Proof of Immortality, VII

[Belz...]

Why are you posting Jabba if you just ignore everyone's response?

Soapbox.

 

[jond]

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:



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.

Quoted so Jabba can ignore it again.

 

[halleyscomet]

Jabba,

Was your mythology revealed to you in a dream?

 

[halleyscomet]

- So, you agree with me in that the combination of your particular sperm and ovum-- even if it encountered the very same factors in the womb -- would not produce your particular self-awareness. Your particular self-awareness must not be simply the result of chemistry.

Your last sentence does not follow from the preceding ones. The fact that different life experiences and different chemical exposures in childhood can result in a different personality despite identical genetics does not mean there's a source of consciousness beyond the material.

If you were beaten daily with a baseball bat as a child you would have a very different personality than the one you have now. Does that mean your consciousness must therefore be magically entwined with a mythological force for which you have no evidence? Of course not.

By your "logic," the soul of Phineas Gage must have been expelled from his body when the railroad spike pierced his brain and a new spirit must have possessed it. If that is NOT your explanation for the fundamental change in his personality after his brain injury, what is your explanation?

 

[JayUtah]

By your "logic," the soul of Phineas Gage must have been expelled from his body when the railroad spike pierced his brain and a new spirit must have possessed it. If that is NOT your explanation for the fundamental change in his personality after his brain injury, what is your explanation?

The following previous post from Jabba may shed some light, but it is certainly not an answer.

- So anyway.
1. I'm happy to use the materialist model of self-awareness that depends entirely upon the particular sperm-ovum combination. Whatever, the likelihood of the current existence of my particular self-awareness is still less than 1/10¹⁰⁰.
2. Though, I still don't accept that model myself.
3. Then, it seems to me that what is being described as that model is more like the model I've suggested -- that a certain physical state produces (or "receives"), as an emergent property, what we call "consciousness," which naturally involves a brand new, and specific self-awareness -- nowhere is it suggested that a perfect copy of my brain would produce ME (my particular self-awareness). Where did I come from?

Jabba does not deny the effect of the physical organism, but he seems to deny that it's the only effect. The combination of body and soul is a new entity in his model, and a change either to body or soul results in a new combination.

Of course no such thing happens under materialism, and that's the problem. Jabba's proposed proof is a statistical inference that requires him to explain E, the sense of self, variously as ~H -- his yet-unnamed hypothesis of immortality, and as H -- materialism. He's already decided that P(E|H) must be very, very small, so he's looking to define H retrospectively so as to make that true.

 

[halleyscomet]

The following previous post from Jabba may shed some light, but it is certainly not an answer.

​

Jabba does not deny the effect of the physical organism, but he seems to deny that it's the only effect. The combination of body and soul is a new entity in his model, and a change either to body or soul results in a new combination.

Of course no such thing happens under materialism, and that's the problem. Jabba's proposed proof is a statistical inference that requires him to explain E, the sense of self, variously as ~H -- his yet-unnamed hypothesis of immortality, and as H -- materialism. He's already decided that P(E|H) must be very, very small, so he's looking to define H retrospectively so as to make that true.

It sounds like he's defined the concept of a "soul" to such a small degree that it's largely inconsequential. One might as well claim that the continued existence of the bacterial colonies in our guts after our brains start decomposing constitutes a form of immortality. Their impact on our mental state is at least measurable and under active legitimate scientific investigation.

That's the problem with trying to redefine the mythological into a "provable" state. The longer you keep at trying to "prove" faith, the smaller and less significant the supernatural element you're trying to prove becomes. Jabba's proof of immortality has become a useless nothing.

 

[Dancing David]

By your "logic," the soul of Phineas Gage must have been expelled from his body when the railroad spike pierced his brain

Just for clarity, I believe it was a rod not a spike

 

[JayUtah]

It was a tamping rod, used to force explosives down into drilled holes in the rock to be fractured. Traditionally the tamping rod is tapered at one end to a point, and slightly flared at the other end. My grandfather worked on the D&RGW and later in the Utah coal-mining industry. I have his tamping rod out in the shed somewhere.

 

[theprestige]

It was a tamping rod, used to force explosives down into drilled holes in the rock to be fractured. Traditionally the tamping rod is tapered at one end to a point, and slightly flared at the other end. My grandfather worked on the D&RGW and later in the Utah coal-mining industry. I have his tamping rod out in the shed somewhere.

The odds of that must be virtually 0. Thus, we must conclude that the Jay-Rod-Shed arrangement has an immortal soul. Give me a couple years and I can probably prove it with Bayes.

 

[JayUtah]

The odds of that must be virtually 0. Thus, we must conclude that the Jay-Rod-Shed arrangement has an immortal soul. Give me a couple years and I can probably prove it with Bayes.

