Proof of Immortality, VI

[JayUtah]

I keep repeating myself, but so does everyone else

The difference is that we are paying attention to you, but you are not paying attention to anyone else. And we're not the only audience who has noticed this particular shortcoming on your part. You don't debate; you preach.

...and, I keep saying that I don't know that I can state my case re this sub-issue any better than I already have...

Your case regarding this sub-issue is blatantly wrong, for the reasons already given. "Restating" it doesn't fix that, Jabba. You need to actually listen -- actually pay attention -- to the reasons people are giving for why your claim is wrong. Giving a broken-down Volkswagen a new coat of paint doesn't suddenly make it go 60 mph.

Several months ago you admitted that you were heavily emotionally invested in your proof, and heavily emotionally invested in the outcome of this debate. I would suggest that is not a position from which you can claim to be arguing rationally or in good faith. I would suggest instead that your fervent emotional belief in immortality is blinding you to the possibility that you may be wrong. You literally seem incapable of considering that you have erred.

You really need to take some time away from this, during which I urge you to read what others have written and consider that they are telling the truth and aren't just the mean, stupid skeptics you told others you were coming here to show up.

 

[JayUtah]

- By that, do you just mean that no one accepts my answer to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy -- or, is there something more?

What a stupid, rude question. You've known for several weeks there are quite a few other things. If you're at the point of asking this question, you should be at the point of addressing this:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11871278&postcount=3198

 

[Dave Rogers]

- By that, do you just mean that no one accepts my answer to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy -- or, is there something more?

I'd say both.

Your response to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is simply to assert that you're special with no justification. Truth is, you're not that special; if another person very like you but not quite identical existed in your place, the doings of the universe would be virtually unaffected, and (this is the important bit) the materialist hypothesis would be rendered no more or less likely. So, you're correct in that nobody accepts your bare assertion that the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy doesn't apply.

But there is a whole lot more, because the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is only one of the many fatal flaws in your line of argument. Your line of argument, in fact, is like a chain in which not one link, but every link, is broken. For example:

• Your definition of H is incorrect.
• Your definition of ~H is not logically complementary to H.
• Immortality is not congruent with ~H.
• Your supposed probabilities for H, ~H, E|H and E|~H are subject to the extractum ex regio inferis fallacy
• You have yet to prove the central support of your argument, that your existence is more likely under ~H than H

There are more, but I suspect you'll yet again pretend that even the above don't exist.

Dave

 

[RoboTimbo]

- By that, do you just mean that no one accepts my answer to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy -- or, is there something more?

You've never addressed the fact that you use the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. I've asked you numerous times to give me your understanding of it and you never have.

Because if you did, you would either be shown to be wrong about your understanding of it or you would prove your own use of it. You know it and everyone else knows it.

 

[JayUtah]

- VWs have no unifying emergent property. A particular VW has no indigenous identity. A human does.

Total nonsense. I drive an Audi, which is essentially a Volkswagen. The particular sound it makes when it starts up is unique to my vehicle. It is an emergent property of the throttle and the gadget that injects air into the exhaust at startup. It has a particular tear in the leather of the driver's seat, and telltale cracks due to Utah's dry climate. At around 2800 rpm, in third gear, there's a telltale vibration that's an emergent property of the bearings in the transmission. All these things are properties of the physical object which together identify it as a particular specimen, apart from any other. What is the probability all those things would have arisen together in my specimen? A million over infinity potential Volkswagens? What does that probability have to do with my particular car actually existing?

Conversely my "Volkswagen" is build on the B6 chassis, which unifies my Audi with all other models that share that chassis -- some Audi and some Volkswagen. It has a particular engine that's a common turbocharged engine among many VAG models of that same year. There are properties that unify and properties that distinguish. You insist on equivocating among them to insist that your "specialist" view of humans must apply also to materialism.

Humans are unified in that they are self-aware. This is not an individualized property any more than "going 60 mph" or "built on the B6 chassis" is individualized. You are self-aware. I am self-aware. Those aren't two "self-awarenesses." Properties are not entities. You have acquired various cracks in your seats and wear in your bearings that are particular to you, in the form of memories and other conscious properties. Under materialism those are simply stored in your brain as chemical and physical alterations. That is where your individual identity is, not in some handwavy nonsense. And if you're talking about H, such as when reckoning P(E|H), that's where you have to agree arguendo that identity lies.

No. "Indigenous identity" is just another attempt to equivocate "soul." By now you must realize you can't sneak these little things past your critics.

