaving aside the problem that you're trying to pin a nebulous concept accepted by "recreationists" on the scientific model of the universe. You're not allowed to do that. If you want to make this silly, meaningless word a part of your H, you need to show it exists.

And just like that we're back to the point where you gave up and abandoned talking to me. You could not provide any evidence or even a definition of this "soul" that is supposed to travel from body to body (or even remain constant from year to year in one body).

 

[John Jones]

-[...]- Trying to develop some better wording for our discussion, I need a more effective term for "self" -- and "particular awareness" would seem to capture the concept better. I need a word that refers to the concept (null class or not) that reincarnationists think comes back to life...

IOW, you're looking for better equivocation.

 

[JayUtah]

What we can't reproduce is the same self. Theoretically, we could create a perfect copy of someone, but we can't bring anyone back to life.

That's right. The organism has its organic life, and one of the properties of organic life in humans is the sense of self. You keep trying to particularize or individualize that process in the hopes of convincing people it's some sort of a separate thing. That's not how properties work.

Trying to develop some better wording for our discussion, I need a more effective term for "self" -- and "particular awareness" would seem to capture the concept better. I need a word that refers to the concept (null class or not) that reincarnationists think comes back to life...

Yeah, the word you're groping for is "soul." The problem is that you're trying to shoehorn the concept of a soul into H so that you have something you can count as "potential" infinity and give you your Big Denominator. There is no soul in H. There is no concept, under any other name, of a soul in H.

What you're doing is the same thing you've done in this discussion for more than four years, what you did in your ill-fated "circumstantial evidence" thread, and what you did you in your Shroud thread. You clearly have no other means of argument. What you're doing is to invent words that initially have no inherent meaning so that you can keep shifting the meaning during debate to avoid refutation. We've observed that all you do in these debates is play word games to maintain the fluidity of the words you use -- constantly shifting the goalposts. This is a technique for prolonging a debate, not having one. As soon as the concepts you're alluding to are pinned down, you flee from them toward a new untouched territory of ambiguity.

 

[Hokulele]

- Trying to develop some better wording for our discussion, I need a more effective term for "self" -- and "particular awareness" would seem to capture the concept better. I need a word that refers to the concept (null class or not) that reincarnationists think comes back to life...

There are dozens of words that refer to this concept: soul, spirit, pneuma, spark of life, elan vital, ego, anima.

Your problem is, none of these have actually been shown to exist under H.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Just like we can't reproduce the same body. Just like after we blow out a candle, we can never get the same flame again. Just like after a snowflake melts, the same snowflake will never exist again.

Can you think of anything in reality that can exist again after it's gone? Why do you think it's significant that particular senses of self can't exist twice when that's the case for literally everything else?

He's trying to clumsily trap us in the a meaningless false-paradox of his own making.

As long as he pretends that "self" and "sense of self" are different things he can move back and forth between them.

If we can recreate the person exactly then us big mean skeptical poopieheads can't claim it's a continuous process.

If we can't recreate it then there's this magical woo-woo soul of wooiness.

It's all meaningless semantics at best.

 

[Loss Leader]

It's all meaningless semantics at best.

Don't be so dramatic. It's meaningless in so many other ways as well.

 

[John Jones]

This thread seems to be finally self-destructing after all these years.











Did I speak too soon?

 

[JoeMorgue]

At some point there has to be a corner to be argued into that even Jabba can't fringe reset out of.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

The "going 60 mph" was almost that corner, but he was allowed to wriggle away

 

[theprestige]

At some point there has to be a corner to be argued into that even Jabba can't fringe reset out of.

That's not how fringe resets work.

 

[Jabba]

A lottery like that is not analogous to the way human selves come to exist under H. The likelihood of a particular human self existing is based on the events that lead to its existence. It has nothing to do with selves that could have potentially existed in the past or the future, or with selves that could potentially be produced by other parents in the present.

If you strike a match, does the number of potential flames have anything to do with the likelihood of that match producing a flame? After it burns out, can it ever come back?

Dave,
- It doesn't matter whether or not a lottery like that is analogous to the way human selves come to exist under H... That could just mean that H is wrong. In other words, it could be that H is not dualistic -- but, we are. And, H is just wrong.
- I have other explanations, but one at a time.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- It doesn't matter whether or not a lottery like that is analogous to the way human selves come to exist under H... That could just mean that H is wrong. In other words, it could be that H is not dualistic -- but, we are. And, H is just wrong.
- I have other explanations, but one at a time.

We were discussing P(E|H). The value for P(E|H) needs to be based on H being right. H being wrong is relevant for P(E|~H).

 

[jond]

Dave,
- It doesn't matter whether or not a lottery like that is analogous to the way human selves come to exist under H... That could just mean that H is wrong. In other words, it could be that H is not dualistic -- but, we are. And, H is just wrong.
- I have other explanations, but one at a time.

Unless and until you understand that under "H" the self is not a separate entity, anything you have to say will be wrong. Further, the only way you are going to show that "H" is wrong is by demonstrating the existence of this self as a separate entity.

 

[JayUtah]

It doesn't matter whether or not a lottery like that is analogous to the way human selves come to exist under H.

It matters very much, because that's the only way you can avoid the straw-man fallacy. If you characterize H as something it's not, and falsify it based on your erroneous characterization, then you haven't falsified anything. That's why the straw-man fallacy is a fallacy.

