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Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

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Jabba said:
- I would say, "N0."
1. With the emergent property of consciousness, your object has a separate, specific, identity (self) that is not physically repeatable.
2. This is the "identity" to which we refer when we question the self's mortality.
3. It's a kind of identity that non-conscious objects do not have.
Click to expand...

No such identity exists under H.
 
Jabba, remember all the discussions we all had about emergent properties a while back where you were shown very specifically why you are wrong about how they work? And why you ran away from the idea when it was made clear that emergent properties do not, can not, exist without the components that give rise to them functioning? Now might be a good time to go back and read all those responses, and try very hard to understand them.
 
Jabba said:
- I would say, "N0."
1. With the emergent property of consciousness, your object has a separate, specific, identity (self) that is not physically repeatable.
2. This is the "identity" to which we refer when we question the self's mortality.
3. It's a kind of identity that non-conscious objects do not have.
4. And, there is no formula we can follow to repeat this specific identity.
Click to expand...

You are wrong.

Hans
 
1000
Jabba said:
Dave,
1. The word "self" has multiple meanings.
2. The meaning that I wish to address is the particular self that reincarnationists believe returns to life.
3. Even if the reincarnationists are wrong in their belief, they are referring to something real.
- So far, so good?
Click to expand...

1002
godless dave said:
And under H, that "something real" is entirely physical. It's part of the brain.
Click to expand...

1023
godless dave said:
Under H, a self is as repeatable as anything else. If you were to precisely repeat the events that led to my self existing under precisely the same conditions, you would end up with a self exactly like mine.
Click to expand...

1035
Jabba said:
- I would say, "N0."
1. With the emergent property of consciousness, your object has a separate, specific, identity (self) that is not physically repeatable.
2. This is the "identity" to which we refer when we question the self's mortality.
3. It's a kind of identity that non-conscious objects do not have.
4. And, there is no formula we can follow to repeat this specific identity.
Click to expand...

1041
godless dave said:
No such identity exists under H.
Click to expand...

Dave,
- In 1000 I claim that whether the reincarnationists are right or wrong about reincarnation, they are referring to something real.
- In 1002, you seem to agree.
- In 1041, you seem to have changed your mind.
 
I didn't change my mind. You offered more detail about what you were referring to. I don't know if what you describe in post 1035 is really what reincarnationists believe in, but it definitely is not part of the scientific model of consciousness.
 
Jabba said:
- In 1000 I claim that whether the reincarnationists are right or wrong about reincarnation, they are referring to something real.
- In 1002, you seem to agree.
- In 1041, you seem to have changed your mind.
Click to expand...

Meaningless twaddle. What the reincarnationists believe has nothing to do with H. What you or Dave thinks the reincarnationists are talking about has nothing to do with H. The "reality" of what the reincarnationists believe has already been dealt with. Perhaps you should pay attention to the whole debate instead of trying to manufacture some daily tripwire for the only critic you respond to.
 
Jabba said:
- I would say, "N0."
1. With the emergent property of consciousness, your object has a separate, specific, identity (self) that is not physically repeatable.
2. This is the "identity" to which we refer when we question the self's mortality.
3. It's a kind of identity that non-conscious objects do not have.
4. And, there is no formula we can follow to repeat this specific identity.
Click to expand...


Jabba, you are arguing that if such an entity exists, your existence us impossible. That means that if your argument is valid only hypotheses under which such an entity doesn't exist can be true.

H does not include such an entity. Your preferred hypothesis, under which you have an immaterial soul which is associated with your body and can survive the death of your body, does.

Do you see your problem?
 
Jabba said:
1000

1002

1023

1035

1041

Dave,
- In 1000 I claim that whether the reincarnationists are right or wrong about reincarnation, they are referring to something real.
- In 1002, you seem to agree.
- In 1041, you seem to have changed your mind.
Click to expand...


It is obvious to anyone reading the thread that Dave does not agree that the immortal soul is real.
 
Mojo said:
It is obvious to anyone reading the thread that Dave does not agree that the immortal soul is real.
Click to expand...

Analogues appear to go over Jabba's head. The reincarnationists have a formulation for whatever they believe transmits life experience and vitality from one physical organism to another. This, in their beliefs, is what is experienced subjectively as the self. The equivalent under H is just the brain, and it doesn't persist after death. Yes, it's clear to everyone else what Dave said. But Jabba has latched onto something that, to him, conveys a whisper of agreement if read with appropriately tortuous distortion.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- In 1000 I claim that whether the reincarnationists are right or wrong about reincarnation, they are referring to something real.
- In 1002, you seem to agree.
- In 1041, you seem to have changed your mind.
Click to expand...


