Proof of Immortality, VI

[Jabba]

Dave,
- What I'm trying to do right now is get us on the same page as to just how unlikely you and I are -- given OOFLam.
- As there is no pool of potential bodies, there is no basic limitation on the number of potential bodies. I assume that the same is true for potential selves.
- By "no basic limitation," I mean that to the extent that time and the right conditions are infinite, so are the potential number of "different" bodies and selves. If time and the right conditions are not infinite, chances are that you would never exist,...

I don't see how that follows at all...

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity.

...let alone that "now" would be the time you exist.

This doesn't make sense. "Now" is the only time I could exist. My existence depends on my parents' existence. Their existence depends on their parents' existence.

- This is a little more complicated... I'll be back.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Maybe it would help if you tell us what your claim is again.

- Claim is that

LOL

the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity.

The same applies to farts, except farts would be a higher potential number of infinity due to being multiples of the number of potential people.

Are you claiming that farts have souls?

- This is a little more complicated... I'll be back.

Nothing at all you've said is complicated...it's just wrong.

 

[godless dave]

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited.

Why would the number of potential selves have no basic limitation if:

If time and the right conditions are not infinite,

 

[Jabba]

SOdhner.
- I basically agree with #s 1, 2 and 3 -- though as usual, I would rather use "self" than "soul" as I think that using "soul" begs the question. Would you accept #1 as true if it referred to "self" instead of "soul"?
- If we can get past that issue, I'll move on to #4.

I don't see why you would want to use a less precise term. You're clearly referring to a soul. I guess I could get behind it if you want to give it a new and unique word to avoid confusion like "Jabbasoul" or something, but then you'd still need to define it and, lets' be honest, the definition is "soul" so why don't we just call it a soul?...

- I guess that my earlier explanation just doesn't communicate. The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't. In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).
- I'll be back for more.

 

[jond]

- I guess that my earlier explanation just doesn't communicate. The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't. In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).
- I'll be back for more.

You continue to use self as a separate entity, and not as a process (which is the materialistic model). That needs to be addressed.

 

[Belz...]

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity.

No, that doesn't follow.

Are you ever going to support that conclusion?

 

[zooterkin]

- I guess that my earlier explanation just doesn't communicate. The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't. In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).
- I'll be back for more.

Once again, you demonstrate that you still don't understand the term, 'emergent property'.

 

[JayUtah]

I guess that my earlier explanation just doesn't communicate.

Because it's inherently duplicitous and people can immediately see this.

The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't.

Not the way you're trying to use the terms. You explicitly describe the "self" -- ostensibly under materialism, but really as a straw man -- as having a type and term of existence separate from that of a physical body. That essentially decoupling is the sine qua non in your attempted proof. You are literally assuming the thing you need to prove and complaining because people can see this right off.

In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).

You're doing that by assuming the self has soul-like properties that materialism can't explain, so materialism must (in your estimation) be a poor explanation for the self. You're completely ignoring how the self is really explained in materialism, which is as an emergent property produced by a process in the organism. Until you properly formulate materialism, you will fail right out of the gate every time with this line of reasoning.

I'll be back for more.

More what? This is well-plowed ground and you know you will get nowhere with it because you haven't gotten anywhere with it in the past several years, among disparate groups of readers. Even newcomers can spot your fatal flaws instantly. You say you want to get "on the same page," but it's unclear how you plan to do this when you assiduously pay no attention to what anyone else is saying.

 

[JayUtah]

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity.

And that claim fails obviously right out of the gate. If this were the rule that governed the probability of something existing, then anything that had both a (limitless) potential existence and a (limited) actual existence would occur with a probability of some real number over infinity, or zero* in Jabbamathics. Since things exist, this "rule" is obviously false. You argue that the rule applies only variously, since humans are alive. That's obviously special pleading. The property of "alive" is not factored into anything in your rule. It is merely applied retrospectively and speculatively to "correct" data that doesn't fit the model.

*except not really, since you're also abusing the concept of infinity.

 

[RoboTimbo]

- I guess that my earlier explanation just doesn't communicate. The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't. In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).
- I'll be back for more.

Maybe if you didn't try to dishonestly obfuscate by using increasingly wishy washy terms? You must know by now that that kind of dishonesty will always be trapped out by people used to your antics. You just aren't clever at it.

And how can the self, which you've said is a process, be equivalent to a "soul", which you speak of as a thing?

