Proof of Immortality, VI

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godless dave said:
The new self would be different from the original self in exactly the same way the second loaf of bread would be different from the original loaf of bread. It would be made of different atoms but they would be the same kind of atoms.
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It could even be the same atoms, as most atoms are heartily indestructible under normal earthbound conditions. But it would still be a second loaf of bread.

(14C breaks down, but it's also recreated in the air. There's no reason the same C atom couldn't be re-combobulated with the same electrons.)
 
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Jabba said:
Dave,
- I must have said this before, but it still makes sense to me -- your current sense of self (whatever it is) -- would not be reproduced by a perfect copy of your brain. Meanwhile, there is nothing analogous between the bread and its copy.
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Jabba, how long will it take for you to get this?

Yes, the above makes sense to you. Yes, the above is your belief. Yes, you are entitled to that belief.

But no, this is not the claim you are purporting to argue against. The claim of the opposition is that your current sense of self would be reproduced. That is what you think you are able to disprove.

However, you can't argue that it must be wrong because you think otherwise.

Hans
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- I must have said this before, but it still makes sense to me -- your current sense of self (whatever it is) -- would not be reproduced by a perfect copy of your brain. Meanwhile, there is nothing analogous between the bread and its copy.
Click to expand...

godless dave said:
It's exactly analogous:



The new self would be different from the original self in exactly the same way the second loaf of bread would be different from the original loaf of bread. It would be made of different atoms but they would be the same kind of atoms.

Just as following the recipe the second time "reproduced" the original loaf of bread, making a copy of my brain would "reproduce" my sense of self. They would be identical in exactly the same way the two loaves of bread would be identical.
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- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
 
I'm going to try this again, because we're all just repeating ourselves endlessly anyway in this never ending nightmare thread:

Jabba, please try to read all of this. This is the Materialist view of the sense of self. It doesn't matter if you agree with it, for your argument to make any sense you need to calculate your probabilities as if this is the case:

  1. We do experience consciousness, or a sense of self.
  2. This is caused by our physical brains, by the electrical signals and neurochemistry and all that jazz.
  3. If our brains are disrupted, so is the sense of self.
  4. Our sense of self isn't a tangible thing, nor is it a thing at all. It's an emergent property of our brains.
  5. If you duplicated someone perfectly, that duplicate would also have a sense of self. Since the person was duplicated exactly, both copies would have the same thoughts, feelings, and personality.
  6. Our sense of self goes away every night when we get some good sleep. By most reasonable definitions it's just gone. When we wake up we once again have a sense of self.
  7. Likewise, people have been pretty darn dead and have been brought back. During the time we are dead (or deeply sleeping, or in a coma, or whatever) our sense of self isn't somewhere else - it just is gone entirely. There is no persistent sense of self that survives outside our body.
  8. We don't really call this a "new" sense of self, because it's an emergent property rather than a countable thing. Likewise if a chameleon was green, and then turned red, and then turned green again we wouldn't say it had a "new" green. It was green, then it wasn't, then it was. We are aware, then we're not, then we are.
  9. When our brains break sufficiently that they can no longer generate this sense of self awareness ever again, it's just over. There's nothing to reincarnate because that sense of self isn't a countable thing and it's gone anyway. Nobody else will have "our" sense of self, or any part of it, because it's not a THING that can be passed around or divided up.
  10. That feeling you have, that a copy wouldn't be you and that there's something special about the original that would be lost in translation - that's not an actual thing, it's more like sentimental value. It means something TO YOU but it's not an actual measurable or quantifiable value. If we DID replace you with a perfect copy and didn't tell you, you would never know.

To elaborate on that last point:

You (Jabba) and JayUtah try to resolve this in person, and end up having such a good time that you forget all about this argument and spend a week in Disneyworld instead. You have the best time you've ever had anywhere and are left with feelings of platonic affection and memories that will last a lifetime. JayUtah buys you a Mickey Mouse hat, which you promise to treasure forever. I also have a Mickey Mouse hat, I got it off eBay as part of a lot of miscellaneous hats. These two Mickey Mouse hats, due to the wonders of modern engineering and random chance, are physically identical down to the last molecule and are therefore identical for all real purposes.

You would assign way more meaning to one of them because the one you were given has sentimental value, but if I swapped them when you weren't looking you would be none the wiser and would take the "wrong" hat home. Now you would assign that added value to the one I bought on eBay from HatLover99 because no instrument in the universe could ever tell the two apart.

That's because sentimental value isn't a tangible thing. Likewise, you feel that two identical people would nonetheless be different in some way. All that would actually be different, however, is the value that you assign to them. So you would feel differently about them but in actual practice there is no difference and you wouldn't be able to tell them apart if you mixed them up.

I know you're not going to do this even though it would only take like a minute, but here goes anyway: I'm going to list off some things, and I want you to give a yes/no answer - just yes/no - for each of them. If you respond with a whole paragraph we're probably going to just go into another stupid loop, so I really am begging you to answer all of the below with a yes or a no.

Assuming a physically perfect copy could be made, is there a difference between two completely identical:

1. Jabbas?

2. Other, non-Jabba people?

3. Dead bodies?

4. Plants?

5. Dogs?

6. Bacteria?

7. Rocks?

8. Mickey Mouse hats?

9. Mickey Mouse hats where one of them was a gift from a loved one and one wasn't, but in all physical ways they are identical?

If you could answer all nine of those with a YES or NO we might be able to narrow things down a bit.
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

Reproducing something does not mean bringing it back, it means making a copy. If I reproduce a loaf of bread, I don't get the original loaf back, I get a new loaf of bread.
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life.
Click to expand...
Define "YOU" in the sense you're using it.

