Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

[The Sparrow]

jond,
- I haven't been shown how badly wrong I am; I've been told (over and over again) how badly wrong you guys think I am.

No, you have been shown. Your response is to abandon that line of reasoning, and re-summarize your initial hypothesis again and again.

And now, you will present a heavily redacted version of the discussion on your on site with the goal of attempting to convince yourself and other like minded folks that in fact you are right.

 

[JayUtah]

Jabba, your statement does not follow. You admit you often do not read anything but the first paragraph of long posts. You admit you ignore people you believe have been mean/unfair. You admit some posts are too complicated for you to understand. How can you know that the information has not been shown to you?

It's a curiosity of fringe argumentation. I wrote some days ago about the phenomenon of fringe claimants making all sorts of excuses not to have to deal with the most problematic rebuttals. The follow-on to that sentiment is that, in general, they legitimately believe they aren't responsible for content they've elected not to pay attention to. So when Jabba dismisses posts that are too long or complicated, or not friendly enough, he likely believes he's fully justified in doing so. They didn't follow his ground rules. And in that subjective sphere it means that the authors of those posts have relinquished all rights to be heard. It's probably not that Jabba doesn't think those posts contain operative criticism. It's more probably that Jabba believes that if those posters wanted their criticism heard, they should have followed his rules.

 

[Mojo]

No, you have been shown. Your response is to abandon that line of reasoning, and re-summarize your initial hypothesis again and again.

That's not quite his response: he doesn't actually abandon lines of reasoning after they have been shown to be wrong; he just starts the same line of reasoning from the beginning as if the previous discussion hadn't happened.

 

[The Sparrow]

That's not quite his response: he doesn't actually abandon lines of reasoning after they have been shown to be wrong; he just starts the same line of reasoning from the beginning as if the previous discussion hadn't happened.

True, I stand corrected. He plays the role that maybe we just didn't 'understand' the first, second or third times through, so try again.

 

[Waterman]

Dave,
- Here's what I think:
1. You have significantly abbreviated my argument...
2. I've never really expected to convince you guys.
3. I came here in order to submit my case to serious skeptics.
4. I did that in order to uncover the serious arguments against my conclusion, and to see if I had effective answers to those arguments.
5. I'm still hoping to convince somebody here that my claim makes sense -- but honestly, I estimate the likelihood of that at about 1%.
6. The Sharp Shooter argument involves the logic that seems most serious to me, and I offered to focus on that somewhere in the past, but (as I recall) most responders didn't like the idea.
7. So now, I'd like to level the playing field with a mixed audience, and see what happens...
8. The map idea is central to that desire.
9. In developing the map, I'm trying to list all the different issues, sub-issues, sub-sub-issues, etc.
10. Above, you gave 2 of your issues.
11. The following are the issues and sub-issues I've come up with so far:
11.1. Prior probabilities.
11.2. Texas Sharp Shooter.
11.3. Whether Bayesian statistics is an appropriate tool.
11.4. Whether I'm using Bayes appropriately.
11.5. The definition of self.
11.6. Does H even address the "self"?
11.7. Definition of "potential self."
11.8. Is "potential self" a meaningful concept?
11.9. Does it apply here?
11.10. How many potential selves?
11.10. Random?
11.11. Cause and effect traceable?
11.12. How self different than Mt Rainier?
11.13. How self different than VW?
11.14. Self a process rather than thing?

- Theoretically, under each issue would be sub-issues and respective answers.
- Can you add to my list?

I guess my time as LCP has passed. Why these are numbered I have no clue but I will play along.