That's what happens when you equivocate between two different definitions of a word. Dave is referring to the definition of "identity" under H, and you are using whatever happens to be your preferred meaning for today and pretending it applies to H.
 
Jabba said:
Caveman,
- I don't understand why you say that.
Click to expand...

I've explained a half-dozen different ways why your observation of your own existence E, cannot discriminate between competing hypotheses H about how you came to exist. Everybody in the thread should go back and read those posts, and then ask yourselves what the point is of arguing about the details of any such H.
 
Jabba this game you're playing of continually splitting hairs and jumping back and forth between the split hairs willy-nilly in a transparent attempt to catch your opponents in either a manufactured contradiction or forcing us to make some statement you can twist into agreeing with you is getting old.

You're trying to use the fact that you are so immune to counter arguments that we have to resort to a billion different metaphors and angles of argumentative attack against us and none of us have the patience for anymore attempts to try and clumsily hoist us up by our own petards anymore.

A child can understand the difference between a thing and a process, between the same thing and an identical thing, and between a hypothetical perfect situation in which you could hypothetically recreate an identical process and doing so in any real world situation and between starting a new process with all the same variables and continuing the same process. Your entire argumentative strategy is pretending you can't by falsely and dishonestly acting like your opponents aren't being clear enough.
 
Argumemnon said:
He didn't change his mind at all.
Click to expand...


No, but Jabba thinks that if he says Dave seemed to change his mind he can sidetrack the discussion into the issues of:
a) whether Dave actually changed his mind;
b) whether it it reasonable for Jabba to think that Dave changed his mind;
c) whether the nasty skeptics are being mean to Jabba by not taking his age and befuddlement into account;
d) etc.
 
jt512 said:
I've explained a half-dozen different ways why your observation of your own existence E, cannot discriminate between competing hypotheses H about how you came to exist.
Click to expand...

They are not competing hypotheses about how he came to exist. But now I understand how you've gotten to your argument and why you were trying to insert E in the likelihoods earlier. Refer back to my earlier example about my parents having met:

H is "my parents have met"
~H is "my parents have not met"
P(H) = P(~H)
E is "I exist" <- this is not where Jabba's argument fails
P(E|H) > P(E|~H) <- this is where his argument fails

Then (assuming I came to exist either through my parents having regular intercourse or my parents having used artificial insemination):
E n H = "I came to exist through my parents having regular intercourse"
E n ~H = "I came to exist through my parents having used artificial insemination"

The hypotheses about how I came to exist are E n H and E n ~H and not H or ~H. The latter are hypotheses about the universe in general (whether it is one where my parents have met or not) for which my existence is merely relevant.

Trivially P(E | E n H) = P(E | E n ~H) = 1, but that's neither relevant - it just says that the probability of an event conditioned on a subset is 1 - nor does "your own existence" have anything to do with it, since as you can see P(E | E n H) = P(E | E n ~H) for any events E and H.

Likewise in Jabba's argument the hypotheses are not about how he came to exist, but about the universe in general (whether it is one where our selves are mortal or not). But in his case his existence is not even relevant to them, which is, again, where it fails. You can see this by Jabba arguing that the likelihood of his existence under H is "virtually zero" and not "exactly 1".
 
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Jabba

caveman1917 said:
You can see this by Jabba arguing that the likelihood of his existence under H is "virtually zero" and not "exactly 1".
Click to expand...

Whenever you want to write "virtually zero" write "epsilon" instead, and whenever you want to write "infinity" write "some large number N" instead. It's clear that you simply think infinity means some very large number, but rather than making the mental substitution your critics take it literally, leading into yet more irrelevant barrages of philosophy, bad math and, rarely, (semi-)decent math.
 
caveman1917 said:
Jabba



Whenever you want to write "virtually zero" write "epsilon" instead, and whenever you want to write "infinity" write "some large number N" instead. It's clear that you simply think infinity means some very large number, but rather than making the mental substitution your critics take it literally, leading into yet more irrelevant barrages of philosophy, bad math and, rarely, (semi-)decent math.
Click to expand...

No. When Jabba wants to divide by infinity, it is because he wants the result to be zero. He knows, and the rest of us know.

Hans
 
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