- At this point, I'm trying to show why there should be an infinity of potential specific selves.
The only reason you're doing that is to try to prove that P(E|H) has an infinite denominator so that you can say it's nigh unto impossible. Except that H is materialsim, so you have to reckon P(E|H) as if H -- materialism -- were true. Materialism has no concept of "potential" selves. It has been amply shown to you why, even if such a model of potentiality could exist, it would render everything equally impossible. Materialism has no concept of "specific selves." The sense of self under materialism is an emergent property of a functioning brain. It makes no more sense to talk about specific selves that it does to talk about specific "goes 60 mph" or specific "smells like bread." You're not talking about materialism. You're talking about something you've drawn up yourself and are trying to trick your critics into agreeing is materialism.
I assume that an exact copy of my brain would not bring ME back to life.
And your assumption falls flat under materialism. ME in this sentence is obviously referring to a soul, which doesn't exist under materialism. You're exactly assuming the thing you're supposed to be proving.
The specific self produced by the copy would not be me.
But you can't explain why not. You just insist it wouldn't be. Under materialism, everything that could possibly be any form of you is a product of the matter of your organism. Duplicate that and you duplicate all that is you. Really, that's the central tenet of materialism. If you're reckoning P(E|H) you must accept
arguendo everything that's part of E -- especially and including its central tenet.
And, if that's true, each specific self must be brand new...
Under materialism there is no "specific self" any more than there is a specific "going 60 mph." What you're proposing is not and cannot be true under materialism, and there's really no question about it.
-- in a sense, "out of nowhere"
You don't describe what arises
ex nihilo. You just say it must be whatever isn't reproduced in the copy -- a circular definition. You don't explain how something that arises
ex nihilo can somehow be countable in that state of non-existence. You're just making stuff up as you go.
Not to mention, cause and effect untraceable.
Except that it is. Under materialism a vast amount of evidence traces the sense of self to the operation of the physical brain -- and to nothing else, known or unknown.
You know, I have quite a bit more success conveying concepts to my dog than I do to you. Talking to you is like talking to a particularly rude wall. Since your posts today are no different from your posts yesterday, last week, last month, or last year, you really owe an explanation for why a thinking person should pay attention to you. We aren't the only audience who has told you that you simply spew, withing giving any indication that anyone else is speaking.
Fix that.