1. Yes that is often necessary when one of the founding assumptions is invalid. Everything after that is irrelevant until that can be resolved. Please present a clear observation that is not answered by the current scientific theory. Until them the sub-issues don’t matter.
2. OK
3. Done and many significant issues were identified that you have disregarded. What was you hope other than to be accepted as a singularly brilliant mind that solved the problem with some math tricks.
4. Done many significant issues were identified and you have yet to provide effective rebuttals.
5. Based on your lack of success in gaining supporters here I would say your estimate is way too high.
6. The Sharp Shooter Fallacy that you are committing is fatal to your claim. It has been talked about quite a lot and you keep returning to it with your rebuttal is it doesn’t feel like it is a problem.
7. This is as level a playing field as you are going to find. If you can present a valid argument you are likely to win converts because most are willing to be convinced of something IF a logical argument can be laid out regardless of their previous beliefs.
8. The map idea is irrelevant and allows you to focus on the non-central issues when your opening premise failure dooms the argument.
9. The map idea is irrelevant.
10. Above that there are many many others. But you have failed to clearly define in a logical statement of the observations that you feel is not satisfied by the current scientific theory.
11. OK
11.1. Irrelevant until a satisfactory problem statement is clearly defined. Your OOFLAM does not meet this criteria.
11.2. Is a fallacy that you are committing as the foundation of your argument which renders everything that follows irrelevant.
11.3. It is not and you have been told so by multiple experts on the topic.
11.4. You are not
11.5. You have not yet provided one and you use multiple definitions interchangeably depending on how it best serves you. Playing word games is a dishonest debate tactic.
11.6. Yes it does as a process of a healthy functioning human brain.
11.7. Does not exist by your own admission.
11.8. No
11.9. No
11.10. Does not exist by your own admission.
11.10. ?
11.11.?
11.12. Mt. Rainer:Body as Shape:Self
11.13. VW:Body as Going 60:Self
11.14. Yes
Please take the time to make a problem statement before getting into sub sub sub issues.

My understanding is that:
Jabba believes that the current scientific theory DOES NOT adequately address the uniqueness that is Jabba.
The majority of the posters in this thread accept that the current scientific theory DOES adequately address the uniqueness of each individual.

Could you please tell me what you feel the current scientific theory fails to address?

 

[JayUtah]

In the larger framework in which fringe argumentation plays the role of ego reinforcement, it rarely enters into the claimant's thinking that there can be a reasoned objection to his belief. Disbelief in a proposition and rejection of a line of reasoning therefore can have only a small set of potential causes: (1) ignorance of the underlying "facts," (2) failure to understand the proffered line of reasoning, and/or (3) emotional or ideological attachment. It's never considered that the argument is just wrong.

"Facts" is in cautionary quotes in (1) because it's often the case that the rebuttal often displays a much better command of the field of facts than the claimant does. The claimant usually wants to show off some newly-discovered set of facts of which he was previously unaware -- such as having read a book on the JFK assassination or seen one of Richard Gage's lectures on the physics of building failure. Often the claimant truly is telling his listeners things they haven't already heard; fringe claims are most frequently based on obscure, outlying evidence that isn't often mentioned in the prevailing narrative. When the rebuttal naturally attempts to focus on the centrist evidence that more reliably and defensibly supports the prevailing narrative (i.e., why the prevailing narrative prevails), the claimant often accuses the critics of ignoring or pooh-poohing his preferred facts.

As a recent example, Jabba gives us reincarnation as a possible way in which an immortal soul may exist. If he can prove reincarnation has a scientific basis, we would have to conclude the probability of an immortal soul since you can't reincarnate without one. But Jabba presented only outlying science -- fringe claims fraught with clear methodological errors, obvious bias, and published only in journals that specifically cater to such outliers. More reliable facts tell the mainstream story, and Jabba's critics are able to show this. But Jabba -- without addressing any of the analysis -- still maintains that he wields facts his critics weren't aware of and aren't looking at.

As I've been quoted as saying, conspiracism provides a shortcut to an illusion of erudition. One is likely to learn slightly more about specialized topics like space travel or murder investigation from reading conspiracy books than by not doing anything at all. So as along as one's audience remembers about the Van Allen belts only what he vaguely remembers from high school, or has never been in law enforcement, the claimant can present a small amount of true facts that make him feel superior over the listener. Obviously, however, those crumbs of actual fact come in a package of rampant error and deception, so the claimant can't hold his own against someone who has, by whatever means, learned more than the average layman. Since the ego-reinforcement motivation for conspiracism is about soliciting undeserved applause, such well-informed critics don't fit and are ignored.