 

[caveman1917]

You are attempting to put a uniform distribution on an infinite discrete (ie, countable) sample space, but that violates the laws of probability, which say that the probabilities of all the elements must sum to 1. When the sample space is countable, the probabilities of the elements cannot all be equal.




Yes the denominator is wrong. No, the sample space need not be finite.




I think that section of the article is wrong. It violates countable additivity.

It does but I couldn't be bothered fixing it. Just changing N to R would do, so rather than "guess the natural number I have in mind" it would be "guess the real number I have in mind". After all, in none of the above in the thread did anyone specifically say countably infinite, they've just been talking about "infinite" without further specification.

ETA: It's why I had first linked to the "thrown darts" example on that page, but then changed the link to the "guess the number" example since, even if technically speaking incorrect, given the apparent knowledge of the thread participants it was still better at getting the point across. Anyway I see you deleted the section on wikipedia.

 

[caveman1917]

Just changing N to R would do, so rather than "guess the natural number I have in mind" it would be "guess the real number I have in mind".

Changing it to a bounded interval of R of course, not just R itself. Although I suppose you could use R since, even if you wouldn't have a uniform distribution, a single outcome would still have probability zero.

 

[Belz...]

The term "soul" sort of implies immortality -- "self" doesn't.

And yet you're using the latter as an indication that the former exists. No one is fooled.

In a sense, I'm trying to show that the self is a soul (with the resulting implications).

Exactly what I just said.

 

[Jabba]

#3161

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity...

#3163

Why would the number of potential selves have no basic limitation if:

#3142

Dave,
- What I'm trying to do right now is get us on the same page as to just how unlikely you and I are -- given OOFLam.
- As there is no pool of potential bodies, there is no basic limitation on the number of potential bodies. I assume that the same is true for potential selves.
- By "no basic limitation," I mean that to the extent that time and the right conditions are infinite, so are the potential number of "different" bodies and selves. If time and the right conditions are not infinite, chances are that you would never exist, let alone that "now" would be the time you exist.

Dave,
- This is confusing. I suspect I'm missing something, but you seem to be questioning (or, objecting to) something that I didn't say. I didn't say, "Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, if time and the right conditions are not infinite."
- Note that I was trying to explain what I meant by "basic limitation." I was trying to say that so long as exterior(?) factors (time and the right conditions) were infinite, so would be the potential number of "different" bodies and selves.

- Good chance that I'm still not communicating, but, I'm sure you'll let me know.

 

[Belz...]

- Good chance that I'm still not communicating

As many have pointed out, you're communicating clearly enough that everyone knows exactly what your claims are, what you believe, and what you're saying.

The only thing I don't get is why you think there are odds to your existence at all. The universe is deterministic.

 

[Jabba]

You continue to use self as a separate entity, and not as a process (which is the materialistic model). That needs to be addressed.

Jond,
- So far, I'm accepting that the "self" might best be considered a process rather than a "thing." If it should be, I would accept that the soul should be considered a process also.

 

[godless dave]

- This is confusing. I suspect I'm missing something, but you seem to be questioning (or, objecting to) something that I didn't say. I didn't say, "Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, if time and the right conditions are not infinite."
- Note that I was trying to explain what I meant by "basic limitation." I was trying to say that so long as exterior(?) factors (time and the right conditions) were infinite, so would be the potential number of "different" bodies and selves.

- Good chance that I'm still not communicating, but, I'm sure you'll let me know.

Well here's what you said, highlighting mine:

- Claim is that the number of potential selves has no basic limitation, while the number of actual selves would if time or the right conditions were limited. Consequently, the likelihood of your existence ever would be some number over infinity.

If time and the right conditions are limited, then the number of potential selves is limited.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Jond,
- So far, I'm accepting that the "self" might best be considered a process rather than a "thing." If it should be, I would accept that the soul should be considered a process also.

Good. Now, what is your definition of "process"?

 

[Belz...]

Jond,
- So far, I'm accepting that the "self" might best be considered a process rather than a "thing." If it should be, I would accept that the soul should be considered a process also.

That makes no sense. A soul is, by definition, a thing. You'll have to work harder to distinguish the two.

 

[Monza]

Jond,
- So far, I'm accepting that the "self" might best be considered a process rather than a "thing." If it should be, I would accept that the soul should be considered a process also.

So you are saying that if the soul is a process, that process stops when the thing that produces it stops. The brain dies, the soul dies.

Now that we agree about that, how do you intend to prove immortality?