Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I don't think that makes sense. H is simply, "Everything is physical." Everything includes what I experience as a sense of self. IOW, H includes my kind of self.

And H says that, being physical, your sense of self is not separate from your body and could not possibly look out of two sets of eyes. So if you're talking about a sense of self that is not separate from your body and could not possibly look out of two sets of eyes, then we're talking about the kind of self that exists in H.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- I don't think that makes sense. H is simply, "Everything is physical." Everything includes what I experience as a sense of self. IOW, H includes my kind of self.

No, if H is the hypothesis that everything is physical, it does not include immaterial souls.

 

[Mojo]

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

H says that that kind of "self" doesn't exist.

 

[Mojo]

- 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.

Nobody has suggested that "selves" are "another version of physical". Under H consciousness is the result of the sort of physical processes we observe. H does not suggest that there are other "versions of physical".

 

[Mojo]

Anyway, Jabba, back to the question I asked that you have once again failed to address:

- if we take H as being the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul in addition to your body, do you think that your current existence is evidence against H?

 

[zooterkin]

No, if H is the hypothesis that everything is physical, it does not include immaterial souls.

Anyway, Jabba, back to the question I asked that you have once again failed to address:

- if we take H as being the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul in addition to your body, do you think that your current existence is evidence against H?

Are you trying to confuse Jabba?

 

[Mojo]

I'm trying to get him to answer a question.

 

[Toontown]

Of course, when you haven't conditioned on the evidence itself.

That pitfall can easily be avoided by differentiating between prior probability and post hoc certainty.

For example, Tim tells Jill the CIA has been trying to kill her since December.

Jill notices she is alive, and rejects Tim's assertion.

There is the prior probability distribution that Jill would be alive (or not) if the CIA has been trying to kill her since December, and there is the post hoc certainty that Jill is alive. Both are meaningful.

But Tim accuses Jill of having committed the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. "What about all the other people the CIA has been trying to kill, but aren't dead yet?" Tim sagely asks. "Why are you ignoring them?"

"I don't know how many people the CIA is trying to kill that aren't dead yet, but I'll assume there are some, and i'll assume some have been lucky. But that has no effect on my prior probability of being dead by now if the CIA was after me. It is less likely that the CIA has been trying to kill me than your assertion being false."

Jill knows she is alive whether the CIA has been trying to kill her or not, and uses that fact. Jill also knows she almost certainly would not be alive now if the CIA has been trying to kill her, but probably would be alive if the CIA was not trying to kill her.

Jill also knows the entire question would not have arisen unless she is alive now. And that's why Jill uses probability. Jill is smart enough to consider the possibility that she could be dead even though she is alive. Jill knows probability can differentiate between different possible reasons why Jill is alive. "Given that I am alive in either case", Jill thinks, "Which hypothesis is more consistent with the fact that I am alive? The CIA has been trying to kill me since December and I've just been lucky so far, or the CIA has not been trying to kill me, and Tim is an ass?"

Jill is smart. Jill knows the CIA has probably not been trying to kill her. Tim is stupid. Tim thought Jill would be afraid of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.

Maybe Jill is afraid of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. But she is not afraid of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy fallacy.

 

[Jabba]

Anyway, Jabba, back to the question I asked that you have once again failed to address:

- if we take H as being the hypothesis that you have an immortal soul in addition to your body, do you think that your current existence is evidence against H?

Mojo,
- But that is not H.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Mojo,
- But that is not H.

 

[Mojo]

Mojo,
- But that is not H.

If it was, would you say that your existence was evidence against it?

 

[Jabba]

If it was, would you say that your existence was evidence against it?

- No.

 

[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,
- I don't think that makes sense. H is simply, "Everything is physical." Everything includes what I experience as a sense of self. IOW, H includes my kind of self.

And H says that, being physical, your sense of self is not separate from your body and could not possibly look out of two sets of eyes. So if you're talking about a sense of self that is not separate from your body and could not possibly look out of two sets of eyes, then we're talking about the kind of self that exists in H.

