Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

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Jabba said:
- OK.
- I'll assume that you accept that there must be an infinity of potential selves that do not currently exist.
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Seriously, Jabba, you must see how dismissively rude this is. If our places are reversed, you wouldn't countenance being treated like this.
 
Argumemnon said:
Well it allows me to determine that he's wrong every time we have a conversation, and knowing whether or not what you say is true sure is useful and practical.
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Your redefinition of the word "wrong" no longer has any relation to the truth value of a statement, so it doesn't help you in the highlighted determination.
 
JesseCuster said:
I've been on and off reading this and previous threads on the forums on this subject and I can't make head nor tail of where Jabba thinks he's heading with this.
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I've struggled with trying to pin down exactly how "meta" Jabba's big two Woo obsessions; immortality and the Shroud of Turin, are.

At times the two pet topics almost come across as these weird performance art shticks that are meant to demonstrate this inane "Effective Debate Method" Jabba claims to have developed more so then actually work as stand alone debates. But an equal amount of the time the whole "Effective Debate" is seen as tailor made to allow Jabba to spout off his nonsense about living forever and the magical beachtowel and maintain the illusion that he's in some high intellectual debate where he's losing only because his opponents aren't following the rules. I've never been able to fully suss out which tail is wagging which dog or if it's some weird combination of both.

Now the root cause is patently obvious. Jabba is obviously advancing in age and scared of dying and has latched onto religion to comfort himself as literally billions of people have done throughout history. The only difference is Jabba's obsessive need to frame this, not in simply spiritual terms as pretty much everyone else who finds comfort in mythologies about afterlife, but as some rational quasi-mathematic probability which it demonstrably is not. To support this he's written himself the narrative that the big mean "skeptics" have something wrong with how they think and argue that's he trying to cure them of.
 
JoeBentley said:
I've struggled with trying to pin down exactly how "meta" Jabba's big two Woo obsessions; immortality and the Shroud of Turin, are.

At times the two pet topics almost come across as these weird performance art shticks that are meant to demonstrate this inane "Effective Debate Method" Jabba claims to have developed more so then actually work as stand alone debates. But an equal amount of the time the whole "Effective Debate" is seen as tailor made to allow Jabba to spout off his nonsense about living forever and the magical beachtowel and maintain the illusion that he's in some high intellectual debate where he's losing only because his opponents aren't following the rules. I've never been able to fully suss out which tail is wagging which dog or if it's some weird combination of both.

Now the root cause is patently obvious. Jabba is obviously advancing in age and scared of dying and has latched onto religion to comfort himself as literally billions of people have done throughout history. The only difference is Jabba's obsessive need to frame this, not in simply spiritual terms as pretty much everyone else who finds comfort in mythologies about afterlife, but as some rational quasi-mathematic probability which it demonstrably is not. To support this he's written himself the narrative that the big mean "skeptics" have something wrong with how they think and argue that's he trying to cure them of.
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I went to his website a short time ago and I recall reading that one thing he wished to do was to, not verbatim but in essence, stick it to the atheists by proving the Shroud was Yeshua's burial shroud. I'm confident in thinking that this "argument" is done along similar lines. IOW, not only is he terrified of dying as you're saying, bue hes' also driven by the very human desire to be PROVEN RIGHT and EVERYONE KNOWS IT.
 
I don't think he cares so much about being proven right, as he does about proving all of us filthy atheists as WRONG! I have seen the same motivation for a number of other people posting in this thread, in that they do not care so much about what Jabba thinks, as much as they care about jumping on the mistakes atheists are making.

Granted, there are mistakes being made, and they should be corrected, but that isn't the underlying purpose for their posting. It isn't about getting things right, but showing just how wrong others are.
 
The frustrating thing for me is that I try to come here to learn. I've taken positions and later been forced to admit to myself that I was wrong.

When I see people who refuse to change their points of view, it bothers me.

Jabba has had a million explanations with a gajillion examples.
 
Loss Leader said:
The frustrating thing for me is that I try to come here to learn. I've taken positions and later been forced to admit to myself that I was wrong.

When I see people who refuse to change their points of view, it bothers me.

Jabba has had a million explanations with a gajillion examples.
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Jabba's innumerable fringe resets stand as strong evidence that he cares nothing for evidence, logic, or Truly Effective Debate. In these last few days alone, he has called his Least Critical Opponent a liar for not agreeing with his non-logic and out-of-context quotes.

