Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[JayUtah]

That jimbtucker.com link is an advertisement for a book that's a compilation of past-life anecdotes.

There is also a link to academic research done by the group Tucker now heads. Of course here I use the word "academic" loosely. Although postured as legitimate research, the writings on reincarnation are largely the work of one man writing in one off-center journal. If you don't want to wade through the selected bibliography and notes I offer above, the tl;dr is that Stevenson clearly was biased toward believing in reincarnation and put out a body of pseudo-science that appeared to give academic support to his belief.

 

[Jabba]

jond,
- That is the point. I see (or, imagine) a difference. You guys don't.

Which is fine but nothing to do with H. H is the thing you're meant to be reckoning right?

Mark,
- H (we each have Only One Finite Life at most) is my version of what I believe to be the consensus scientific opinion re human mortality.
- Certainly, I didn't mean "we" to simply represent our physical bodies. As far as I know, science has no issue at all about how many lives our bodies have. When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality, they are not referring to our bodies -- they're talking about what we humans think of as our selves. H is about what we think of as our selves, and whether or not we might return, or never really go.

 

[godless dave]

Mark,
- H (we each have Only One Finite Life at most) is my version of what I believe to be the consensus scientific opinion re human mortality.
- Certainly, I didn't mean "we" to simply represent our physical bodies. As far as I know, science has no issue at all about how many lives our bodies have. When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality, they are not referring to our bodies -- they're talking about what we humans think of as our selves.

The scientific consensus is that our selves and our bodies are the same thing. So when scientists talk about immortality being impossible, they are indeed referring to our bodies.

 

[jond]

Mark,
- H (we each have Only One Finite Life at most) is my version of what I believe to be the consensus scientific opinion re human mortality.
- Certainly, I didn't mean "we" to simply represent our physical bodies. As far as I know, science has no issue at all about how many lives our bodies have. When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality, they are not referring to our bodies -- they're talking about what we humans think of as our selves. H is about what we think of as our selves, and whether or not we might return, or never really go.

As you are aware, the scientific perspective is that our selves are brain processes. You keep trying to add an extra element into H, one that you cannot describe, has no characteristics, and is answers exactly nothing about our sense of self apart from that you want it to exist.

 

[Jabba]

Mark,
- H (we each have Only One Finite Life at most) is my version of what I believe to be the consensus scientific opinion re human mortality.
- Certainly, I didn't mean "we" to simply represent our physical bodies. As far as I know, science has no issue at all about how many lives our bodies have. When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality, they are not referring to our bodies -- they're talking about what we humans think of as our selves. H is about what we think of as our selves, and whether or not we might return, or never really go.

The scientific consensus is that our selves and our bodies are the same thing. So when scientists talk about immortality being impossible, they are indeed referring to our bodies.

- Are they just referring to our physical bodies, or are they also referring to our "selves"?

 

[godless dave]

- Are they just referring to our physical bodies, or are they also referring to our "selves"?

They are referring to our physical bodies, which include our selves.

 

[Jabba]

As you are aware, the scientific perspective is that our selves are brain processes. You keep trying to add an extra element into H, one that you cannot describe, has no characteristics, and is answers exactly nothing about our sense of self apart from that you want it to exist.

- This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys. We all sense a kind of identity -- that many of us would like to be immortal. Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical. That hypothesis could be wrong.

 

[godless dave]

- This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys. We all sense a kind of identity -- that many of us would like to be immortal. Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical. That hypothesis could be wrong.

That hypothesis is H. Yes, it could be wrong. Five years ago you said you thought you could use Bayesian statistics to demonstrate that it is wrong.

 

[jond]

- This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys. We all sense a kind of identity -- that many of us would like to be immortal. Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical. That hypothesis could be wrong.

That sense is a brain process. Yes, that hypothesis could be wrong, but your math cannot include a thing that H doesn't include to prove your point. And the proper math about the situation shows that you are wrong.

Because we know that the sense of self can be altered by adding chemicals or physically damaging the brain, we absolutely know the brain is involved. Which means the only way for you to prove that your H is wrong is to actually demonstrate the existence of this thing (we all know you mean soul) you believe is missing. Everything you've presented thus far is less than compelling, scientifically.

 

[abaddon]

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.

Wow. After five years of this nonsense and countless years in the shroud thread it turns out that you are not even a christian.

 

[JayUtah]

H (we each have Only One Finite Life at most) is my version of what I believe to be the consensus scientific opinion re human mortality.

Or you could just use and accept what scientists actually have found. You change "your version" of H as needed to provide an escape when you're cornered.

As far as I know, science has no issue at all about how many lives our bodies have.

Science has found no evidence that our physical bodies live more than once.

When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality, they are not referring to our bodies...

When scientists talk about the impossibility of immortality they are most certainly talking about physical bodies. They are noting correctly that the evidence shows a physical body lives only once and for a finite period. They are noting correctly that there is no observation pertinent to life that is not answerable as a property of the physical organism. You have admitted as much, which is why you can't define the element you say would be omitted in a copy. There is no need for it to exist, and you can't tell us in what form you imagine it exists. It exists only as a figment of your imagination, as a concept whose raison d'être -- according to you -- is only to satisfy a needed premise in your argument. We all know you're talking about a soul, and we all know you're trying to sneak it into the argument in a way that forces H to try to explain it.

