Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[abaddon]

Jabba, why do you claim to be a christian when clearly you are not? That claim is patently untrue. You cannot be doing it by accident.

 

[JayUtah]

Is 'going sixty' a thing!

Philosophy provides us with the word "entity" to describe whatever has discernible, distinct characteristics and can be said in any meaningful way to exist. That existence does not need to be in tangible form. Even when repeatedly corrected, Jabba insists on inaccurate, inexact terms. "Thing" is a heavily overloaded word in English. Jabba's constant retreat to its ambiguity all but admits his goal is to eschew precise terms and rely on equivocating around his personal vocabulary.

Burden of proof on you to show that is is more than a brain process.

Especially under the auspice of the false dilemma he set up. He said he was going to prove immortality. Immediately he turned that around to say he was disproving materialism. Now he wants to insinuate that the untruth of materialism should be the default unless someone steps up to prove it. That is exactly a textbook reversal of the burden of proof.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

- A process is a "thing." It just isn't an "object."
- It can also be a very meaningful thing. Being a process doesn't mean it isn't real, nor that the particular identity resulting from a process couldn't return.

Under materialism, there is no "resulting" separate thing from the process, it's all just part of the process. If you play a CD, the music you hear isn't a viable thing on it's own that can appear somewhere or sometime later, it's just part of the process of playing music. When the music's over, it's gone (or it's The Doors). There is nothing in that sound you heard that is coming back attached to a different stereo.

- And anyway, who has proven that the resulting sense of identity is not more than a process?

Under materialism the sense of identity is not more than a process. So when you're evaluating the likelihood of E (the sense of identity) under H, you have to evaluate the likelihood as if H were true, as long as H accounts for the observed phenomena.

 

[John Jones]

It's very rude to keep reminding everyone about Jabba's persistent dishonest behaviour

I hate when that happens.

 

[John Jones]

- A process is a "thing." It just isn't an "object."
- It can also be a very meaningful thing. Being a process doesn't mean it isn't real, nor that the particular identity resulting from a process couldn't return.
- And anyway, who has proven that the resulting sense of identity is not more than a process?

Remember the burden of proof?

Way back about 5 years ago when this thread was new, you tried shifting that burden onto your critics on the basis of JabbaLogic.

Do you remember the merry peals of laughter at that epic failure? I guess not, since you just tried it again.

 

[John Jones]

- A process is a "thing." It just isn't an "object."

Evidence?

 

[John Jones]

jond,
- I disagree. Science accepts that condoms and birth control pills prevent potential selves from becoming actual selves.

Cite a peer-review scientific journal in context, or it's another lie.

 

[John Jones]

Argumemnon,
- They tend to be weak as compared to empirical evidence. But sometimes, according to the details of their study,they can be quite significant.

No they can't. See? I just made a claim equally supported as yours.

 

[JayUtah]

I have to admit this is my favorite part of these threads: The part where Jabba offers up some supporting document, someone else actually bothers to read it, and it turns out to undermine his claim. Every time, Jabba.

Every. Single. Time.

There is indeed a perverse irony in the oft occurrence where Jabba proposes to saddle his critics with some ponderous body of scholarship and science, thinking they will never read it and will simply accept his insistence that it must support his case. Look what happens when someone does. And look where Jabba points his attention: not toward the people who digested his evidence and are willing to review it with him, but toward those who appeared to dismiss it out of hand.

At once it shows that Jabba's critics are more committed to effective debate than he is. Further it shows that Jabba's claim to be genuinely interested in this topic to be a bald-faced lie. We cannot even interest him in his own evidence, much less a well-considered rebuttal. He's looking only to solicit dismissals he can try to characterize as ill-considered knee-jerk responses. Except the joke's on him. Those who wrote off the "science" he posted as nothing more than dressed-up anecdotal evidence are right. Baiting a knee-jerk response really only has rhetorical teeth when the knee-jerk responses are both wrong and hastily arrived at.

Jabba plays according to the fringe-claimant playbook when he insinuates that skeptics invoke scientific rigor only to back up predetermined beliefs. He projects his own proof-text use of (pseudo-)science on his critics. Let's face it: if science could prove reincarnation, scientists would believe in reincarnation just assuredly as they believe in genetics. If immortality were a mathematical certainty, scientists would believe in it just as assuredly as they believe in the Law of Large Numbers or Pythagoras' theorem. The reluctance of skeptics to believe in a reincarnated soul is not, as Jabba flatly opines, because they are unable or unwilling to conceive of such things. It's because there's no empirical or mathematical validity to it. It's no more sinister or ideological than that.