Dave,
- H is an hypothesis. It makes a claim. It claims that everything is physical. I seek to evaluate H -- to determine how likely it is that H is correct.
- My claim is that the current existence of what I experience as my self suggests that H is not correct. As long as I'm really experiencing something, H -- in talking about everything -- is talking about what I am experiencing.
- H isn't saying that my experience doesn't exist. H is simply saying that my interpretation is wrong -- that there must be something wrong with my logic.

 

[Mojo]

- No.

Why not? Your current existence under that hypothesis requires your body to exist. If your body didn't exist your existence wouldn't be an observable event.

Under both the hypothesis you oppose and the hypothesis you favour your current existence requires your body to exist. Under the hypothesis you oppose, that is all that is necessary. You claim that under that hypothesis your current existence is so unlikely that your current existence is evidence against that hypothesis. If your argument is a valid argument against that hypothesis, then it is equally valid against any hypothesis under which your existence is no more likely than it is under that hypothesis. Your current existence under the hypothesis you favour cannot possibly be more likely than it is under that hypothesis unless your body is for some reason more likely to exist under the hypothesis you favour than it is under the one you oppose.

What makes your body more likely to exist under your favoured hypothesis than it is under the hypothesis you oppose?

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- H is an hypothesis. It makes a claim. It claims that everything is physical. I seek to evaluate H -- to determine how likely it is that H is correct.
- My claim is that the current existence of what I experience as my self suggests that H is not correct. As long as I'm really experiencing something, H -- in talking about everything -- is talking about what I am experiencing.
- H isn't saying that my experience doesn't exist. H is simply saying that my interpretation is wrong -- that there must be something wrong with my logic.

With H as you are now defining it, ~H includes hypotheses under which you only have one finite lifetime but not everything is physical.

 

[The Norseman]

Why not? Your current existence under that hypothesis requires your body to exist. If your body didn't exist your existence wouldn't be an observable event.

Under both the hypothesis you oppose and the hypothesis you favour your current existence requires your body to exist. Under the hypothesis you oppose, that is all that is necessary. You claim that under that hypothesis your current existence is so unlikely that your current existence is evidence against that hypothesis. If your argument is a valid argument against that hypothesis, then it is equally valid against any hypothesis under which your existence is no more likely than it is under that hypothesis. Your current existence under the hypothesis you favour cannot possibly be more likely than it is under that hypothesis unless your body is for some reason more likely to exist under the hypothesis you favour than it is under the one you oppose.

What makes your body more likely to exist under your favoured hypothesis than it is under the hypothesis you oppose?

Excellent point of reasoning, highlighting the capricious nature of Jabba's concepts.

 

[John Jones]

[...]

- H isn't saying that my experience doesn't exist. H is simply saying that my interpretation is wrong -- that there must be something wrong with my logic.

Well, you have been proving this true constantly for the last five years. Begging the question, equivocation, straw man arguments, appeals to popularity, etc. You've done all of these and more post after post.

 

[Belz...]

Dave,
- H is an hypothesis. It makes a claim. It claims that everything is physical. I seek to evaluate H -- to determine how likely it is that H is correct.

No, your task is to determine if YOUR claim is correct.

H is well-established.

 

[Mojo]

- No.

To put it another way, Jabba, how can you expect Dave to accept that your existence is evidence against a hypothesis under which it is very unlikely when you yourself don't accept that your existence is evidence against a hypothesis under which it is very unlikely?

 

[Jabba]

Dave,
- H is an hypothesis. It makes a claim. It claims that everything is physical. I seek to evaluate H -- to determine how likely it is that H is correct.
- My claim is that the current existence of what I experience as my self suggests that H is not correct. As long as I'm really experiencing something, H -- in talking about everything -- is talking about what I am experiencing.
- H isn't saying that my experience doesn't exist. H is simply saying that my interpretation is wrong -- that there must be something wrong with my logic.

With H as you are now defining it, ~H includes hypotheses under which you only have one finite lifetime but not everything is physical.

Mojo,
- You're right. I just claim that if everything is physical, more than one finite lifetime per self is extremely unlikely. More than one finite lifetime per self would seem to require something non-physical.