That could just mean that H is wrong. In other words, it could be that H is not dualistic -- but, we are. And, H is just wrong.

No.

The question is here is not whether H is right or wrong, but whether you're properly stating H. You are not. You keep trying to introduce concepts into H that it does not have. And then, on the basis of alleged problems for H in your foisted concepts, you try to say H cannot produce a sense of self. That is exactly the straw man fallacy.

As godless dave notes, you must formulate P(E|H) as if H were the right answer. And it goes without saying you have to get H right in order for the proof to make sense. The Big Denominator that gives you the near-zero probability for P(E|H) has to come from a concept that's actually in H, not something you add to it. The fact that the Big Denominator is missing from H is not a failure of H; it's a failure of your proof.

I have other explanations, but one at a time.

No further "explanation" rescues you from this error. You are simply wrong about what H says about the sense of self and how it arises. Until you fix that, simply stating and restating what you want H to be will spin this increasingly useless discussion around the hamster wheel again.

 

[John Jones]

Dave,
[...]
- I have other explanations, but one at a time.

You have been saying that for 4+ years, and all your explanations have been blown out of the water.

Do you think we have forgotten all your failed arguments? Have you forgotten them yourself?

 

[jond]

It matters very much, because that's the only way you can avoid the straw-man fallacy. If you characterize H as something it's not, and falsify it based on your erroneous characterization, then you haven't falsified anything. That's why the straw-man fallacy is a fallacy.



No.

The question is here is not whether H is right or wrong, but whether you're properly stating H. You are not. You keep trying to introduce concepts into H that it does not have. And then, on the basis of alleged problems for H in your foisted concepts, you try to say H cannot produce a sense of self. That is exactly the straw man fallacy.

As godless dave notes, you must formulate P(E|H) as if H were the right answer. And it goes without saying you have to get H right in order for the proof to make sense. The Big Denominator that gives you the near-zero probability for P(E|H) has to come from a concept that's actually in H, not something you add to it. The fact that the Big Denominator is missing from H is not a failure of H; it's a failure of your proof.



No further "explanation" rescues you from this error. You are simply wrong about what H says about the sense of self and how it arises. Until you fix that, simply stating and restating what you want H to be will spin this increasingly useless discussion around the hamster wheel again.

Wouldn't it be cool if Jabba actually read and attempted to understand this?

 

[JayUtah]

The "going 60 mph" was almost that corner, but he was allowed to wriggle away

I don't think it's a matter of allowance. After years of observation, I would say Jabba's powers of denial are honed to the point where they can ignore in perpetuity any sufficiently uncomfortable fact. Inasmuch as we have no "contempt of forum" charge to bring against people who refuse to answer damning questions, all we can really do is ensure that a third party reading this thread will handily determine that Jabba has avoided the question. And human nature being what it is, the reasonable reader will correctly assume that the answer to the question would have been the one least favorable to Jabba's position. I know it's tempting to recruit a united front against a recalcitrant opponent, but in an open forum that's hard to accomplish. The rules of the forum allow for evasion, and so we must eke whatever we can out of that.

 

[Jabba]

We were discussing P(E|H). The value for P(E|H) needs to be based on H being right. H being wrong is relevant for P(E|~H).

Dave,
- It's really interesting (to me) how confusing this stuff is. I know that you don't think it's so confusing -- but so far, I just think you're wrong.
- You believe that we cannot reproduce the same self, even though we might someday be able to reproduce identical selves. If we could just keep producing identical selves, there should be an infinity of potential selves, which would mean that the likelihood of your current existence -- given OOFLam -- would be virtually zero.
- Though ... it wouldn't mean that the posterior probability of OOFLam would be virtually zero. That would depend upon your target meaningfulness. I'll try to get to that next time.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- It's really interesting (to me) how confusing this stuff is. I know that you don't think it's so confusing -- but so far, I just think you're wrong.
- You believe that we cannot reproduce the same self, even though we might someday be able to reproduce identical selves. If we could just keep producing identical selves, there should be an infinity of potential selves, which would mean that the likelihood of your current existence -- given OOFLam -- would be virtually zero.

I'll repeat my question from above:

Just like we can't reproduce the same body. Just like after we blow out a candle, we can never get the same flame again. Just like after a snowflake melts, the same snowflake will never exist again.

Can you think of anything in reality that can exist again after it's gone? Why do you think it's significant that particular senses of self can't exist twice when that's the case for literally everything else?

 

[JayUtah]

It's really interesting (to me) how confusing this stuff is. I know that you don't think it's so confusing -- but so far, I just think you're wrong.

It's not confusing and godless dave is not wrong. You've been told several times exactly why your argument fails and how to fix it. So far all you can do is vaguely insist your critics must wrong and then restate your own argument as if nothing had happened. That's not a proof, that's a bully pulpit.

You believe that we cannot reproduce the same self...

Asked and answered. Two is more than one. You already tried several times to drive the wedge of your argument into this mere inescapable fact of cardinality. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.

If we could just keep producing identical selves, there should be an infinity of potential selves...

Asked and answered. The sense of self is not a countable thing under H. Further, even for countable things, you can postulate an infinite number of "potential" such things, and it has absolutely nothing to with the probability of any one thing existing because such things do in fact exist. That's reductio ad absurdum.

All this has been refuted several times. Do not continue blabbering on as if nothing had happened.