In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...
What do you mean by "particular", recognizing that we're talking about a process?
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

How many more times are people going to have to explain to you why this makes no sense whatsoever before you attempt to understand the explanation instead of just mindlessly repeating your mistake?
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

5+ years and you're still pretending we haven't defined out disagreement enough to actually start the discussion.

And then you just restate "But it wouldn't be the saaaaaaaaaame!" again without actually supporting, explaining or.. anything.
 
SOdhner said:
I'm going to try this again, because we're all just repeating ourselves endlessly anyway in this never ending nightmare thread:

Jabba, please try to read all of this. This is the Materialist view of the sense of self. It doesn't matter if you agree with it, for your argument to make any sense you need to calculate your probabilities as if this is the case:

  1. We do experience consciousness, or a sense of self.
  2. This is caused by our physical brains, by the electrical signals and neurochemistry and all that jazz.
  3. If our brains are disrupted, so is the sense of self.
  4. Our sense of self isn't a tangible thing, nor is it a thing at all. It's an emergent property of our brains.
  5. If you duplicated someone perfectly, that duplicate would also have a sense of self. Since the person was duplicated exactly, both copies would have the same thoughts, feelings, and personality.
  6. Our sense of self goes away every night when we get some good sleep. By most reasonable definitions it's just gone. When we wake up we once again have a sense of self.
  7. Likewise, people have been pretty darn dead and have been brought back. During the time we are dead (or deeply sleeping, or in a coma, or whatever) our sense of self isn't somewhere else - it just is gone entirely. There is no persistent sense of self that survives outside our body.
  8. We don't really call this a "new" sense of self, because it's an emergent property rather than a countable thing. Likewise if a chameleon was green, and then turned red, and then turned green again we wouldn't say it had a "new" green. It was green, then it wasn't, then it was. We are aware, then we're not, then we are.
  9. When our brains break sufficiently that they can no longer generate this sense of self awareness ever again, it's just over. There's nothing to reincarnate because that sense of self isn't a countable thing and it's gone anyway. Nobody else will have "our" sense of self, or any part of it, because it's not a THING that can be passed around or divided up.
  10. That feeling you have, that a copy wouldn't be you and that there's something special about the original that would be lost in translation - that's not an actual thing, it's more like sentimental value. It means something TO YOU but it's not an actual measurable or quantifiable value. If we DID replace you with a perfect copy and didn't tell you, you would never know.
Click to expand...


This materialist agrees with every word on this list.

This has seemed beyond dispute to me for a long time.

One consequence, though, is that there is no such thing as the "eternal night" we're supposed to fear.
 
Jabba said:
- I must have said this before, but it still makes sense to me -- your current sense of self (whatever it is) -- would not be reproduced by a perfect copy of your brain.
Click to expand...

It would be reproduce. You're wrong. You're just trying to substitute another word for it because you're not really trying to discuss materialism.
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

Stop using two definitions of "you" and "self" in every post. Stick to one.
 
An "Exact Copy" of "You" would not be the same as the original "You" because God put a soul in the first one but not the second one.

Jabba do you understand that everybody knows that's what you are saying? You just think can dance around it.

You want to assume a soul without proving a soul.
 
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Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...


Once again dishonestly trying to put words in someone's mouth. I wonder if your next “self” will also lack a sense of shame.
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

Why do you keep telling people what they think? Do you imagine that it's rude to ask instead?
 
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Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

Yes, it would, because the sense of self is an emergent property.

If you copy a music CD, the copy is an different item, but the music is the same.

If we copy you (gods forbid) the body of the copy will be a different item, but the sense of self will be the same.

Hans
 
Jabba said:
- This seems to be our most basic disagreement.
- You and I are assuming that a perfect copy of your brain would not bring YOU back to life. In that sense, your particular sense of self would not be reproduced...
Click to expand...

How many times must your critics remind you how rude it is when you put your words in their mouths and declare agreement?

In materialism there is no "particular self" just as there is no "particular smells like bread" in baking and no "particular going 60 mph" in motoring. Every single one of your critics has called on you these repeated attempts to discretize a property. The soul is a discrete entity in your model. In materialism it is a completely different sort of concept. It isn't discrete. It isn't countable. It isn't a thing.

Your critics have individually and collectively done a remarkable job of explaining how life, consciousness, and the illusion of the self are properties of the organism under materialism. Via analogy and careful exposition they have presented the materialist model in a way I would say even most children could understand. And what do you do in every post? You blunder into the china shop of a well-expounded model with meaningless bullish statements like "...bring YOU back to life," which don't even bother to conceal their intent to try to make materialism explain all the imaginary crap you've dishonestly tried to attach to the problem.

Years, Jabba. For years people have carefully explained why you're wrong. And you insult them by condescendingly pretending to be some wizened intellectual analyzing this discussion according to "Effective Debate" toward some purportedly higher purpose. No. You're just another crank with another ignorantly formulated proof and a well-developed way of fooling yourself into believing it's all someone else's fault it isn't being accepted. If that's how you want to live our your autumn years, be my guest. But when you're here, please stop wasting everyone else's time with arguments you know have been long refuted and puerile tactics that have never worked.
 
JayUtah said:
How many times must your critics remind you how rude it is when you put your words in their mouths and declare agreement?....
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Well, as evinced by his posts, he is only interested in capturing a soundbite to put on his 'map' thingy.

He's trying for a word trap that he can 'win'.

This is why he (with blatant disrespect) ignores any questions against his claim then repeats it again later.

Questions like:

What attributes would differ in the copy of the brain,bread,volkswagon?

Or, how many going 60 mph are there?

Or, is it the same 'you' when you wake up in the morning, or after surgery?

Or, since there are infinite possible bananas, then by your logic, no specific banana should ever come into existence, since the odds of a specific banana are 1/infitinity.
 
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