H is about what we think of as our selves, and whether or not we might return, or never really go.

H is the hypothesis that the sense of self is an emergent property of the physical organism. It is an outgrowth of the overall hypothesis of materialism. Concepts such as "return" and "never really go" have no meaning in this concept. You keep trying to couch H in pseudo-mystical terms, or at least very ambiguous terms. None of that helps. You're obviously just looking for some word salad that has cursory appeal without conveying any actual meaning.

Maybe you shouldn't try so very hard to make H be a thing it isn't, and to make H be something that's easier for you to refute whether anyone accepts it or not. You don't own H.

 

[JayUtah]

This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys.

You're communicating just fine, except for the part where you listen to things that are said to you. The problem is not that you're failing to explain what you believe. The problem is that you're trying to foist that belief unilaterally where it doesn't belong, and your critics are rightly forbidding you from doing that. So long as you're working with P(E|H) you must use E and H as they are formulated. There are no souls in E or H. There is no reincarnation in E or H. No matter how strongly you believe your sense of self is the product of an immortal soul, you can't include that when reckoning P(E|H).

We all sense a kind of identity--

Yes, this is E.

...that many of us would like to be immortal.

And that is wishful thinking. It's not part of E. It's not part of H. You may include it in ~H once you get around to deciding what that is. But your desire to be immortal can't taint your evaluation of P(E|H). E does not imply immortality. H does not allow immortality.

Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical.

Correct. Since H explains E as a property of the physical organism, when the physical organism is present and viable the property is necessarily present. When the organism is not viable, the property necessarily disappears. That's what it means to be a property.

That hypothesis could be wrong.

And you said you could prove it was wrong mathematically. Your proof to date cannot do that because, among other fatal errors, it begs the question that such a thing as a soul exists and because H cannot explain it, H must be wrong. How many times must circular reasoning be explained to you before you start listening?

Your critics are not asserting that H cannot possibly be wrong. They are reminding you that you must reckon P(E|H) as if H were true, which you have not been doing. You've been polluting E with speculation as to cause, and you've been attaching to H straw-man features it doesn't contain. And no matter how many times this is explained to you, you seem not to get it. The communication problem you're experiencing is your unwillingness to listen.

 

[JayUtah]

- Are they just referring to our physical bodies, or are they also referring to our "selves"?

There is no meaningful distinction between those two concepts in H.

 

[Jabba]

- This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys. We all sense a kind of identity -- that many of us would like to be immortal. Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical. That hypothesis could be wrong.

That hypothesis is H. Yes, it could be wrong. Five years ago you said you thought you could use Bayesian statistics to demonstrate that it is wrong.

Dave,
- I still think that I can virtually prove that it's wrong -- which is what I originally claimed...
- The point here is that H is in fact referring to the identity mentioned above. There is no issue as to whether or not the physical body could be immortal.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I still think that I can virtually prove that it's wrong -- which is what I originally claimed...
- The point here is that H is in fact referring to the identity mentioned above. There is no issue as to whether or not the physical body could be immortal.

In H, that identity is part of the physical body. If the body is mortal than so is that identity.

 

[JayUtah]

I still think that I can virtually prove that it's wrong -- which is what I originally claimed...

No it isn't. In any case, weasel words don't help you here. There is either proof or not, not "virtual" proof. Ambiguity, equivocation, and your other word games don't save you.

And no, you can't prove it. In five years someone else could have written a master's degree thesis on this problem, fully researched and documented and defended before his peers and faculty. You cannot. In five years you've budged very little if at all from a core set of fallacies and false assumptions that you simply will not abandon, withdrawing farther and farther away from criticism under flimsy pretexts. There is no indication that giving you any more time at all will result in a change of approach. There is no indication you're doing anything now besides stalling.

The point here is that H is in fact referring to the identity mentioned above. There is no issue as to whether or not the physical body could be immortal.

No. The observation of a sense of identity is E. That's the data, the event, that you're trying to explain. H explains the sense of identity as an emergent property of the physical body. In other words, under H the sense of identity requires only a functioning physical body.

You want the "sense of identity" to be some sort of separate entity from the physical body. You're trying to conflate the observation with a theory of what causes the observation, and you're trying to make H explain someone else's theory of causation, not the observation.

 

[Dancing David]

- This is what I can't seem to communicate to you guys. We all sense a kind of identity -- that many of us would like to be immortal. Mostly, scientists don't believe that this identity we sense can be immortal, because they believe it's entirely physical. That hypothesis could be wrong.

The sense of identity is the result of processes in an organic brain, burden to Jabba

 

[JayUtah]

Jabba appears to be equivocating "sense of self" and "sense of identity" to mean "the feeling that I have a soul."

 

[jond]

Dave,
- I still think that I can virtually prove that it's wrong -- which is what I originally claimed...
- The point here is that H is in fact referring to the identity mentioned above. There is no issue as to whether or not the physical body could be immortal.

I assume you are ignoring my response because you know you are wrong.

 

[abaddon]

Dave,
- I still think that I can virtually prove that it's wrong -- which is what I originally claimed...
- The point here is that H is in fact referring to the identity mentioned above. There is no issue as to whether or not the physical body could be immortal.

Think it all you like. It's worthless until you actually do it.