 

[JayUtah]

Your response to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is simply to assert that you're special with no justification.

He conflates uniqueness with speciality. He is unique among specimens of humans, therefore he is special with respect to the quantitative argument. The thought experiment of duplicating the exercise is meant to remove uniqueness from the equation hypothetically. All his writhing and squirming is aimed at trying to put uniqueness (and therefore speciality) back into the thought experiment.

 

[Monza]

- VWs have no unifying emergent property. A particular VW has no indigenous identity. A human does.

That is completely wrong. I'm not sure you understand what an emergent property is and how it relates to a physical object.

 

[Hokulele]

- VWs have no unifying emergent property. A particular VW has no indigenous identity. A human does.

And here your bigotry is being shown again. Why is an "indigenous identity" more valuable than the emergent properties VWs display? I do not care about your subjective feelings on the matter, give me one good reason why I should accept your hierarchy over someone else's?

 

[Jabba]

- And, that's what OOFLam (H) accepts. H and ~H are still talking about the same experience. They just disagree about it's nature -- and, that's exactly what the formula claims.
- I keep repeating myself, but so does everyone else -- and, I keep saying that I don't know that I can state my case re this sub-issue any better than I already have...

Because you keep changing your mind. Right now you're agreeing that under H, a particular sense of self is produced by a brain, so two identical brains would produce two identical senses of selves. But a few posts ago you were saying the senses of self would be different under H. So which is it?

- No. By, "H and ~H are still talking about the same experience" I don't mean to say that two identical brains would produce identical senses of self. I'm still saying that there is a difference between experience and nature. It's as if two people are looking at the same sign in the distance -- they just disagree about what it says.

 

[Hokulele]

- No. By, "H and ~H are still talking about the same experience" I don't mean to say that two identical brains would produce identical senses of self. I'm still saying that there is a difference between experience and nature. It's as if two people are looking at the same sign in the distance -- they just disagree about what it says.

Then you clearly aren't discussing H, but your own made up version of it.

 

[JayUtah]

I'm still saying that there is a difference between experience and nature.

You keep equivocating between those concepts trying to trap someone into agreeing with you.

It's as if two people are looking at the same sign in the distance -- they just disagree about what it says.

No. You're relegating the important difference to be an irrelevant nuance. To wit, you're trying to cram everything you can into the data that must be explained. The difference between materialism and what you're trying to pass off as materialism is as fundamental as agreeing on whether we're seeing a sign or something that could merely be mistaken for a sign and has evidence to support that it's probably not a sign.

The observation is akin to something apparently rectangular and apparently covered with something that may or may not be writing. You want to jump to the conclusion that it's a sign and make someone else explain why what they theorize is an oddly shaped patch of leaves says "No Left Turn" -- because that would be so very improbable -- only you supply no evidence that it says any such thing or is actually a sign.

You really need to stop assuming the existence of a soul. You're not even very good anymore at hiding the assumption.

 

[Jabba]

I'd say both.

Your response to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is simply to assert that you're special with no justification. Truth is, you're not that special; if another person very like you but not quite identical existed in your place, the doings of the universe would be virtually unaffected, and (this is the important bit) the materialist hypothesis would be rendered no more or less likely. So, you're correct in that nobody accepts your bare assertion that the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy doesn't apply.

But there is a whole lot more, because the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is only one of the many fatal flaws in your line of argument. Your line of argument, in fact, is like a chain in which not one link, but every link, is broken. For example:

• Your definition of H is incorrect.
• Your definition of ~H is not logically complementary to H.
• Immortality is not congruent with ~H.
• Your supposed probabilities for H, ~H, E|H and E|~H are subject to the extractum ex regio inferis fallacy
• You have yet to prove the central support of your argument, that your existence is more likely under ~H than H

There are more, but I suspect you'll yet again pretend that even the above don't exist.

Dave

Dave,
- I accept that I haven't proven anything -- though, I think that I've supported each of my claims to which you refer in your list.
- Also, I've given what I still think is justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy -- if I have a real point, you don't see it...

 

[John Jones]

Dave,
- I accept that I haven't proven anything -- though, I think that I've [U]supported[/U] each of my claims to which you refer in your list.
- Also, I've given what I still think is justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy -- if I have a real point, you don't see it...

Nope.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- I accept that I haven't proven anything -- though, I think that I've supported each of my claims to which you refer in your list.
- Also, I've given what I still think is justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy -- if I have a real point, you don't see it...