I have said in the past that I stuck around to see how this would end. I see now. It will end when they pry that keyboard from his cold hands.
 
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The Norseman said:
I went to his website a short time ago and I recall reading that one thing he wished to do was to, not verbatim but in essence, stick it to the atheists...
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Yes, he indeed said that. And any time I have questions about where his arguments are coming from, I remember what he said there. It's not like he hasn't let slip at times that he holds skeptics in low regard. He has suggested that the reason no one wins the Randi prize is that skeptics are too wedded to their worldview to let it happen. He has suggested that skeptics are simply unable to think in the proper way to appreciate his genius.

IOW, not only is he terrified of dying as you're saying, bue hes' also driven by the very human desire to be PROVEN RIGHT and EVERYONE KNOWS IT.
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He suggested that he would have won the Shroud debate if skeptics hadn't dishonestly rejected his evidence. He suggested that other forums accepted his arguments as valid and probative. Yes, there is a preponderance of evidence for his animus against skeptics. And this is the foundation of his whole approach. He wants to dismiss skeptics as "unfriendly" for treating his nonsensical arguments with appropriate disdain, which gives him the excuse not to talk to them.

Apropos, he's not the first fringe theorist to try to foist his own ground rules on the debate. Metadebate tactics are extremely common in fringe argumentation. Most fringe theorists seem to have a realistic notion for how their claims and evidence would fare in an honest debate. And toward that end they try to foist rules that hobble their opponents or give them an unfair advantage. "Effective Debate" is no different from any other set of foisted rules. Jabba tries to paint them as necessary for civil debate, but they're the same as we see every other time a fringe theorist tries this.

Jabba chooses one opponent to interact with, ostensibly because he's the "friendliest" opponent. Obviously this excuses him from having to answer questions from any other person, no matter how important or devastating to his argument. If the rules limit his responsibility to address any substantive argument simply because he has not pre-ordained its presenter, this is dishonest. Then of course Jabba reserves the right to change designated opponents at will. So when his Least Disagreeable Poster suddenly turns "unfriendly" on him, he has an immediate out. No serious debate can ensue when one gets to pick his opponent from time to time. As a matter of fact, Jabba's theories here run aground on several points, and the chorus of critics has effectively pressed those points. But since they don't come from the designated opponent, to Jabba they simply don't exist, and he can console himself in the belief that he has stuck to his rules.

Another hallmark of Effective Debate™ is focusing on sub-sub-sub-issues until they are fully resolved before moving on. While this seems like being thorough, it's an excuse to focus on irrelevant and irreconcilable minutia rather than glaring errors. Jabba's argument manifests a number of fallacies, any one of which is thoroughly fatal to his claim. But before we can talk about the elephant in the room, we have to count the microbes in the room. That's how fringe claimants avoid facing the straightforward rebuttal to their claims. Keep in mind the goal of fringe claimants is not to win -- it is simply not to lose. As long as they can pretend there's something worth debating -- however minute -- they can pretend they haven't yet been refuted. Jabba's debate technique is effective only at prolonging the discussion and maintaining the illusion of vitality.
 
JayUtah said:
Yes, he indeed said that. And any time I have questions about where his arguments are coming from, I remember what he said there. It's not like he hasn't let slip at times that he holds skeptics in low regard. He has suggested that the reason no one wins the Randi prize is that skeptics are too wedded to their worldview to let it happen. He has suggested that skeptics are simply unable to think in the proper way to appreciate his genius.



He suggested that he would have won the Shroud debate if skeptics hadn't dishonestly rejected his evidence. He suggested that other forums accepted his arguments as valid and probative. Yes, there is a preponderance of evidence for his animus against skeptics. And this is the foundation of his whole approach. He wants to dismiss skeptics as "unfriendly" for treating his nonsensical arguments with appropriate disdain, which gives him the excuse not to talk to them.

Apropos, he's not the first fringe theorist to try to foist his own ground rules on the debate. Metadebate tactics are extremely common in fringe argumentation. Most fringe theorists seem to have a realistic notion for how their claims and evidence would fare in an honest debate. And toward that end they try to foist rules that hobble their opponents or give them an unfair advantage. "Effective Debate" is no different from any other set of foisted rules. Jabba tries to paint them as necessary for civil debate, but they're the same as we see every other time a fringe theorist tries this.

