Proof of Immortality, VII

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Jabba said:
- Assuming that "specific self" and "specific self-awareness" mean the same thing, we have no idea who the next one will be.
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Why not? If we know which brain it will be, we know which self-awareness it will be. What information don't we have?

Unless you're not actually talking about the materialist model.
 
godless dave said:
Unless you're not actually talking about the materialist model.
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Perhaps Jabba's talking about an exact copy of the materialist model. Since the exact copy isn't itself the materialist model, clearly we have no idea "what" it actually is (or, perhaps, what it actually is, a completely different concept to be sure), so for all we know it may also contain the concept of a soul.

Dave
 
godless dave said:
Why not? If we know which brain it will be, we know which self-awareness it will be. What information don't we have?

Unless you're not actually talking about the materialist model.
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- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
 
Jabba said:
- Assuming that "specific self" and "specific self-awareness" mean the same thing, we have no idea who the next one will be.
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Was it some other model you were going to try to falsify? There is no "specific self" or "specific self-awareness" in the materialist model. Underlining the word who doesn't make the materialist model have a soul either.

So, anyway. I've given you permission to falsify other models but that won't advance your cause here. How would you like to proceed?
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
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The new brain will be different in exactly the same respect. If we know which brain is he new brain, then we know which self-awareness is the new self-awareness.

Jabba said:
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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Do you know why the materialist model says each specific self-awareness only lives for one finite life?
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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The materialist model says that we (our self awareness) are a process in our brains, not separate entities. Brain stops functioning, process stops. You keep insisting that we (our self awareness) is a separate entity. Brain stops functioning, but somehow there's a separate self that continues anyway. THAT is what we are arguing about.
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
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Wrong. If, in a hundred years' time, science is able to reconstruct the exact current state of my brain and reproduce it, such that the process of self-awareness is restarted from its current state, there will be a person who, subjectively, is me, and is a continuation of my consciousness. In that way I could conceivably be 'brought back to life,' for a reasonable definition of the term.

Jabba said:
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model.
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So what?

Jabba said:
The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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No, that isn't what we're arguing about. Put aside the fact that the materialist model doesn't exclude the possibilities either of an infinitely prolonged process or of two identical processes running concurrently; what we are arguing about is your repeated insistence on misrepresenting the materialist model as containing some indefinable something that makes every person special and unique which does not arise deterministically from the processes of a living brain. It doesn't. However much you pretend you're arguing for some other model in favour of materialism, what you're actually doing is trying to tack something extraneous on to materialism so you can then cite it as an inconsistency.

Dave
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
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Oh, you mean different as in "separate and distinct", not qualitatively different. You agree that the new self-awareness process would be identical to the original self-awareness process.

- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model.
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Ah, good. The spiritual model is referring to a process also then. Glad you agree.

The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses)
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The materialist model doesn't use the word "specific" to refer to the process of self-awareness. Were you thinking of some other model?

each live for only one finite life
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And the materialist model doesn't say that the proces lives at all. You agree that that would be stupid. The organism lives and dies. Having functioning higher level reasoning gives rise to the process of self-awareness. The organism dies, the process ceases.

Just like a Volkswagen engine breaking down, going 60 mph ceases.

at most (you never had to exist)
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You've waffled back and forth between the organism existing and the process of self-awareness when using the word "you". Which do you mean it to refer to here?

The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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No, we're arguing about your dishonest tacking on of a soul to the materialist model. Won't you be honest? Your dishonesty will always be trapped out, you might as well be honest.
 
The irony is that Jabba's insistence that an identical process running in an identical brain would not be him means he cannot possibly be immortal; the process that is him is finite. Only if a future identical instance of his process is him would he be potentially immortal.
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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No, that is not what we are arguing about. We are not discussing the spiritual model at all.

Hans
 
Jabba said:
- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
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How do you know this isn't true for you every moment of every day?
- The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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No the materialist says that the experience changes every moment, the specific self-awarenesses changes every moment of everyday!

You assume a continuity you haven't proven exists.
 
Jabba said:
The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.
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The concept of "old" and "new" properties is not part of materialism.

The materialist model is talking about the same experience as is the spiritual model. The materialist model says that we (our specific self-awarenesses) each live for only one finite life, at most (you never had to exist). The spiritual model says otherwise. That's what we're arguing about.
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If you want to know what word Jabba is equivocating at any given moment, just look to what words he underlines or puts in quotes.

The materialist model has no concept of an individualized self-awareness. Humans are self-aware. Self-awareness is a property of a functioning human brain and nervous system. It is not an individualized concept. It is not an entity.

What we're arguing about is your fervent but ever-failing attempt to sneak elements of your hypothesis into the problem as E, the data, rather than ~H, your hypothesis. In this way you hope to make H, materialism, have to explain not just the data but also the way you think the data came about. E is not talking about the same "experience." You don't get to extend the umbrella of "experience" to include your notion of an individualized entity disingenuously granted the label of "particular self-awareness." You don't get to include the soul as part of E.

Your critics are right. There is no evidence that you have any intention of doing anything else but playing these same circular word games for as long as you can get away with it.
 
Jabba said:
The materialist model says that
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Nope. You're still wrong.

I've explained this. This is what the materialist model says, in a convenient numbered list. We don't need to keep going in circles. Here's the model you need to use, now move on to the next step:

SOdhner said:
  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.
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Again, you don't need to agree with the above, you just need to know that that's the materialist model and for your formula the above is what you're using. We don't need to have this discussion any more. There's the model. Use it.
 
Jabba said:
- Obviously, I disagree. I think that a neutral jury would generally disagree also.
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Maybe it's my background in film, television, and theater, but I always wonder where the Befuddled Old Man character goes during these scenes. Lines like the above always come across as a powerful rendition coming from a confident protagonist, so sure of the righteousness of his cause and so convinced in the merit of his cause that he can rebuke his antagonists with fire and thunder, to have them shrink in shame. But as soon as the villains in his drama are seen to have a toehold, out comes Befuddled Old Man to remind the audience how meek and vulnerable he is, and how -- if the antagonists would just curtail their dastardly and mean-spirited assault -- he would be glad to exert the utmost effort of his faltering frame to meet their challenge.

It's fairly obvious Jabba is trying to craft a drama here, but he's certainly no Arthur Miller. And of course Henry Fonda can masterfully play both Norman Thayer and Juror 8, but not in the same play at the same time.
 
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