Jabba claims he can bring immortality under this umbrella. But the more he flails, the more his "debate" resembles just another sour-grapes fringe diatribe against the supposed closed-mindedness of skeptics.

 

[carlitos]

Another fringe claimant quirk is exhibited recently in this thread. The claim that anecdotal evidence is still evidence. This was a go-to on the bingo card in the "Evidence the New Testament writers told the Truth" thread. It also played a big part in a couple of the ufo threads. Now anecdotes are going to be used to prove immortality (via Bayesian statistics!). No. No, they are not.

 

[Jabba]

- How about a fringe reset?!

- This will be based upon the map I'm trying to draw...
- The logic I'm claiming includes 3 variables. 2 prior probabilities, and 2 likelihoods.

- Bet you thought you had me dead to rights!
- Fortunately, the prior probabilities constitute just one variable -- one is the complement of the other!
- Anyway, I think that only one of the 3 variables matters -- the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam.
- If we can get anywhere re that variable, I'll address the remainders. If we can't get anywhere with that variable (which is what we all expect) I'll just have to agree to disagree, provide both sides on the map, and move on to the other variables.

- Anyway, zooming in: underlying that variable are two critical issues: potential selves and Texas Sharpshooters.
- Under potential selves: I claim that they are real, relevant and EXTREMELY NUMEROUS. Actually, I claim that there is an infinity of them.
- Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

- As for the other variables, I'll try to do the same thing.

- If I actually get that far, I'll see if I can get this forum to collaborate...

- PS: somewhere in there, I'll need to argue that Bayesian Inference applies.

 

[John Jones]

I have to admit this is my favorite part of these threads: The part where Jabba offers up some supporting document, someone else actually bothers to read it, and it turns out to undermine his claim. Every time, Jabba.

Every. Single. Time.

DOC used to do this. Anyone recall DOC? He had a similar lack of logic and facts, and used these to a degree as effectively as Jabba does.


DOC and Jabba would get along fine.

Don't get me started on Aubrey on the old UFO threads at CNN.

 

[jond]

- How about a fringe reset?!

- This will be based upon the map I'm trying to draw...
- The logic I'm claiming includes 3 variables. 2 prior probabilities, and 2 likelihoods.

- Bet you thought you had me dead to rights!
- Fortunately, the prior probabilities constitute just one variable -- one is the complement of the other!
- Anyway, I think that only one of the 3 variables matters -- the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam.
- If we can get anywhere re that variable, I'll address the remainders. If we can't get anywhere with that variable (which is what we all expect) I'll just have to agree to disagree, provide both sides on the map, and move on to the other variables.

- Anyway, zooming in: underlying that variable are two critical issues: potential selves and Texas Sharpshooters.
- Under potential selves: I claim that they are real, relevant and EXTREMELY NUMEROUS. Actually, I claim that there is an infinity of them.
- Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

- As for the other variables, I'll try to do the same thing.

- If I actually get that far, I'll see if I can get this forum to collaborate...

- PS: somewhere in there, I'll need to argue that Bayesian Inference applies.

In other words, you refuse to take on anything anyone has said to you. You refuse to consider that you might be wrong. You refuse to discuss anything that shows you to be wrong. But you still think you're right! Truly pathetic, Jabba.

 

[HighRiser]

- How about a fringe reset?!

No

 

[John Jones]

- How about a fringe reset?!

[...]

You usually do that first thing in the morning, but the time of day makes no damned difference. You still have no argument.

 

[RoboTimbo]

- Under potential selves: I claim that they are real, relevant and EXTREMELY NUMEROUS. Actually, I claim that there is an infinity of them.

Except you know that's false. You've already agreed that your sense of self is a process, not a thing. Why the bait-and-switch?

- Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

Only if you'd drawn the circle before you were born. You didn't, you're drawing it afterwards.

Any questions?

 

[JayUtah]

How about a fringe reset?!

Why stop now?

Fortunately, the prior probabilities constitute just one variable -- one is the complement of the other!

But as you were repeatedly told ~H is not one hypothesis. It's a set of contradictory hypotheses, only one of which can hold. You don't formulate this properly in your model.

Anyway, I think that only one of the 3 variables matters -- the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam.

No. That is expressly not how statistical inference works. The number P(E|H) determines nothing on its own. It is the likelihood ratio P(E|H)/P(E|~H) that is the operative quantity in such an inference. You've been told repeatedly that you cannot just ignore P(E|~H). But you continue to.

If we can't get anywhere with that variable (which is what we all expect)...