Option (2) reflects on the notion that a claimant's emotional attachment to his conclusion and the line of reasoning that purports to lead there blinds him to its objective quality. It's a normal human emotion taken to an inappropriate extreme. Having come up with what we think is a clever idea, we don't want it shot down. Even of the facts run against it, we like to think it's "somehow" still true because it would validate our labor and cleverness in arriving at it.

We asked Jabba why, in the thousands of years of human philosophy, had no one else managed to prove immortality before. His answer -- factually incorrect, but nonetheless revealing -- was that he had stumbled upon certain facts and premises (e.g., the "potential self") that no one else had. He seems to believe fully that he can succeed where Athanasius, Plato, and Aristotle all failed. This is yet another curiosity of fringe claimants. They all seem to think their approaches and tactics are original and previously unknown. Jabba isn't the first to make a statistical argument of the allegedly improbable uniqueness of the self. Heck, we can find posters that extoll the same factoids toward the same effect. You don't have to look very far to see armchair-physicists independently arriving at the same "proofs" that Einstein was wrong or that quantum mechanics proves some woo claim, and arguing them according to the same rhetorical tactics.

Lest there be any doubt regarding Jabba's emotional attachment to his claim, he wrote a lengthy, angsty summary of his feelings some months ago. He frankly admitted he would be emotionally devastated if his beliefs turned out not to have the mathematically strong proof he seeks. You can't ask for any better explanation for behavior that follows from so strong a belief. If one's belief just "has" to be true, then the reasoning leading to it "has" to be correct, and therefore if a rational person rejects it, it must only be because he didn't understand that "obviously" correct line of reasoning.

Then there are just a few people who don't understand how reasoning works. I don't think Jabba is one of them, but there are plenty of people who behave as Jabba has in this debate with less culpability. When I say they don't understand how reasoning works, they don't comprehend how a set of premises establishes a validating framework for asserting the conclusion. They hover in the vicinity of Dunning and Kruger's sample set. From this sort, things like circular arguments are deployed as legitimate reasoning. Statements of personal belief are legitimately presented as self-evidently true. Debate with this sort is infuriating for both sides.

The last resort is usually to accuse one's critics of (3) being emotionally set against accepting the given line of reasoning. It falls short of accusing the critics of being irrational. "You see and understand my reasoning; you just don't want to accept it." Now such an accusation would be rich coming from Jabba since he's already admitted his own heavy emotional involvement. But a little of it is there. Jabba insinuates here and there that ISF is too ideologically entrenched to accept his reasoning, and that there exists some higher form of thought that he has mastered and his critics have not. It's a last resort because it has to postulate so much about other people, never with any evidence. We've seen that rejecting Jabba's claims on their merits is something other groups besides ISF have done. We've asked him for evidence the he's so much the better thinking than any of his critics, to no avail.

Jabba's running out of excuses. Hence the final solution for many fringe claimants is to withdraw entirely into a fabricated world that lets in just enough controlled externality to feed the ego-reinforcement goal. Hence the "maps."

 

[JayUtah]

Why these are numbered I have no clue but I will play along.

It's a benign Jabba-ism. He outlines his arguments so he can conveniently refer to various propositions by number later.

Could you please tell me what you feel the current scientific theory fails to address?

Good luck. I and others have been asking him this for years without success. If Jabba manages to answer you without his habitual begging of a question, I owe you your favorite libation.

 

[Hokulele]

jond,
- I haven't been shown how badly wrong I am; I've been told (over and over again) how badly wrong you guys think I am.

Jabba, can you give me an example from this or another forum where someone has successfully shown you to be wrong on any topic? I am mostly curious as to what sort of standards you set to accept a correction.

