Proof of Immortality, VI

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Jabba said:
LL,
- I do currently accept that in order for my current existence to be a legitimate target -- and the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, properly fill the role of P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula -- I need to be somehow "set apart from the crowd" (or something similar). I have offered my argument for that case previously, but can't seem to find it now...
- Anyway, here's my rough explanation.
- Just to sort of "set the stage," we all take our current existence totally for granted, when it really should be the very last thing we take for granted...
- Even if I am just a process, and not a "thing1." I am still the only "thing2" that I know exists. Everything else (1&2) could just be my imagination.
- If I didn't currently exist, there might as well be nothing -- and, if I never existed, there might as well never be anything.
- That makes me special!
- I assume that you have the same credentials, and are special also.
- That ought to get us started...
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godless dave said:
In what way does that make you special?
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Jabba said:
Dave,
- That is the question!

- I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay. That sets me apart, and makes me special. I think it's the same claim that Toon makes.
- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.
- If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help? Hypothetically?
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godless dave said:
Again, how does that make you special? What does it set you apart from? Those things are only true from your perspective, and your perspective only exists after you already exist. Before you existed there was no you to have a perspective.

How can one event be a coincidence? For a coincidence you need at least two events.

Any fraction with infinity as the denominator is equivalent to zero so if you could do that you wouldn't have to bother with any of the Bayesian stuff at all because the likelihood would be zero. But you're no closer to doing that than you were five years ago.
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Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?
 
carlitos said:
Ah, but that's the beauty of it -- Jabba's existence is not a coincidence; it's a coincident. He invented another word - it's like targetness or infinity as a denominator.



A novel new use of an adjective as a noun. It's more argument by semantics, and its use as effectiveTM as ever!

Hey Jabba, check this out!
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Carlitos,
- I didn't realize there was a difference... Learned something new.
 
Jabba said:
Per usual, one step at a time.
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No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.

Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite...
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.

...or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?
Click to expand...


Under H, consciousness is the result of brain processes, and "potential selves" don't exist. They only need to be taken into account when assessing the likelihood of your current existence under your preferred hypothesis, under which "selves" exist independently of bodies.
 
JayUtah said:
Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?
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I think that if Jabba has failed to establish that his argument doesn't involve the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, then he's probably pretty sure that he was trying to fail. ;)
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?
Click to expand...

I'm saying, as I've said several times before, that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?
Click to expand...

Jabba, even if you could argue that the number of potential selves was infinite (which is really ridiculous), it would not help you. Imagine a lottery with an infinite number of tickets (could be numbers, there is an infinite number of them), and you draw one: You would get a winner. Even if you draw from an infinite number of possibilities, there will still be a winner.

Hans
 
Mojo said:
I think that if Jabba has failed to establish that his argument doesn't involve the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, then he's probably pretty sure that he was trying to fail. ;)
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He could just be trying to sweep it under a Shroud. The pattern is to focus obsessively on "one thing at a time" as an excuse to dismiss the big bag of fail, until that one thing becomes too onerous to defend. Then magically the subject changes without explanation.
 
JayUtah said:
No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.



There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.



There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?
Click to expand...

Jabba, please address this post.
 
godless dave said:
I'm saying, as I've said several times before, that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator.
Click to expand...
Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?
 
JayUtah said:
No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.



There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.



There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?
Click to expand...

jond said:
Jabba, please address this post.
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Jond,
- If you select one issue from the above, I will do my best to answer it.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?
Click to expand...

No, it is yet another statement of your claim. We are heartily sick of hearing you invent endless ways to restate your claim.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?
Click to expand...

Not in the slightest. Human selves aren't drawn from a pool. Like other animals, humans engage in sexual reproduction. A new human comes from a combination of a male and female parent.

Maybe this will help: http://www.biology-pages.info/S/Sexual_Reproduction.html
 
MRC_Hans said:
Jabba, even if you could argue that the number of potential selves was infinite (which is really ridiculous), it would not help you. Imagine a lottery with an infinite number of tickets (could be numbers, there is an infinite number of them), and you draw one: You would get a winner. Even if you draw from an infinite number of possibilities, there will still be a winner.

Hans
Click to expand...
Hans,
- But again, 1) Dave does accept an infinity of potential selves. And 2) I accept that I need to be, somehow, set apart from the rest of the infinity of potential winners. Setting myself apart from the rest of you guys is my key task at the moment.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?
Click to expand...


As has been explained to you before, your existence is not analogous to a lottery. This is your persistent error, not Dave's.
 
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