Only because you ignore all the myriad responses that have shown you to be very wrong.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Dave,
- I accept that I haven't proven anything -- though, I think that I've supported each of my claims to which you refer in your list.

No, you haven't. You've made bare assertions that you're right on all these claims, and that's about all. In particular, you've pulled a number out of thin air for the probability of your existence under ~H which you haven't justified; you've repeatedly tried to mischaracterize H, as you've had pointed out repeatedly; and you've repeatedly tried to get away with the assertion that ~H implies an immortal soul, without even attempting to justify it. And these are just a few examples.

- Also, I've given what I still think is justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy -- if I have a real point, you don't see it...

You don't have a real point. Your 'justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy' is denial repeated ad nauseam, without either actually addressing the criticism or even trying to understand what it is. If you had a real point, you'd make it.

If nobody else in the world agrees what you're trying to say, it's unlikely that the correct explanation is that nobody is intelligent enough to understand you. It's more likely that you're actually wrong.

Dave

ETA: Oh, and by the way, about five years ago you said,

I think that I can essentially prove immortality using Bayesian statistics.

Given that,

- I accept that I haven't proven anything

do you think maybe you've just admitted that you were wrong?

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

I accept that I haven't proven anything -- though, I think that I've supported each of my claims to which you refer in your list.

No.

Lest we replay your embarrassment in the Shroud thread, you don't get to equivocate "support" to mean "I don't have any evidence, but I want you to pretend I do."

Further, you know full well that this list exists, but you have done absolutely nothing to address it. I asked you, for each item in this list, to write a few sentences explaining how you were going to overcome that particular flaw. I have diligently searched this thread since then in vain, hoping to discover the post where you did that. If you did, and I missed it, please link to the post where you have "supported" your claims against that list. If you cannot or will not, would you agree we are justified in accusing you of deliberately lying about this?

Also, I've given what I still think is justification re not committing the sharpshooter fallacy -- if I have a real point, you don't see it...

No, your justification is simply to beg that the Texas sharpshooter fallacy shouldn't be a fallacy.

You argued that one could reliably infer prior significance solely from outcome. You gave a couple of examples. I took each example and showed how, in each case, you were actually basing your judgment of significance on knowledge that existing prior to drawing the sample. Therefore it was not actually inferred form the outcome alone, as you are doing in ascribing significance to your existence after the fact. Your argument was refuted, and you ignored the refutation. How dare you blame that on your critics.

 

[godless dave]

- No. By, "H and ~H are still talking about the same experience" I don't mean to say that two identical brains would produce identical senses of self. I'm still saying that there is a difference between experience and nature. It's as if two people are looking at the same sign in the distance -- they just disagree about what it says.

Yes, there is a difference between experience and nature. The experience is the same in both H and ~H. The nature of the experience in H is that two identical brains would produce two identical senses of self.

 

[JayUtah]

...it's unlikely that the correct explanation is that nobody is intelligent enough to understand you. It's more likely that you're actually wrong.

It bears repeating that Jabba has taken this argument in person to people whom he has identified as responsible and knowledgeable academics in the field of statistics. He chose these people specifically for their expertise, so it cannot be argued that they lack the brains to understand and evaluate his claims. They told him he was wrong -- surprise, surprise. As much as Jabba would really like to make this about those nasty, entrenched skeptics being unable to appreciate his genius, it really is not. Jabba has admitted that experts reject his claims, and he has admitted that he holds his conclusion on an emotional basis, not a rational one. The pretense that he thinks he has proven something rationally really doesn't have any evidence in this thread to support it.

 

[Belz...]

- No. By, "H and ~H are still talking about the same experience" I don't mean to say that two identical brains would produce identical senses of self. I'm still saying that there is a difference between experience and nature. It's as if two people are looking at the same sign in the distance -- they just disagree about what it says.

None of this is relevant to any of your arguments or any of our objections. Drop it.

 

[Mojo]

Just to clarify, Jabba, when you are calculating P(E|H) it doesn't matter whether or not H is correct: you have to assume that H is correct and calculate the likelihood as if H is correct.

1) I've said the above, and am still waiting for a reply. You must calculate the probability of you existing in H as if H were correct.

SOdhner,
- Re #1. Agreed. Given H, the current existence of my self is unimaginably small.

How the hell is that agreeing with SOdhner? The reason your calculation comes up with an "unimaginably small" value for the likelihood of your existence is that YOU ARE CALCULATING IT AS IF H IS WRONG.