If you have never been shown to be wrong on any topic, anywhere, does this suggest anything to you?

 

[godless dave]

It's a benign Jabba-ism. He outlines his arguments so he can conveniently refer to various propositions by number later.

My favorite is when an exclamation like "Wow!" gets its own number.

 

[Dancing David]

- So far, it looks like no one has any issues or sub-issues to add to my list...
- I can always add later.
- The idea is to summarize each side of each argument. I will summarize my side; you guys will summarize your side. That, at least, is the idea.
- Now, it's up to me to get my blog working...

Jabba,
I think that first you have to demonstrate that a consistent and coherent 'self' exists, with a strong definition. An impression of a 'self' is not sufficient, there are many possible errors of perception and cognition that need to be addressed.

As an emergent property of an organic brain and body, the self is fluid at best and constantly changing. Can you demonstrate that any 'self' is consistent over time and not an ephemeral event?

This would establish the basis for the rest of the discussion.

 

[Mojo]

Could you please tell me what you feel the current scientific theory fails to address?

The existence of immortal souls.

ETA: Seriously, it is pretty clear from what he has posted that this is Jabba's objection.

 

[Belz...]

(snip)

You have way too much time on your hands!

 

[JayUtah]

You have way too much time on your hands!

The Government Shill office called and told me I wasn't filling my quota.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Jabba, can you give me an example from this or another forum where someone has successfully shown you to be wrong on any topic? I am mostly curious as to what sort of standards you set to accept a correction.

If you have never been shown to be wrong on any topic, anywhere, does this suggest anything to you?

It will probably suggest to him that he is right. --- What else?

Hans

 

[Jabba]

I don't see any reason to add to your list when we've discussed all those points several times already.

- Ok. I just want to make sure that I'm covering all your (plural) objections.

 

[JayUtah]

- Ok. I just want to make sure that I'm covering all your (plural) objections.

You haven't yet covered any of them. All you do is keep listing them, then repeat your original claims, telling us we must not be understanding you. At some point you need to stop rearranging the table of contents and actually address the content.

 

[jond]

You haven't yet covered any of them. All you do is keep listing them, then repeat your original claims, telling us we must not be understanding you. At some point you need to stop rearranging the table of contents and actually address the content.

Jabba, this is something you need to read and address.

 

[Waterman]

- Ok. I just want to make sure that I'm covering all your (plural) objections.

<sigh> So many objections beginning from your opening premise have been ignored what good does it do to catalog them if you are just going to ignore them. There are literally thousands of posts in this series of threads that contain objections you have technically 'replied to' but not provided an cogent response to.

What makes this time any different. Are you REALLY open to learning or are you just hear to teach us where we are going wrong and what short comings we have in failing to see the rightness of your argument.

 

[Waterman]

It's a benign Jabba-ism. He outlines his arguments so he can conveniently refer to various propositions by number later.



Good luck. I and others have been asking him this for years without success. If Jabba manages to answer you without his habitual begging of a question, I owe you your favorite libation.

I have read the Shroud thread and this one in its entirety so I am aware of this tendency. It is like line numbers in a legal document so you can find your place.

Anyway I am not going to hold my breath waiting for Jabba to earn me a beverage... You would wouldn't happen to be an a central Atlantic US coast would you?

 

[Jabba]

- The idea is to summarize the different arguments on both sides. I'll summarize my side; you guys will summarize your side.
- I would like to have just one person represent your side. I know you guys won't do it, but you could elect a representative. Otherwise, someone could volunteer... I could suggest a particular representative or two. Or finally, I could just pick what I think is your best summary for each issue.
- This will be for the map.
- Otherwise, at least, at first, anyone will able to comment.

- To me, effective public debate is currently just about non-existent. But, is it impossible? If possibly not impossible, shouldn't we humans be bending over backwards to find out -- and, if not impossible, deliver? I see doom on every front if we don't.