Proof of Immortality, VI

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Saw some 2018 calendars on the shelves, so stopped by.

Apologies if this had been addressed upthread, but, as a sidenote, Jabba:

The Earth is currently in the habitable zone which supports human 'selves'. It is not a permanent condition. As interstellar colonization is not a foreseeable option, does this limit your presumed amount of potential selves? If so, what does that do to your equations? If you do not acknowledge this, might 'selves' evolve to the point where they do not have an individual 'selfiness' as we now know it? Asking because it might alter how you assign values.
 
Jabba said:
- Try this.
- Hypothesis M: I am mortal -- i.e., I can be aware only one, finite time.
- Given that I am currently aware, which is more likely -- M or ~M?
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Jabba, were you "aware" before this current existence? If not, why not?
 
Jabba said:
- If I am immortal, my existence doesn't depend upon a particular body, and probably doesn't depend upon any body -- as, the continuation of my self doesn't depend upon anything we would now call "physical." And, given such consideration, my current existence is much more likely if I am indeed immortal, than if I am not immortal.
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What do you mean 'you'?

Earlier you repeated this idea:
Jabba said:
- My best guess so far is either that each of us is a piece of an infinitely divisible bucket of consciousness (and more than one of us used to be Napoleon)
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That doesn't sound like 'you' existing without a body.
 
Jabba said:
- Try this.
- Hypothesis M: I am mortal -- i.e., I can be aware only one, finite time.
- Given that I am currently aware, which is more likely -- M or ~M?
Click to expand...

What is special about you currently existing? The scientific hypothesis, which is that you are the result of your parents coupling, and their parents coupling before them, etc, indicates that your current existence is not only likely, it’s the only one you could have. Why is it that you imagine your current existence, as opposed to if you existed 100 years ago, is special?
 
jond said:
What is special about you currently existing?
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I expect it has something to do with the amazing coincidence that Jabba "currently" exists in his present form right at this moment in time, instead of 3,769 years ago or 250 years in the future. In other words, he's scrambling for a new thing to be his amazingly unlikely "target." What this would have to do with immortality or the soul is anyone's guess.

I may be wrong here, of course. The problem we have when dealing with patently absurd arguments is reading half-stated arguments and wondering what massively broken part of them has been left out because the proponent thought it was too self-evidently obvious to mention. Jabba keeps his arguments intentionally ambiguous so that no one knows exactly how to refute him.
 
JayUtah said:
I may be wrong here, of course.
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Only if Jabba's luck changes.

The problem we have when dealing with patently absurd arguments is reading half-stated arguments and wondering what massively broken part of them has been left out because the proponent thought it was too self-evidently obvious to mention. Jabba keeps his arguments intentionally ambiguous so that no one knows exactly how to refute him.
Click to expand...

How's that working out for him? ;)
 
Pixel42 said:
Oh it's not new, he's tried it before. It's so patently ridiculous most people just ignore that bit of his argument out of pity.
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Yeah, I recall Godless Dave pointed out the same obvious issue I did a while back. And imagine the surprise when we discovered Jabba ignored it!
 
Jabba said:
- Try this.
- Hypothesis M: I am mortal -- i.e., I can be aware only one, finite time.
- Given that I am currently aware, which is more likely -- M or ~M?
Click to expand...

Try this.
Hypothesis D: A particular slab of chipboard can only be part of my desk for one, finite time.
Given that it is currently part of my desk, which is more likely -- D or ~D?

In other words, do you feel that it is more likely that my desktop has existed, and will exist, forever?

Dave
 
jond said:
Yeah, I recall Godless Dave pointed out the same obvious issue I did a while back. And imagine the surprise when we discovered Jabba ignored it!
Click to expand...

Somebody has pointed out every obvious issue way a while back.

In that pretty much everybody pointed out every obvious issue 5 years ago.

And he's ignored them all.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Try this.
Hypothesis D: A particular slab of chipboard can only be part of my desk for one, finite time.
Given that it is currently part of my desk, which is more likely -- D or ~D?

In other words, do you feel that it is more likely that my desktop has existed, and will exist, forever?

Dave
Click to expand...


Desks, mountains, volkswagens - it doesn't matter. Jabba's answer is always the same: furious handwaving that boils down to, "But they don't have souls."

It's the neatest proof that his argument is circular.
 
Toontown said:
That depends on how you define immortality.
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Only if we want to pretend there's some question as to what immortality means in this context. Why do unsplit hairs bother people so much?

We all know what we're talking about. "How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg" doesn't help.

This Doctor Manhattan "A live human body and a dead human body have the same number of molecules" routine isn't the point and we all know it.
 
Loss Leader said:
Jabba -

1) You can only observe your condition while you're alive. The fact that you happen to be alive right now is meaningless because, relatively, you're always alive when you ask yourself that question.

2) You said there were an infinite number of potential people. Are there also an infinite number of potential immortal people?
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LL,

Re #1. Yeah. That is not the hyper-coincident regarding "right now". One hyper-coincident is that "now" happens to be 2017 (Gregorian) when time would seem to have existed for at least 14 billion years -- what's the likelihood that now happens to be within the hundred years that I might have?

Re #2. My best guess at this point is that we all came from the same beginning consciousness, and were all one, then.
 
Jabba said:
LL,

Re #1. Yeah. That is not the hyper-coincident regarding "right now". One hyper-coincident is that "now" happens to be 2017 (Gregorian) when time would seem to have existed for at least 14 billion years -- what's the likelihood that now happens to be within the hundred years that I might have?
Click to expand...


What the hell does that matter? You exist at whatever "now" you notice that you exist. The chance that it's "now" is 1.



Re #2. My best guess at this point is that we all came from the same beginning consciousness, and were all one, then.
Click to expand...


Are there as many possible immortal people under ~H as possible people under H?
 
Jabba said:
LL,

Re #1. Yeah. That is not the hyper-coincident regarding "right now". One hyper-coincident is that "now" happens to be 2017 (Gregorian) when time would seem to have existed for at least 14 billion years -- what's the likelihood that now happens to be within the hundred years that I might have?

Re #2. My best guess at this point is that we all came from the same beginning consciousness, and were all one, then.
Click to expand...

So you don’t accept the scientific theory that you are the result of your parents coupling, or that your children are the result of your coupling with your wife. Do you ascribe to the stork theory?
 
Jabba said:
LL,

Re #1. Yeah. That is not the hyper-coincident regarding "right now". One hyper-coincident is that "now" happens to be 2017 (Gregorian) when time would seem to have existed for at least 14 billion years -- what's the likelihood that now happens to be within the hundred years that I might have?

Re #2. My best guess at this point is that we all came from the same beginning consciousness, and were all one, then.
Click to expand...

Wheeeeeeeee. An new undefined and vague term, "Hyper-coincident". Definition please Jabba.

I predict the definition will be oddly convenient.
 
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