Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[Belz...]

- Interesting question...

It's not an "interesting" question. It's a devastating question. It shows how poorly you're thinking about your arguments. None of them -- NONE -- stand up to the merest scrutiny.

As Jay said, you must know this. Otherwise why would you need to find so many reasons to NOT respond to criticism?

but, the functioning brain could just be a receiver of the process

Well, The Sparrow wins the internet, I guess.

No, the brain-as-a-receiver hypothesis does not fit the facts.

 

[jt512]

Well, I'm trying to think about it and it doesn't seem silly to me. It seems self-evident that if there is no probability of something happening (zero probability) then it's what we often call "impossible" or "not possible".

For all practical purposes if an event has a probability of 0 it cannot occur, but technically, if the sample space is infinite, events with probability 0 are not impossible. For example, we throw a dart at a wall. Although the wall has finite size, it contains infinitely many points, because each point on the wall has 0 size. Therefore, the probability of each individual point is 0, yet if the dart hits the wall, the exact center of the dart must hit some point on the wall. Thus an event with probability 0 must occur.

 

[Toontown]

After perusing Jabba's formula, I concluded early on that the way I would go to derive immortality out of finding one's sentient experience being generated by a Very Unlikely Brain is by means of the following 6 point regimen:

1. lose the immutable "self". That just gets in the way.

2. lose the immortal "soul". That's an unwarranted multiplication of entities.

3. Assume any Very Unlikely Brain can have the 'me-ness' property, by sheer acausal chance. Which, as far as I can tell, is precisely how this one got this 'me-ness' property.

4. Don't give a rat's ass whether anyone else thinks your assumption makes any sense or not. I mean, get real. What are the odds that "the answer to life and everything" will be mundanely obvious and sensible? It's forty two, fer crissake. Forty freaking two. And what about spacetime, quantum mechanics, entanglement, and whatnot. It took thousands of years before people started failing to understand any of that.

5. Don't even mention it to anybody, especially people who have taken up "skepticism" as an ideology. A rule which I've technically broken, but I'm just pointing out how weird you have to get to derive immortality out of Jabba's bayesian approach.

6. Never, ever try to "prove" it. Or anything, really, especially in a "skeptic" forum. You're just asking for a headache.

And I can back up my assertions with kickass music and lyrics, which is really what this is all about. It's all just a contrived excuse to post this video:

 

[The Norseman]

For all practical purposes if an event has a probability of 0 it cannot occur, but technically, if the sample space is infinite, events with probability 0 are not impossible. For example, we throw a dart at a wall. Although the wall has finite size, it contains infinitely many points, because each point on the wall has 0 size. Therefore, the probability of each individual point is 0, yet if the dart hits the wall, the exact center of the dart must hit some point on the wall. Thus an event with probability 0 must occur.

I was writing a response to caveman1917's post when I read yours here and… aha!

Now it makes more sense! No offense intended toward caveman1917's efforts which I appreciate.

It sounds, then, to me like the various Zeno's paradoxes; Achilles and the hare, for example. Theoretically, Achilles can never reach the hare (following the cited example) just as theoretically, in an infinite universe and infinite time, theoretically there will always be a chance for a zero-probabiility thing to happen. Is that correct?

I've been looking at it from the perspective of your first statement — "for all practical purposes." Same with Achilles. In reality, he will reach the hare because we cannot slice time up into infinite, discrete units that the thought experiment requires.

This is where the concept of "infinity" makes 'common sense' kind of out the window, I guess.

Is that then what caveman1917 was trying to demonstrate with the existence of Ewoks earlier in the thread? I tried following it and my only counter to it, lame as it is, is that a mathematical proof of the existence of Ewoks isn't the same thing as them actually existing. Here, now, in this universe, which is what I understood that Argumemnon is saying.

Are my perceptions accurate enough?

Applying this to Jabba's… well… ideas. How have people been mistaken in refuting his "mathematics"?

 

[The Norseman]

6. Never, ever try to "prove" it. Or anything, really, especially in a "skeptic" forum. You're just asking for a headache.

Right, that's true. If you want people to just take your word for… literally anything, just go to a theists forum. They'll believe anything with no pesky questions asked.

 

[Loss Leader]

Right, that's true. If you want people to just take your word for… literally anything, just go to a theists forum. They'll believe anything with no pesky questions asked.

Beliefnet stands ready and willing to embrace anyone with a theory of anything.

 

[Toontown]

Right, that's true. If you want people to just take your word for… literally anything, just go to a theists forum. They'll believe anything with no pesky questions asked.

I don't, as indicated. But if you want something proved, go right ahead.

My 6 point program was how I would approach deriving immortality out of my existence, as I said. You may do as you wish, of course.

When proof is obviously impossible, but one may still want to hypothesize about something, it doesn't pay to give a rat's ass whether anyone thinks you're making any sense or not. That attitude won't do anything but stifle creativity.

And it certainly wouldn't make any sense to try to prove it. Not only because it can't be proved, but also because if, by some miracle of logic, you could prove something like that, it would be paradigm-changing, and you should keep your mouth shut. So there is absolutely no reason to try to prove anything like that, ever, in a forum.

So I really don't see anything unreasonable about what I said.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It doesn't pay to give a rat's ass whether anyone thinks you're making any sense or not. That attitude won't do anything but stifle creativity.

Well that's just a lovely bit of anti-intellectual tripe.

