Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[CriticalThanking]

Jabba,

As many have stated, the copy and the original would both think they are the "real" person. They would begin to diverge from the point of copy as they begin to have different experiences. Did you somehow miss all of those posts?

 

[Jabba]

I will answer this if you answer the following:

Once a match burns out, can we ever get the same flame again?

- No.

 

[Belz...]

Dave,
Is the personal identity, sense of self, re-creatible?

YES, YES, YES.

You've been told a hundred times.

 

[godless dave]

- No.

So an individual flame isn't re-creatable.

And neither is a brain. Or that brain's awareness. Or anything else.

 

[Belz...]

So an individual flame isn't re-creatable.

And neither is a brain. Or that brain's awareness. Or anything else.

It is in principle, but not in practice. If you can recreate the exact same match under the exact same conditions you'd have the same flame, but good luck trying that.

 

[jond]

It is in principle, but not in practice. If you can recreate the exact same match under the exact same conditions you'd have the same flame, but good luck trying that.

Identical flame, not same. Godless Dave is showing Jabba the difference between "same" and "identical".

 

[Belz...]

Identical flame, not same. Godless Dave is showing Jabba the difference between "same" and "identical".

Ah, yes. But Jabba asked whether it's re-creatable. I'm not sure he was asking whether it'd be the "same", though it's always a challenge to know what jabba is arguing.

 

[JayUtah]

Is the personal identity, sense of self, re-creatible?

Loaded question. You still insist on blurring the lines between "distinct," "identical", and the resulting understanding of cardinality -- and now chronology. You're trying like mad to defuse the thought experiment of exactly reproducing the physical brain and, under H, producing a sense of self identical to the first. Distinct from it, but in all other respects indistinguishable.

That is the case with H. No amount of fancy wordplay changes the underlying concepts you're strenuously trying to rewrite.

 

[The Sparrow]

I know its really really hard for you to conceive that something as complex and 'real' as a sense of self could arise from a biological/chemical process.
Your incredulity does not count for anything though. Especially when we see evidence of self awareness in dolphins and chimps. We're just animals and we're all gonna die and be lost, like.......tears........in....the..rain.

 

[JesseCuster]

- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness.

Why do you think that?

The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not.

Why do you think that?

More to the point, how is any of this going to prove the existence of an immortal soul?

 

[The Sparrow]

Why do you think that?

Why do you think that?

More to the point, how is any of this going to prove the existence of an immortal soul?

Its the thin edge of an elaborate 'theory'

 

[JayUtah]

Why do you think that?
Why do you think that?

Hint: he doesn't. It's just the latest straw for him to grasp at. He just needs someone to respond to it by making a noise that sounds vaguely like agreement. But you probably already know that.

More to the point, how is any of this going to prove the existence of an immortal soul?

The same way casting aspersions on the prevailing theory pretends to prove any fringe theory. If you can trump up enough doubt (real or imaginary) in the "official version" of anything, then your wacky fringe theory starts to look better in contrast even if its just as bad or worse -- in terms of evidentiary support -- as the official story.

Jabba's method of casting aspersion on the prevailing theory is Bayesian inference, a topic he admits he does not adequately understand. But like so many other misguided fringe theorists, Jabba writes as if it's a magical formula that coverts wishes into facts. It also tries to paint a coat of objectivity over what Jabba has brazenly shown is just his autumn-years angst. His awareness is such a beautiful miracle, it can't possible end with death or be the autonomous product of a crude organism. He feels that it's something like a soul, so it must be, otherwise Jabba will be very, very sad. So if he feels in his heart-of-hearts that it can't be so mundane, statistical probability "must" therefore show the scientific model to be nearly impossible to actually occur.

To make the answer come out the way he's already decided it needs to, part of the formula needs to be any old number -- it doesn't matter -- divided by a number so huge that only the concept of infinity will suffice. So today's foray into "types of aspects" is just the tap-dance du jour by which Jabba demands that there must be some actual entity that is individualized as the sense of self. And this daily figment of Jabba's imagination wouldn't be found in a hypothetically perfect copy of the organism. Therefore an infinite number of them must exist, therefore science is wrong by Bayesian "proof," and therefore Jabba "must" have a soul by default, since science said he didn't.

But you probably already knew that.

 

[Belz...]

But you probably already knew that.

If in my later years I become sufficiently fearful of death I may weave for myself a beautiful lie that will convince me of my own immortality; but I can assure you that I won't try to convince anyone else that it's somehow scientifically true or even remotely probable.

 

[MRC_Hans]

- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...

Nonsense. There is only one aspect. The function of the brain.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Dave,
Is the personal identity, sense of self, re-creatible?

Yes!

 

[MRC_Hans]

No, for the same reason you cannot recreate the brain.

Yes, it is recreatable. It will be a different instance, but in theory we can recreates a perfect copy.

We have to stop beating around the bush. According to materialism, which is the H instance in Jabba's formula, the mind, self, and sense of self is recreatable. If we make a perfect copy of you, it will feel like you and be indistinguishable from you.

Hans

 

[Hokulele]

Yes, it is recreatable. It will be a different instance, but in theory we can recreates a perfect copy.

We have to stop beating around the bush. According to materialism, which is the H instance in Jabba's formula, the mind, self, and sense of self is recreatable. If we make a perfect copy of you, it will feel like you and be indistinguishable from you.

Hans

Jabba is trying to sneak in a "but the copy is not the same as the original" argument again. It's the same equivocation he has fallen back on time and time again, and my response is more about how no one is confused about the difference between resurrecting the "same" brain, and making a copy of it.

Well, no one but Jabba.

 

[JayUtah]

Yes, it is recreatable. It will be a different instance, but in theory we can recreates a perfect copy.

That's the essence of Jabba's word game today. He's trying to shave the tiniest sliver of doubt away from the concept of "reproduce" meaning to make a copy (ostensibly from first principles), versus "recreate" -- which Jabba is trying to equivocate to mean something philosophically impossible. By "recreate" Jabba does not mean to make a copy, but to bring back into existence something -- e.g., a candle flame -- that has expired.

If we make a perfect copy of you, it will feel like you and be indistinguishable from you.

Except in its ordinality, which is where Jabba has frantically been trying to hang his hat for years.

 

[Belz...]

That's the essence of Jabba's word game today. He's trying to shave the tiniest sliver of doubt away from the concept of "reproduce" meaning to make a copy (ostensibly from first principles), versus "recreate" -- which Jabba is trying to equivocate to mean something philosophically impossible. By "recreate" Jabba does not mean to make a copy, but to bring back into existence something -- e.g., a candle flame -- that has expired.

Yes he means a continuation of the original, not a copy with a separate but identical consciousness.

 

[Jabba]

So an individual flame isn't re-creatable.

And neither is a brain. Or that brain's awareness. Or anything else.

Dave,
- But consciousness is special. Consciousness brings with it a specific personal awareness -- a self. Not something that science really understands. Grass, flames, mountains don't appear to have consciousness, nor specific personal awareness/identities (though, it could be that these others just don't have a way of expressing their consciousness. (Auras? I once found a skinny rainbow around myself for about 5 minutes! I jog, it was a hot day, I was jogging and sweating -- but, I've been jogging for maybe 60 years, in a lot of heat, and that was the only time I ever experienced such a thing.))
- Anyway, we humans engender specific examples of consciousness, "selves," that we cannot (so far) recreate. If we can't recreate them, they are not physically traceable. Or, that's my current conclusion...