Mojo
Mostly harmless
It doesn't matter. Whatever you believe, or imagine, H doesn't include souls, so the existence of souls cannot be used as a factor in calculating the likelihood of something under H.
Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion
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It doesn't matter. Whatever you believe, or imagine, H doesn't include souls, so the existence of souls cannot be used as a factor in calculating the likelihood of something under H.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
So you agree that your reasoning is circular? I'll take your non-answer as agreement.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
We don't see your claimed difference. That's because it exists only in your imagination. It exists without any sort of evidence or attribute you can articulate. You even admitted there would be no discernible difference between the two copies.
So in your rush to continue insinuating that your critics are somehow laboring under limited thinking -- how rude! -- all you've done is express a fervent wish that there be some vague but crucial difference for which there is no evidence. That is nothing more than asking people to take your personal faith as proof of fact.
No.
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Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
I see a difference too, at first glance. But when I think about it more deeply, I realise that there really isn't one.
MarkCorrigan
Героям слава!
Which is fine but nothing to do with H. H is the thing you're meant to be reckoning right?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
I gather he believes such a thing should exist under either H or ~H. E, the event H and ~H are supposed to variously explain, is the sense of self. Jabba appears to be arguing that this sense necessarily incorporates some element that creates a key difference between the naturally-produced organism and a hypothetical materially-perfect copy of it. By trying to attach that to E, he's trying to sneak his concept of a soul into the observation as something H would have to explain. ~H already explains it, so he thinks he has an advantage.
And of course it's the soul he's considering the missing element; he's said as much, and explained why he doesn't just say so up front: he's trying to conceal his begging of the question. This is likely why he can't or won't define this supposed missing element -- any description he came up with would allow his critics to confirm he's back-dooring the soul into the observation.
When Jabba says "You guys don't [see a difference]," that's equivocal and disingenuous. We know what he means, but we don't agree that E embodies any such element as Jabba is trying to foist onto it. Jabba's using his special skills to make it sound like if we don't accept his begged premise of a soul, we somehow lack erudition or insight. He's pulled this stunt before. It's one of his less noble tactics.
jond
Illuminator
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The only difference I see is that there would be two identical bodies. You have yet to demonstrate any other difference other than that you want there to be. Under H, there is no difference.
Belz...
Fiend God
Save for spacetime coordinates, and those change all the time anyway.
jond
Illuminator
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Yes, and also nothing non-physical which he can add to H.
jond
Illuminator
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Which means you can't include it in your mathematical formulation of H, you need to demonstrate it's existence. And you have utterly failed to do so.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
HaHaHa. No. Co-ordinates have been done to death.
Jabba claims that "something" would be missing from any copy. Jabba has no clue what that is, only that it must perforce be missing.
Work that out if you will.
Jabba
Philosopher
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Waterman,
#1. It's all anecdotal, but there are real efforts to submit the anecdotes to objective science. Try this to get you started: http://www.jimbtucker.com/.
#2. I assume that they would be. I assume that they are conscious and have "selves." I assume that their selves would be less "focused" than ours.
The Sparrow
Graduate Poster
LOL....."Proof of immortality"
jond
Illuminator
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So, nothing that resembles scientifically sounds, repeatable evidence. Remember the whole discussion about NDEs? And where that left you? I do, as I'm sure everyone else does too.
2. Would that be because their brains are less complex than ours? It's almost as if the sense of self is generated by the brain!
HighRiser
Graduate Poster
That jimbtucker.com link is an advertisement for a book that's a compilation of past-life anecdotes.
It has the distinction of being favorably endorsed by D. Chopra.
It has the distinction of being favorably endorsed by D. Chopra.
RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
Mojo
Mostly harmless
It isn't going away, Jabba:
I'm posting it again, Jabba, because your responses indicate that you still don't understand its implications. You need to answer the question as it was asked, and then think about how the answer relates to your attempt to include the existence of souls in your expression for the likelihood of your existence under a hypothesis that doesn't include souls.
I'm posting it again, Jabba, because your responses indicate that you still don't understand its implications. You need to answer the question as it was asked, and then think about how the answer relates to your attempt to include the existence of souls in your expression for the likelihood of your existence under a hypothesis that doesn't include souls.
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godless dave
Great Dalmuti
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Jabba, if you're willing to accept things like that as evidence, why not just take immortality on faith? Scientific rigor obviously isn't import to you, so just do what hundreds of millions of other people do and have a faith-based belief in some kind of life after death.
HighRiser
Graduate Poster
Umm... Are you sure you understand what Mojo posted?
If so; are you sure you understand what circular reasoning is?
If so; are you sure you're okay with affirming Mojo's statement?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Wading through the hype, I arrive at the following having putatively academic interest relevant to reincarnation. My comments in red and blue.
Stevenson, I. "The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1960. This paper simply surveys and collates the then-available anecdotes without purporting to evaluate or test them.
________. "Some Questions Related to Cases of the Reincarnation Type." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1974. Piles of speculation.
________. "The Explanatory Value of the Idea of Reincarnation." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1977. Speculates that reincarnation could explain certain childhood behaviors, but does not test the hypothesis.
________. "American Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1983. Compares American tales of reincarnation with those of children from India, but does not test the validity of either. The thrust of the paper is simply to make mental health practitioners aware of the phenomenon.
Stevenson, I. and Cook, E.W. "A Review and Analysis of “Unsolved” Cases of the Reincarnation Type" (in two parts). Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1983. Documents a few anecdotal cases and surveys the attempts to explain them by prosaic causes. Offers no science to test the reincarnation hypothesis.
