Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

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Jabba said:
Mojo,
- I disagree that they have been well-reasoned -- and, I've responded to as many as I've had time to. Many of them take some serious thought.
- For whatever reasons, we humans often come to opinions that we can't quickly support. Sometimes we're wrong; but many times, we're right.
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If you can't support them, they are most likely wrong.
 
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Jabba said:
Agatha,
- In my opinion, your objections should be duly noted, but not too much worried about... Consciousness is just a difficult topic to discuss agreeably.
- For instance, the word "thing" doesn't necessarily denote an object. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thing.
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I had thought I was being perfectly agreeable with you, and I don't agree that consciousness is a difficult topic to discuss agreeably.
 
Jabba said:
I disagree that they have been well-reasoned --
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The customary way of doing that is to explain what's wrong with the reasoning. You haven't done any of that.

...and, I've responded to as many as I've had time to.
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No, you deliberately ignore the ones that are too long or which aren't friendly enough. As I pointed out not a week ago, you give all sorts of various and incompatible reasons for not responding to posts.

Many of them take some serious thought.
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Which you don't demonstrate you're willing to undertake. You single out my posts specifically, saying they require considerable thought. But rather than make the effort to think about them, you rely upon your tried-and-true tactic of responding only to easy posts and resetting the argument every day.

For whatever reasons, we humans often come to opinions that we can't quickly support. Sometimes we're wrong; but many times, we're right.
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You've been trying to support this one for nearly five years, and in that time you've hardly changed your tune. You can't support it and you know it. You seem to accept that the facts show you're wrong, but you told us blatantly that you could emotionally never admit you were wrong.

So let's recap this post. The thread is voluminous, and you help that along by posting largely the same set of posts every day. The criticism requires you to think carefully, but you make no effort to do that. The objections to your claims are poorly-reasoned, but you can't say why. And you drew your conclusion on an emotional basis and are now trying (and failing) to prove it objectively.

So again, why should a thinking person take you seriously?
 
Jabba said:
- Trying to re-group and present my premises for your objections:

1. There is such a ‘thing’ (process?) as consciousness.
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It’s a process. It’s reasonably well explained by “materialism”. We don’t know all the details, but the broad strokes seem sound enough, and all experimentation to date and all evidence points to consciousness being generated by a normally functioning brain.

2. Consciousness naturally brings with it a “self” (or, “sense of self”).
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No, the sense of self is part of the consciousness process. If you have a normal human type consciousness, part of it is the “sense of self”. Again, reasonably well explained by materialism.

3. “Self” being the experience that reincarnationists believe returns to life.
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I’ll grant that they believe that, but it’s not part of your H (materialism) and under H is not needed to explain the observations that you exist, and that you have a sense of self. According to materialism, reincarnationists are simply wrong about their belief.

Since the rest of your argument relies on these first three points, we can stop there.
 
JesseCuster said:
These 2 make no sense, but your entire claim revolves around them because this is where the magical infinity denominator comes from.

1. Does every existing X have a 'potential X' before it comes into existence? Are there currently in existence potential bananas, potential haircuts, potential new Fast and the Furious sequels, potential first female POTUS, potential top grossing movies of 2018, etc. in existence right now?

2. If the answer to 1. is yes, then does that mean that haircuts and top grossing movies of 2018 are immortal because the odds of them existing are thus something/infinity and thus they can't exist the way we think they do and must thus be something special and immortal? If the answer is no, then why should selves have potentials in existence before actual existence when other things don't?

3. In what form does a potential self exist before it actually comes into existence? Or to put it another way, what exactly is a 'potential self'?

4. Why do you think there are infinite potential selves and not a finite number of them?

Your argument is pinned on the existence of this vague idea of an infinity of potential selves, but can you explain what it means and how you know it actually exists, before you can use it as a basis to calculate any sort of odds?
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Jabba is still trying to figure out a way of saying "because people have immortal souls" without it being blindingly obvious that he is begging the question.
 
Jabba -

You asked me a question and I responded. You asked a follow-up question and I responded to that here. But I have not heard from you since. May I expect the courtesy of a reply?
 
Mojo said:
Jabba is still trying to figure out a way of saying "because people have immortal souls" without it being blindingly obvious that he is begging the question.
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I've held the opinion for a few years now (and holy crap isn't that depressing when you think about it) that this discussion has become sort of meta-fascinating.

I've seen people beg the question. I've seen people bootstrap their own premises up from nothing. I've seen circular arguments. I've seen "X is defined as X, therefore X is X" arguments. I've seen special pleading. I've seen "If you accept that I'm right, I am right" arguments.