Don't make me get my tamping rod...

 

[jond]

Don't make me get my tamping rod...

Heat it up first!

 

[JoeMorgue]

We've already tried this. We brought up Phineas Cage and lobotomies and Alzheimers and brain damage and the left brain/right brain dichotomy and hemispherectomies and none... of... it... sticks. Jabba just keeps lamb bleating "It's not the SAAAAAAME" over and over and asking us if we've stop beating our wives yet.

 

[Mojo]

- The old self-awareness will not be brought back to life. The new self-awareness will be different in that regard.

Yes, Jabba, two identical things are two things, not one. Do you really not understand the difference between singular and plural?

 

[Jabba]

- Assuming that "specific self" and "specific self-awareness" mean the same thing, we have no idea who the next one will be.

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...

Dave,
- I didn't mean what I think you thought I meant.
- By "who," I didn't mean which self-awareness was which. Instead, I was referring to the type of process/thing that we call "you" or "me." We know that the new self-awareness will not be you or me, but we have no idea "who" it will be. That's what I meant by "who." And not having a pool of potential self-awarenesses to draw from, how in the hell can we even guess who it will be?
- I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I didn't mean what I think you thought I meant.
- By "who," I didn't mean which self-awareness was which.

What else could you possibly mean?

Instead, I was referring to the type of process/thing that we call "you" or "me." We know that the new self-awareness will not be you or me, but we have no idea "who" it will be.

We know what type of process the copy would have. What else could "who" mean besides which one it is? That's what the word "who" means. What is it you think we wouldn't know about the copy?

I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

But you are talking about the materialist model. Your belief system does not matter when describing the materialist model, just as my belief system doesn't matter when describing a model that includes reincarnation.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- I didn't mean what I think you thought I meant.
- By "who," I didn't mean which self-awareness was which. Instead, I was referring to the type of process/thing that we call "you" or "me." We know that the new self-awareness will not be you or me, but we have no idea "who" it will be. That's what I meant by "who." And not having a pool of potential self-awarenesses to draw from, how in the hell can we even guess who it will be?

It will be exactly the same as you.

You are using "who" as another substitute for "soul". In materialism, there is no "who"; consciousness is a process, and at any particular moment is just what the brain happens to be doing at the time. Asking "who" it is is nonsensical.

- I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

It's impossible when one side of the conversation persistently ignores what the other side says, and when they constantly equivocate between different meanings.

 

[halleyscomet]

- I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

Nonsense.

I can have perfectly reasonable conversations about various ideologies without sharing or having been raised in them. Besides, a number of the people in this thread WERE raised in a religious household. For example, I used to be a very conservative Christian Creationist slightly to the right of Pat Robertson. Be glad I'm no longer that person, or I'd be tearing into you for your grotesque incompetence at presenting the concept of an immortal soul.

Don't blame your consistently poor communication skills on ideological differences. It's a cowardly, lazy cop-out on your part.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- I didn't mean what I think you thought I meant.
- By "who," I didn't mean which self-awareness was which. Instead, I was referring to the type of process/thing that we call "you" or "me." We know that the new self-awareness will not be you or me, but we have no idea "who" it will be. That's what I meant by "who." And not having a pool of potential self-awarenesses to draw from, how in the hell can we even guess who it will be?
- I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

Still conflating things and processes as though no one had called you out on it before. It’s almost astonishing how dishonest you are, but we’ve all seen it too many times by now.

 

[Dave Rogers]

We know that the new self-awareness will not be you or me, but we have no idea "who" it will be. That's what I meant by "who." And not having a pool of potential self-awarenesses to draw from, how in the hell can we even guess who it will be?

Under materialism, it's indistinguishable from the person it's an exact copy of. That's "who" it will be. It will, in fact, be more precisely defined than it is currently possible to define an individual person, because it will be possible to define it by example. Under materialism, therefore, we don't have less certainty who it will be; we have absolute certainty who it will be.

Again, that may not be true in the collection of models that you want to bundle together and represent as ~H; but that doesn't mean you get to pretend it's true of H as well.

Dave

 

[SOdhner]

- I'm thinking that effectively communicating about this stuff may be just about impossible (or maybe impossible) for people coming from different belief systems.

Well then it's a good thing that you don't need to do that.

At all.

You only need to worry about what materialism says, and we've provided that to you many times. I myself have given you a clear numbered list at least four times now that you have totally ignored every time.

We don't need to worry about any other belief system, because your "formula" is talking about the probability under materialism. So right now that's all we care about. If you're trying to insert anything from a "different belief system" then you are by definition doing this wrong.

Stop it.