Jabba chooses one opponent to interact with, ostensibly because he's the "friendliest" opponent. Obviously this excuses him from having to answer questions from any other person, no matter how important or devastating to his argument. If the rules limit his responsibility to address any substantive argument simply because he has not pre-ordained its presenter, this is dishonest. Then of course Jabba reserves the right to change designated opponents at will. So when his Least Disagreeable Poster suddenly turns "unfriendly" on him, he has an immediate out. No serious debate can ensue when one gets to pick his opponent from time to time. As a matter of fact, Jabba's theories here run aground on several points, and the chorus of critics has effectively pressed those points. But since they don't come from the designated opponent, to Jabba they simply don't exist, and he can console himself in the belief that he has stuck to his rules.

Another hallmark of Effective Debate™ is focusing on sub-sub-sub-issues until they are fully resolved before moving on. While this seems like being thorough, it's an excuse to focus on irrelevant and irreconcilable minutia rather than glaring errors. Jabba's argument manifests a number of fallacies, any one of which is thoroughly fatal to his claim. But before we can talk about the elephant in the room, we have to count the microbes in the room. That's how fringe claimants avoid facing the straightforward rebuttal to their claims. Keep in mind the goal of fringe claimants is not to win -- it is simply not to lose. As long as they can pretend there's something worth debating -- however minute -- they can pretend they haven't yet been refuted. Jabba's debate technique is effective only at prolonging the discussion and maintaining the illusion of vitality.
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As usual, you state what's going on with extreme acuity and eloquence! Thank you, btw.

My only interaction with him so far was the book written by Susan Blackmore in which he claimed she said something which either supported or 'proved' him correct; I was polite (IIRC) enough but still ignored. So sad. Well, of course, I know why I was ignored. I was willing and able to confront his 'evidence' and post excerpts here for everyone to see.
 
Indeed in the broad strokes Jabba is just another in a long line of "Taking the skeptics to task" posters which we've seen countless variations of across the entire Woo Slinger and Woo Apologists spectrum. And as noted we've had a good half dozen cases at least over the last half decade of people coming into this thread for the sole purpose of thread nannying the people who are disassembling Jabba's nonsense from every angle for every argumentative slight, real or imagined, they make as often as not while ignoring the brick wall of argumentative nonsense Jabba has crafted.

At its core it's a pretty deep strain of anti-intellectualism. There's a not insignificant population of people out there that are deeply offended at the very idea of skepticism or debunking; they take a personal affront to anyone providing evidence that someone else is wrong. They treat actually knowing what you are talking about and being able to back up your statements with evidence, facts, logic, or internal argumentative consistency as an unfair advantage you are bullying the other person with.

This is why long ago I lost more patience with the apologists then with the actual Woo Slingers. The perverse glee some people get in picking apart the 1% of arguments the rational side gets wrong / presents wrong while ignoring the 100% of the arguments the Woo Side gets wrong will never make sense to me.
 
Dave,
- It appears that I have confused two issues:
1. Is there an infinity of potential selves (in the manner of potential Volkswagons)?
2. Is the likelihood of your current existence something over infinity?

- I think you actually agree with me re the number of potential selves, but not the likelihood of your current existence.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- It appears that I have confused two issues:
1. Is there an infinity of potential selves (in the manner of potential Volkswagons)?
2. Is the likelihood of your current existence something over infinity?

- I think you actually agree with me re the number of potential selves, but not the likelihood of your current existence.
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As I said before, yes that's correct.
 
Jabba said:
1. Is there an infinity of potential selves (in the manner of potential Volkswagons)?
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You stubbornly don't get what he means by this. If you're going to invent the concept of "potential" existence in order to arrive at the Big Denominator that controls likelihood, you need to realize that "potential" existence therefore can't be a concept that applies only to humans and souls, but literally to everything that does or can exist. Including Volkswagens, bananas, and mountains. Unless you're prepared to argue that all these things can't possibly exist without souls, you have been refuted. "Potential" somethings does not govern whether the ones that exist actually do or should exist.

2. Is the likelihood of your current existence something over infinity?
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The likelihood of my current existence is 1, because I'm existing to observe it. If infinity is your divisor then the answer is zero. Not "virtually" zero, but exactly zero. Is that really what you want to argue?

I think you actually agree with me re the number of potential selves, but not the likelihood of your current existence.
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Careful. You're quote-mining again. In your latest grovel for agreement you left out Dave's qualifier. Again. The qualifier is important because it puts your proposal in context.
 
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