 

[Jabba]

- Under H, the brain is the generator, not the receiver.
- But you keep ignoring the fact that, under Bayesian statics, however unlikely your existence is, given that everything is physical, it is still more likely than the multiple unlikely things required if the self is a separate non physical entity. - Remember, just above you noted that your self requires your brain to make itself known. That means that the thing you insist has virtually zero likelihood of existing, still has to exist and be accounted for.

jond,
- My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues. This issue will likely be in the top layer. I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.
- Hopefully, I'll get back to it shortly.

 

[jond]

jond,
- My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues. This issue will likely be in the top layer. I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.
- Hopefully, I'll get back to it shortly.

No, you ran away from it.

Follow:
1. under H, the likelihood of your brain existing = X.
2. under Jabba's ~H: the likelihood of your brain existing =X; the likelihood of your soul existing =y; the likelihood of your soul and your brain connecting is Z.
3. X+Y+Z is always going to be more than X alone.

I don't care how unlikely X is, because it's unlikely existence is necessary for both H and your ~H.

 

[zooterkin]

jond,
- My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues. This issue will likely be in the top layer. I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.
- Hopefully, I'll get back to it shortly.

 

[Belz...]

- My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues. This issue will likely be in the top layer. I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.

What does that even mean?

Instead of trying to make a "map", why don't you do what we're asking you to do and support your basic claim with evidence?

You need to explain why you think there are potential selves at all.

 

[JayUtah]

My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues.

We've seen your "maps". They're versions of the debate dishonestly edited to make it seem like you won when you didn't. What assurance do you give your critics that you won't simply repeat past behavior?

I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.

Your answer was to deny that it was a law of conditional probability. You can imagine why your answer was rejected.

 

[JesseCuster]

jond,
- My hoped for map will have layers of issues and sub-issues. This issue will likely be in the top layer. I have tried to answer it, but apparently haven't succeeded.

You making a 'map' of this debate reminds me of the comedy trope about a character who never gets round to getting anything done because he spends all his time making colour coded charts and lists of the things he has to do...

Seriously, what on earth is the point of a website mapping out the tedious issues, subissues, etc. of this debate, in some great big layered map? Who is actually interested in that? Why bother?

 

[JesseCuster]

You need to explain why you think there are potential selves at all.

And how they're relevant to anything. He's already said, when asked about what they are, that potential selves don't actually exist in any real way.

If there are potential selves, then there are potential anything you can think of. And there's no limit to them. Everything you can imagine has an infinite pool of potentials. So therefore everything, under H, has a probability of existing of 'virtually zero', according to Jabba.

Therefore everything is immortal, not just 'selves'.

Jabba keeps getting asked about this, if and how his supposed logic applies to concepts other than selves, but he won't answer it.

 

[jond]

And how they're relevant to anything. He's already said, when asked about what they are, that potential selves don't actually exist in any real way.

If there are potential selves, then there are potential anything you can think of. And there's no limit to them. Everything you can imagine has an infinite pool of potentials. So therefore everything, under H, has a probability of existing of 'virtually zero', according to Jabba.

Therefore everything is immortal, not just 'selves'.

Jabba keeps getting asked about this, if and how his supposed logic applies to concepts other than selves, but he won't answer it.

And don't forget that potential selves that never existed apparently still have sperm and ovum...

 

[Belz...]

And how they're relevant to anything.

Baby steps, Jesse.

 

[Toontown]

Well that's just a lovely bit of anti-intellectual tripe.

Wow. Harsh. That would stifle me, if i gave a rat's ass.

Among the problems I'm having with giving a rat's ass are:

1. How do I know you're not the one who is anti-intellectual? Evidence seems scarce.

If you even care whether I think you are an intellectual whose opinion I should run scared from, you could demonstrate your creative intellectuality in some manner more substantial than daily rote criticism.

 

[Jabba]

Why not respond to the many posts that address your points in Agatha's charts instead? The real problem has nothing to do with some number over infinity, it is that your H includes something that is not in the scientific model. Until you sort that out, your statistical efforts are both meaningless and wrong.

jond,
- Yeah. I've tried to explain that before -- but, I probably should try again before moving on...
- I claim that we all have the same experience of "self" in mind. Is that where you think that my H includes something that is not in the scientific model?
- I'll try again if that doesn't communicate.

Jond might be referring to this:

Originally Posted by Jabba
- Also, it is the self that would be looking out two sets of eyes if it was perfectly reproduced.

jond and Dave,
- If I understand what you're saying, that's the point... I'm trying to show that H is wrong, cause it's so unlikely for me to exist right now if H (if everything is physical).

 

[jond]

Originally Posted by Jabba
- Also, it is the self that would be looking out two sets of eyes if it was perfectly reproduced.

jond and Dave,
- If I understand what you're saying, that's the point... I'm trying to show that H is wrong, cause it's so unlikely for me to exist right now if H (if everything is physical).

But however unlikely it is that your brain exists if everything is physical, it is still more likely than your version. Because you still have to account for your brain existing if you include a non physical soul.

Follow:
1. under H, the likelihood of your brain existing = X.
2. under Jabba's H: the likelihood of your brain existing =X; the likelihood of your soul existing =Y; the likelihood of your soul and your brain connecting is Z.
3. X+Y+Z is always going to be more than X alone.

I don't care how unlikely X is, because it's unlikely existence is necessary for both H and your ~H.