I've seen a thousand variations on all these argumentatives.

I have never, never seen anyone approach them without such gusto and web them into a paradoxically cohesive web of non-cohesiveness.

This discussion has been like watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe building up to Infinity War where they took a bunch of different characters that sorta existed in their own sub-genres starting off on their own then later coming together to form a team except replace "characters" with "bad arguments" and "team" with "even worse conclusions."

This isn't a discussion. This is a Passion Play for bad argumentatives. This whole thing reads like it was written by someone that actively "likes" bad argumentatives and wants to write fan fiction about it.
 
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Agatha said:
Jabba, I'm curious about your 1 in 7 billion idea. Leaving aside that it's nonsense for many reasons (not least of which is that your 'self' is in part a product of your unique DNA which you got from your parents), why did you choose 1 in 7 billion? It is the approximate number of people existing on the earth right now, but why do you choose the present time and not the approximate number of people existing on earth at the time of your birth or your conception?

I was born in 1963, and there were approximately 3.2bn people living at that time. I gather from your posts that you are a little older than I am; in 1950 there were only 2.5bn people for example.

Can you please explain why you chose 7 billion?
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Agatha,
- Unfortunately, this won't be easy...
- I didn't actually chose 1 in 7 billion. I chose 7 billion over infinity. I see my current existence as being analogous to one of the winners of a lottery where there are 7 billion winners out of an infinity of participants/possibilities.
- It could be however, that a better estimate would have been much smaller. I was born between 10 and 11 pm on June 4, 1942 in Lecompte LA to Louise and Gordon Savage. Given that information, the likelihood of my current existence is only 1 in infinity.
- Hopefully, I won't need to explain why my chances weren't 1 in 1...
 
Jabba said:
Agatha,
- Unfortunately, this won't be easy...
- I didn't actually chose 1 in 7 billion. I chose 7 billion over infinity. I see my current existence as being analogous to one of the winners of a lottery where there are 7 billion winners out of an infinity of participants/possibilities.
- It could be however, that a better estimate would have been much smaller. I was born between 10 and 11 pm on June 4, 1942 in Lecompte LA to Louise and Gordon Savage. Given that information, the likelihood of my current existence is only 1 in infinity.
- Hopefully, I won't need to explain why my chances weren't 1 in 1...
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Because you are employing the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
 
Loss Leader said:
Jabba,

I'm sorry to tell you that such a likelihood is impossible to calculate. The problem is that we have no idea how many universes have existed "before" ours - how many were too small and collapsed, how many were too big and completely came apart, how many had fatal flaws in their maths that led (like a fetus with a mutation) to their early demise.

If the chance that sentient life might somewhere exist at some time was only 1 in 1,000,000,000,000, that information would be of very little use if this is the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 universe to exist. In fact, the chance of this universe coming into existence approaches 1.

So, I apologize for not being able to follow your hypothetical. There's simply too little information to begin to create a probability - either very small or nearly certain.
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LL,
- Yeah. I'm just saying that knowing so little about ultimate reality should put a damper on our confidence about limitations on our existence -- especially, when we currently exist.
 
Jabba said:
- Unfortunately, this won't be easy...
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It could be, though, if you bothered to learn from what people are telling you rather than ignoring them because you disagree.

- I didn't actually chose 1 in 7 billion. I chose 7 billion over infinity. I see my current existence as being analogous to one of the winners of a lottery where there are 7 billion winners out of an infinity of participants/possibilities.
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But you're wrong. The numbers have nothing to do with anything. It's a smokescreen.

Given that information, the likelihood of my current existence is only 1 in infinity.
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Which, as has been explained, is zero, while the real odds of you existing is 1, since you're here.

- Hopefully, I won't need to explain why my chances weren't 1 in 1...
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Yes you do, because they actually are 1 in 1. You're here.
 
- My map will be an attempt to provide both sides of this story. I'm currently reopening an old website where I'll include the map, and where I'll happily include all your questions and objections.
 
Argumemnon said:
It could be, though, if you bothered to learn from what people are telling you rather than ignoring them because you disagree.



But you're wrong. The numbers have nothing to do with anything. It's a smokescreen.



Which, as has been explained, is zero, while the real odds of you existing is 1, since you're here.



Yes you do, because they actually are 1 in 1. You're here.
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Argumemnon,
- I only have so much time.
 
Jabba said:
Argumemnon,
- I only have so much time.
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You keep claiming that you're an old man. What possible obligations could you have that occupy you to the point where you can't take a few minutes of your day to learn something that would save you hours upon hours in the coming years?

I don't believe you.
 
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