Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[MarkCorrigan]

Dave,
#1. There is evidence -- you just don't think that it's worth anything. There are plenty of apparently intelligent people who disagree with you.
#2. But, you didn't answer the question. I asked, if you agreed with proposition A, would you agree with proposition B?

I think my irony meter just exploded.

 

[MRC_Hans]

*zip*

1. How do I know your opinion of my post, or your opinions on this thread subject in general, are worth bothering myself about?

Only you can know. It is entirely up to your own arbitration.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

It's just the latest in this string of pseudo-mathematical musings. The argument was expressed earlier in better form as thus:

Let M be that we have a brain. Let S be that we have a brain and soul (and connection between these). S is a subset of M. Then the argument went: given that S is a subset of M therefor for any probability function P it is true that P(M) >= P(S). So they conclude that it is more likely that you don't have a soul than that you do. I'm sure you can find the glaring error in that argument.

The glaring error in this and many other arguments in this thread is the claim that you can, in any sensible way, apply mathematics to this subject at all.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Dave,
#1. There is evidence -- you just don't think that it's worth anything. There are plenty of apparently intelligent people who disagree with you.
#2. But, you didn't answer the question. I asked, if you agreed with proposition A, would you agree with proposition B?

What is a valid target?

Hans

 

[Jabba]

What is a valid target?

Hans

Hans,
- Here, the Texas Sharpshooter argument claims that my current existence is not a legitimate E in the Bayesian formula. In order that my current existence be a legitimate E, I would have to be "special" -- I couldn't be just anybody. Someone winning the lottery (even though his likelihood of his winning was 1/1,000,000) doesn't suggest that the game was rigged.

 

[godless dave]

Anyway, I think we've established that the self you're talking about is not the self described by H. So P(E|H) should not be based on that kind of self. P(E|H) should be based on the kind of self described by H.

 

[JayUtah]

Someone winning the lottery (even though his likelihood of his winning was 1/1,000,000) doesn't suggest that the game was rigged.

Life isn't a lottery under H.

But since you mention it, someone winning a lottery where the odds of winning are low is expected. There is a drawing; someone will win. Picking the individual winner ahead of time is what would make the drawing suspicious. In H, there is no way to "pick a winner ahead of time." You're picking the "winner" after you've come into existence, the same as "picking the winner" after the lottery drawing. Hence, Texas sharpshooter.

 

[carlitos]

I think my irony meter just exploded.

 

[Belz...]

Hans,
- Here, the Texas Sharpshooter argument claims that my current existence is not a legitimate E in the Bayesian formula. In order that my current existence be a legitimate E, I would have to be "special" -- I couldn't be just anybody. Someone winning the lottery (even though his likelihood of his winning was 1/1,000,000) doesn't suggest that the game was rigged.

It's not a lottery. Stop using that analogy. EVERYBODY gets a self. There aren't a pool of potential selves that you "win" when you're born. The body and mind are ONE. Stop trying to pretend otherwise.

 

[Jabba]

#1. Yes. But, That's the point. Such a self would probably require something non-physical.
#2. If you accepted that you and I are valid targets, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against everything being physical?

1) Since there's no evidence such selves exist, we have no reason to suspect the existence of something nonphysical.
2) I don't accept that we're valid targets. We are two of a huge number of possible outcomes. I don't see how our current existence is evidence against everything being physical.

Dave,
#1. There is evidence -- you just don't think that it's worth anything. There are plenty of apparently intelligent people who disagree with you.
#2. But, you didn't answer the question. I asked, if you agreed with proposition A, would you agree with proposition B?

1) I've never heard of anyone besides you posit the existence of a self that could see through two sets of eyes.
2) No because proposition A is far too vague.

Dave,
#1. If we were able to recreate the same person (self) while the person was still alive, that's what we'd get. This is a "self" that you and the reincarnationists 'both' experience. They tend to think that this self is non-physical -- while, you're sure that it isn't.
#2. Proposition A is the Texas Sharpshooter argument. If you believed that you and I were special cases identifying us as legitimate targets, and not just any bullet holes on the wall, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against everything being physical?[/QUOTE]

 

[MRC_Hans]

Hans,
- Here, the Texas Sharpshooter argument claims that my current existence is not a legitimate E in the Bayesian formula. In order that my current existence be a legitimate E, I would have to be "special" -- I couldn't be just anybody. Someone winning the lottery (even though his likelihood of his winning was 1/1,000,000) doesn't suggest that the game was rigged.

What makes you special?
Texas sharp-shooter: Fire the shot, then determine the target.

How were you defined before you were born?