We can't get anywhere with P(E|H) because you insist on formulating it wrong. You've been told what you have to do to formulate it correctly, but you simply don't care.

I'll just have to agree to disagree...

No, there's no legitimate controversy here. You're just wrong.

Under potential selves: I claim that they are real, relevant and EXTREMELY NUMEROUS. Actually, I claim that there is an infinity of them.

And you're wrong.

H contains no such concepts. And you're invoking these concepts to try to argue that P(E|H) must be very small. You don't get to attach fanciful straw men to your opponents' hypothesis to make it easier for you to refute.

Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

Your model characterizes the target after the bullet has been shot. It characterizes selves based on a self that has already come into existence. The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a fallacy whether you want it to be or not.

If I actually get that far, I'll see if I can get this forum to collaborate...

This is just plain rude, Jabba. This forum has been collaborating with you vigorously for five years. You simply ignore anything you don't like. And now you're planning to play-act a different debate elsewhere under your sole control, just because this one isn't going the way you had hoped. That's childish and insulting.

PS: somewhere in there, I'll need to argue that Bayesian Inference applies.

Since you admitted ignorance of that topic, perhaps the first step is to learn what it is and how it works before you make the case that it applies and serves your end.

 

[Waterman]

- How about a fringe reset?!

Unfortunately you fail to realize that the posters here use this as a pejorative when an advocate of a position has been argued into a corner. The cornered poster pretends that it ever happened and returns to the original claim. It is not a positive attribution.

- Bet you thought you had me dead to rights!

See above a fringe reset is a CLEAR indicator that you were in a logical corner and could not see a way out. This is obviously a maneuver to attempt to deny that.

- The logic I'm claiming includes 3 variables. 2 prior probabilities, and 2 likelihoods.
- Fortunately, the prior probabilities constitute just one variable -- one is the complement of the other!
- Anyway, I think that only one of the 3 variables matters -- the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam.
- If we can get anywhere re that variable, I'll address the remainders. If we can't get anywhere with that variable (which is what we all expect) I'll just have to agree to disagree, provide both sides on the map, and move on to the other variables.

You are still mixing up the relationship between the prior probability and post probability. If I roll a die and a number 6 comes up. The prior probability of the number rolled is 1:n based on the number of sides. What is the probability that once the die is rolled and reads 6 what is the probability that the number actually is a 6. 1:1 You can see the 6. How does the number of sides on the die effect that probability that you are now currently looking at a 6.

- Anyway, zooming in: underlying that variable are two critical issues: potential selves and Texas Sharpshooters.
- Under potential selves: I claim that they are real, relevant and EXTREMELY NUMEROUS. Actually, I claim that there is an infinity of them.

Where are they? You again are abandoning your agreement that they were a process. This is disingenuous.

- Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

False and this has been explained to you ad nauseum. TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER is the name for a logical fallacy. It is claiming amazing precision when the target is undefined.

- As for the other variables, I'll try to do the same thing.
- If I actually get that far, I'll see if I can get this forum to collaborate...

Again another word that you are stretching the meaning of. Collaboration is a process where people exchange ideas and work towards an end. You have been demonstrated to be incorrect in many many points none of which you have conceded nor changed your position. You approach is more like a preacher who is more interested in lecturing your audience from a position of intellectual superiority. However you have failed to grasp that there are many here who are more knowledgeable than you on the subject. Their counter arguments are dismissed without reason.

- PS: somewhere in there, I'll need to argue that Bayesian Inference applies.

Please don’t I have read the entire thread and know full well that you have been informed but others and those ‘in the industry’ that you are misusing the tool.

 

[JayUtah]

This will be based upon the map I'm trying to draw...

The previous "map" you tried to write up about one of these debates was a blatant lie. You were finally persuaded to withdraw it on those grounds. What assurances do you offer that this latest will not be just another blatant lie?

Bet you thought you had me dead to rights!

You admitted we did. You said you were unable to address our arguments, but that you still thought you were right. You are had, dead to rights, and Waterman correctly points out that all but admitting you're stuck and having to reset the argument doesn't paint a good picture either of your argument or of your sincerity in making it. If you know you're resetting, and you know it's because you couldn't answer any of the pending rebuttals, what assurance do you give a reasonable reader that he isn't wasting his time engaging you?

 

[Mojo]

- How about a fringe reset?!

Noticed that you've failed again, have you?

- Under Texas Sharpshooters, I claim that we are all legitimate targets.

And so are all the people who don't exist.

Congratulations! You've hit the side of a barn, and missed virtually all of your targets.