Stevenson, I. "Characteristics of Cases of the Reincarnation Type Among the Igbo of Nigeria." Journal of Asian and African Studies, 1986. An anthropological description of how reincarnation is believed by a certain African tribe.
________. "Indian Cases of the Reincarnation Type Two Generations Apart." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1987. Attempts to compare two uncontrolled sample sets using private methodology.
________. "Deception and Self-Deception in Cases of the Reincarnation Type: Seven Illustrative Cases in Asia." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1988. Examples of fraud in the reincarnationists camp.
________. "Two Correlates of Violent Death in Cases of the Reincarnation Type." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1988. Purports a correlation between violent death and reincarnation.
________. "Three New Cases of the Reincarnation Type in Sri Lanka with Written Records Made before Verification." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1988. A few case studies whose interview protocol purports to rule out external suggestion as a cause for allegedly recalled past lives.
________. "Phobias in Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1990. Purports a correlation between childhood phobias and the manner of death in the purported antecedent among reincarnation claimants. Hypothesizes but does not test a "paranormal" explanation for this.
________. "A Case of the Psychotherapist’s Fallacy: Hypnotic Regression to 'Previous Lives.'" American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 1994. Science-free diatribe against hypnotherapists who recover alleged memories of past lives.
Stevenson, I. and Schouten, S. "Does the Socio-Psychological Hypothesis Explain Cases of the Reincarnation Type?" Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1998. Draws the conclusion that more anecdotes of reincarnation come from cultures that believe in it.
Stevenson, I. and Jürgen, K. "Do Cases of the Reincarnation Type Show Similar Features Over Many Years? A Study of Turkish Cases a Generation Apart." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1999. Compares two uncontrolled samples according to a private methodology and concludes they are substantially similar.
Stevenson, I. "The Phenomenon of Claimed Memories of Previous Lives: Possible Interpretations and Importance." Medical Hypotheses, 2000. Identifies behavioral traits such as philias, phobos, homosexuality, etc. and asserts they have no genetic or environmental cause. Speculates that reincarnation may be the cause.
________. "The Stability of Assessments of Paranormal Connections in Reincarnation-Type Cases." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2000. Uses a private methodology to assess the degree of paranormal involvement in reincarnation anecdotes as a longitudinal study.
Keil, J. and Tucker, J.B. "An Unusual Birthmark Case Thought to be Linked to a Person Who Had Previously Died." Psychological Reports, 2000. Anecdotal report.
Tucker, J.B. "A Scale to Measure the Strength of Children’s Claims of Previous Lives: Methodology and Initial Findings." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2000. Proposes a methodology for scoring anecdotes on a scale of paranormality. Purports to test this scale, but uses only self-reported reincarnationists as a sample.
Stevenson, I. "Unusual Play in Young Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2000. The author's opinion of play normality is contrasted in reincarnation cases, a few causes are discussed but not tested, and the play mode is speculatively attributed to reincarnation.
________. "Ropelike Birthmarks on Children Who Claim to Remember Past Lives." Psychological Reports, 2001. Anecdotal report.
________. "The Similarity of Features of Reincarnation Type Cases over Many Years: A Third Study." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2003. Yet another comparison by private methodology from two uncontrolled samples. The author speculatively attributes correlation to stability in the reincarnation story and anticorrelation to disparity in research methods.
Tucker, J.B. "Cases of the Reincarnation Type with Memories from the Intermission Between Lives." Journal of Near-Death Studies, 2005. Purports a correlation between the verifiability of reincarnation stories and (unverifiable) claims of interim memory.
________. "Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives: Cases with Written Records Made before the Previous Personality Was Identified." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2005. Purports to eliminate falsely-credited information as a source for reincarnation anecdotes. A further reference in this bibliography is to a letter to the editor of JSE offering less than satisfactory answers to criticisms raised by others against this paper.
I should pause here to point out that in many of these studies, the allegedly confirming evidence is often simply the testimony of the parents or other relatives. Almost no attempt is made to confirm the subject's claims by objective means.
Stevenson, I. "Children of Myanmar Who Behave like Japanese Soldiers: A Possible Third Element in Personality." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2005. The typical drill: behavioral traits are identified without any discernible methodology. A few straw causes are investigated, and then reincarnation is suggested as the only remaining explanation.
________. "Some Bodily Malformations Attributed to Previous Lives." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2005. Blemishes etc. on children purported to mimic those of dead relatives, another interview-only protocol.
Tucker, J.B. "Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives: Past, Present, and Future Research." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2007. Recaps previous research and asserts that the anecdotes must have a paranormal explanation.
Here I omit several references that are simply, like the above, recaps of Ian Stevenson's research and conclusions.
________. "Psychological Evaluation of American Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2014. A sample of 15 children claiming to have been reincarnated is given a smattering of psychological assessments and declared sane and normal.
________. "The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of The Reincarnation Type." EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, 2016. Anecdotal report.
Jabba, Is this is really what you're purporting to be real science? Since in all the time you've been quoting compendia such as this you've never actually read any of the source material, I'll assume you're completely unfamiliar with any of this research. Obviously the work is represented almost exclusively in a single journal, the Journal of Scientific Exploration, which proudly advertises itself as an off-center publication specifically seeking papers that challenge the scientific mainstream. This is not a comforting fact.
Clearly without Ian Stevenson, MD there is no case. Almost every reincarnation paper in this list seems to be authored or co-authored by him, or heavily references him. Opinions of him vary greatly depending on whether they come from scientific circles or spiritual-religious circles. Stevenson's papers cite mostly his previous papers.
Jabba, What you're trying to tell me is an effort to bring studies of the reincarnation claims into the realm of science is quite obviously not. It's a largely self-contained, self-referential body of work that is trying very hard to look like science. It sure fooled you.
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