Hans?

 

[carlitos]

How were you defined before you were born?

God has a list.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
#1. If we were able to recreate the same person (self) while the person was still alive, that's what we'd get. This is a "self" that you and the reincarnationists 'both' experience. They tend to think that this self is non-physical -- while, you're sure that it isn't.

Why is that what we'd get? Nothing about the self I experience suggests to me that it could look out of two sets of eyes. Nothing about my experience suggests that it can exist separately from my brain and the rest of my nervous system.

#2. Proposition A is the Texas Sharpshooter argument. If you believed that you and I were special cases identifying us as legitimate targets, and not just any bullet holes on the wall, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against everything being physical?

Not necessarily. It would mean our understanding of what consciousness is wrong, not necessarily that it's non-physical.

 

[Jabba]

Anyway, I think we've established that the self you're talking about is not the self described by H. So P(E|H) should not be based on that kind of self. P(E|H) should be based on the kind of self described by H.

Dave,
- All that H claims is that there is nothing nonphysical. The self to which we are all referring is included by that "nothing."

 

[JayUtah]

If we were able to recreate the same person (self) while the person was still alive, that's what we'd get.

If you perform the thought experiment under the auspices of H, no.

This is a "self" that you and the reincarnationists 'both' experience.

Equivocation.

As I have explained at length, you're dragging elements of ~H into E, and from there into P(E|H). When we say that E must be the same under both H and ~H, that doesn't mean all the garbage you attach to E. E in this case simply means a subjective sense of self. It doesn't mean "what the reincarnationists experience."

They tend to think that this self is non-physical -- while, you're sure that it isn't.

And those are differences between H and ~H, irrespective of E. Until you give up this fast-and-loose equivocation, you will not make progress.

If you believed that you and I were special cases identifying us as legitimate targets, and not just any bullet holes on the wall, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against everything being physical?

"If I were right, you would agree that I was right?"

There is nothing special about you or me. My current existence is not proof that materialism is wrong. The only way you can even appear to make that argument is to commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. After years of committing it and being caught committing it, will you ever see the light?

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- All that H claims is that there is nothing nonphysical. The self to which we are all referring is included by that "nothing."

The self I'm referring to is entirely physical.

 

[JayUtah]

All that H claims is that there is nothing nonphysical.

More accurately, it says there are no non-physical, non-evident explanations for observations.

The self to which we are all referring is included by that "nothing."

The self we're referring to is E. H explains how we got to E one way. ~H is the collection of all other explanations for how we got to E, presumably including some theory you have yet to settle on that gives you a soul.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- All that H claims is that there is nothing nonphysical. The self to which we are all referring is included by that "nothing."

Why do you think your brain's existence is more likely if there is something non physical?

 

[JesseCuster]

Hans,
- Here, the Texas Sharpshooter argument claims that my current existence is not a legitimate E in the Bayesian formula. In order that my current existence be a legitimate E, I would have to be "special" -- I couldn't be just anybody. Someone winning the lottery (even though his likelihood of his winning was 1/1,000,000) doesn't suggest that the game was rigged.

But the lottery analogy doesn't work. You've been trying to set up H such that whenever a person comes into existence, it gets populated with a self, which is plucked at random from an infinitely sized pool of potential selves, which is where you're getting your "1 in infinity" odds of you existing. Thus you conclude that you couldn't have won the potential self lottery and there must be something else going on, i.e. you have an immortal self instead of a mortal self plucked at random from an infinitely sized pool of selves and inserted into a mortal body.

But of course, we all know that this is an absurd scenario which bears no resemblance to the actual scenario H which you are arguing against.

This is just a gigantic strawman.

 

[Jabba]

#1. Yes. But, That's the point. Such a self would probably require something non-physical.
#2. If you accepted that you and I are valid targets, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against everything being physical?

1) Why is that what we'd get? Nothing about the self I experience suggests to me that it could look out of two sets of eyes. Nothing about my experience suggests that it can exist separately from my brain and the rest of my nervous system.
2) Not necessarily. It would mean our understanding of what consciousness is wrong, not necessarily that it's non-physical.

Dave,
- I'm going to skip the first issue for now. I think we should focus on the second.
- I might actually agree with you here.
- I've already said that consciousness could be just another version of physical. I claim that it suggests/implies that not everything is physical, cause it seems different from anything else we call physical -- and then, if we go back to my original H (that we each have only one life to live (at most)), and you accepted that we were legitimate targets, would you agree that our current existence is evidence against us having only one life at most? (I changed H in an attempt to make it simpler, accepting that the new H required an additional logical step.)