Belz...
Fiend God
Of all the dishonest nonsense you've posted, this is the... most recent.
You have no integrity, and no credibility.
Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion
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Of all the dishonest nonsense you've posted, this is the... most recent.
You have no integrity, and no credibility.
Jabba
Philosopher
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- Feb 23, 2012
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- I was being 'funny.'
- I just think that we're heading for a bunch of dead ends, and I want to map them for us -- and for others -- to see.
- I don't think I'm in a corner -- IMO, you guys either aren't listening, aren't understanding or realize that it's you who's in the corner...
- If I can get a mixed participation on my website, we might get a better indication of who is in the corner.
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jond
Illuminator
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- Apr 25, 2006
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This might be your funniest post yet!
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Jabba,
- Please answer this question:
- Please answer this question:
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Except that your "map" before was a straight-up lie. It was a version of the debate edited to make it seem like you were winning. You copied only the parts of your critics' arguments that you felt gave you opportunities to look brilliant and you left out the parts where they completely refuted you. You finally took down the site after conceding it was inaccurate and promising to fix it according to your critics' protests. You never did. As always, you "didn't have time" to get the facts right. You haven't given anyone here any assurance that this new "map" won't be just that same lie. You have a predictable strategy in these debates.
And that's why you have to create your own version of the debate, to make it seem like it comes out that way.
You have previously proudly admitted you're the one not listening here. You deliberately ignore almost everyone who speaks to you, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Posts are too long or too complicated, you don't have enough time, or you're not being appropriately coddled. Make up whatever excuse you want, it's not going to fool anyone.
What's happening here is that you're trying to foist the argument, and it's not working. So you're trying to make it look like it's not your failure. You blatantly beg the question and reason in circles. When people catch you doing it, you blame them for "not understanding." You try to impose a straw-man claim on your critics and when they refuse to play along, you accuse them of "not listening." Get it through your head that in a fair debate you don't get to script what your opponents are and aren't able to do. You've made no secret about your disdain for skeptics, but in the final analysis you really just aren't succeeding at proving your religious beliefs.
You can't bully this audience here, so you're trying for a better one. Why would anyone in this debate participate in a parallel debate elsewhere moderated by you? You've been trying for years to moderate this one -- claiming people are being "unfriendly" to you or just straight up ignoring posts you can't deal with. Resorting to controlling the venue is just an admission you can't win in a fair fight.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Clumsily working out his sour-grapes exit strategy, I'll wager.
jond
Illuminator
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Indeed. But I love how the guy who ignores every post he can't answer says that we're not listening!
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Can anyone understand what Jabba means by the term 'Under the Texas Sharpshooter, we are all targets'.
It's like he doesn't understand the concept of logical fallacies, and just parrots terms he's heard before.
It's like he doesn't understand the concept of logical fallacies, and just parrots terms he's heard before.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
It's indeed amusing. But it's fairly standard fringiness. Fringe claimants often want to be seen as some sort of teacher or guru. They want a classroom audience, not an argument. The claimant almost always insinuates some sort of deeper or greater knowledge, some higher insight, or some uniquely incisive logic. The way the argument is laid out is meant to support that insinuation. It's an ego-reinforcement exercise. In almost every fringe genre, the claimant behaves as if the only reason his argument isn't accepted is because it isn't understood. To him, his conclusion is self-evident. If you don't accept it then you just don't have the requisite background knowledge, a sufficient grasp of logic, or an open enough mind. Of course seen objectively the rebuttals are rarely ignorant or poorly reasoned. Among the critics you will always find those who can demonstrate a vastly better understanding that the claimant. Some like Paul Bethke simply gaslight their critics, hoping to shake their confidence. The gaslighting we see here is a little bit more subtle, but not by much.
And the concomitant fringe argument is that certain pesky critics can disqualify themselves from attention in the debate, most often by ad hoc criteria. If a critic can't be answered head-on, then he can be ignored because he is allegedly uncivil or too difficult to understand or ideologically biased. The list of pretexts is long and varied.
Keep in mind that there may be a certain amount of legitimate belief that these are honest tactics. If the claimant is just reinforcing ego, he may genuinely believe he is "somehow" still better qualified than his critics (or, as we discussed, that the problem is just objectively intractable). He may genuinely believe that his most troublesome critics are "somehow" objectively unworthy of engagement. The actual progress of the argument will expend a fair amount of effort to generate the illusion of evidence that these perceptions are true.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
It's clear he doesn't understand why the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a fallacy. And yes, he may just be regurgitating words he's heard before in an attempt to display a degree of engagement. But in many fringe claims it's difficult to determine whether apparent obstinacy is genuine misunderstanding or is just some sort of bluster or stonewall. I think it's clear he understands why he can't have a numerator of one person as his "target." He made that argument and then walked it back to include all living persons. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to understand why seven billion as a numerator is still the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. He doesn't seem to grasp that it's not the number of post-selected targets that's the crux of the fallacy, but rather the fact that it's post-selected. Choosing any number of already-living people as the "target" of some allegedly probabilistic chain of events is still post-selecting the target(s).
That's a matter of 'opinion'.
Why would the result be any different from here, where everyone is already participating?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Because he'll be moderating the debate, not you guys. He can remove posts he deems "unfriendly" or "too complicated." That way none of his audience will be bothered by them.
Well, obviously, but I was asking Jabba to give his explanation.
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Oh screw me with a red-hot poker. Now Jabba makes false appeals to popularity
Jabba
Philosopher
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- If I understand what you're saying, you're talking about Bayesian inference. Bayes takes something that has happened and estimates its likelihood to have happened given a specific hypothesis...
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
No. I've seen funny many times before. That wasn't even close.
Maybe you meant to say that you were being facetious, ridiculous, preposterous, or ludicrous? There is a history, you know.
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Jabba
Philosopher
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- Potential selves aren't even processes -- they are potential processes -- but, they are still meaningful. One way to try to begin to describe them is to say that they are represented by every combination of every past sperm cell that ever existed and every past ovum that ever existed.
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Waterman
Critical Thinker
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I fail to see the humor in the fact that you have had a lot of very patient people point out the flaws in your argument for several YEARS and you have yet to learn even the most basic points about the error in your reasoning.
Yes you have hit SO many dead ends where emotion and feeling are contrary to observed fact and logic. Proving something needs logic and fact. Believing something only requires emotion and feeling. You believe but cannot prove.
We are listening and understand where you are arguing from. It is you that does not understand formal logic and application of statistical models. While you might feel strongly that you are right the strength of your feelings does not MAKE you right.
Ultimately you are attempting to prove that there is an afterlife of some type; that something from this life continues on beyond the death of the body. That is the ROOT is what you are after.
This is contrary to the current scientific consensus, which is that life requires a physical media.
So far there are no demonstrable repeatable phenomena that are not consistent with this theory.
Do you have anything that indicates life separate of a physical media?
BTW I will NOT participate in a discussion where one side has editorial control over the opposition.
Waterman
Critical Thinker
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<sigh> Ok let me admit that I am not an expert on Bayes Theory but I have learned a lot by reading this thread. You are misunderstanding a fundamental principal here.
Bayes takes something that has happened and estimates THE likelihood OF FUTURE EVENTS given a specific hypothesis...
It looks forward from known data and established probabilities for future events. It does not look backwards to establish probabilities of events that have already happened. I will defer to the resident experts if I have mischaracterized this.
Jabba
Philosopher
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- It has been argued to me ad nauseum. I haven't nswered ad nauseum -- but I have answered more than once.
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