Proof of Immortality, VII

[Jabba]

It's still here in the way it isn't still here?

- According to materialism, it's here now in the way that it won't be here after your body dies. You accept that there is a process that will quit -- never to go again -- when your body dies.

 

[Mojo]

- But, materialism does accept the process of selves.

No, it says that consciousness is the result of brain processes. "Selves", as you define them, don't exist under materialism.

- But, according to materialism, that process that you are currently enjoying will shortly cease, will never proceed again, never proceeded before and never had to proceed in the first place.

It is a process. It will cease when I die. You say it will cease "shortly".

Are you threatening me?

 

[Belz...]

- According to materialism, it's here now in the way that it won't be here after your body dies.

Or in one second. Do you get that, jabba? Your "self" now is not the same "self" as you had a second ago.

 

[Mojo]

- According to materialism, it's here now in the way that it won't be here after your body dies.

Gibberish.

You accept that there is a process that will quit -- never to go again -- when your body dies.

It's a process taking place in my brain, the result of the physical structure and chemistry of my brain, and therefore can't survive my brain ceasing to function. That's the model you are trying to disprove. You can't do that by disproving a strawman.

 

[Jabba]

It would be an identical but separate person, with an identical but separate consciousness. The only difference would be in their spacetime coordinates as the two people cannot occupy the same point in space & time.

If it was you, Jabba, that was replicated: prior to the replication there would be one Jabba - you.

After the replication there would be two Jabbas. Both would be identical in every particular right down to the molecular level. Both would believe themselves to be the original. Both would have the same feelings, thoughts, memories. Both would be Jabba. Neither of them could look out of the other's eyes, because although they are identical, they are separate.

And prior to the replication, we would know exactly 'who' the copy would be. It would be another, separate, identical Jabba.

- Agatha,
- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).
- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive). I'll try to explain that later...
- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

 

[Jabba]

No, it says that consciousness is the result of brain processes. "Selves", as you define them, don't exist under materialism.




It is a process. It will cease when I die. You say it will cease "shortly".

Are you threatening me?

Mojo,
- "Shortly" covers the next 100 years or so.

 

[jond]

- Agatha,
- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).
- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive). I'll try to explain that later...
- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

Why? It would have all your thoughts and memories. It would be Jabba just as you are. It would remember your father telling you to never give up, just as you do. It would self identify as Jabba.

 

[John Jones]

- Agatha,
- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).
- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new soul "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive). I'll try to explain that later...
- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what soul self-hood) it would be.

Isn't the above what you really meant to say?

 

[The Sparrow]

Almost feels like progress is being made eh? Questions are being responded to. Engagement is happening.

It wont last, as Jabba gets backed into a corner he will go silent for a bit, then there will be a fringe reset with 14 points of what he 'claims' again and we will start from zero.

 

[JayUtah]

- But, materialism does accept the process of selves.

No, it says that the self is a process. Now you're equivocating over what "process" should mean.

But, according to materialism, that process that you are currently enjoying will shortly cease, will never proceed again, never proceeded before and never had to proceed in the first place.

No, that's you trying to define the longevity and stability of a process as exactly the longevity and stability of a soul. Instead people are pointing out that calling the self under materialism some sort of stable, unchanging thing is wrong because, as a process, changes constantly over time.

A process is not a soul.

 

[Belz...]

- Agatha,
- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).

Why is this so important? What you imagine or perceive is irrelevant.

- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood."

As in, a new process that is identical to the original save for its coordinates. You insist that it has something else that the original doesn't have but refuse to say what it is.

I'll try to explain that later...

Haven't you done that enough? Everybody understands what you're saying.

- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

Addressed about a thousand times.

 

[Agatha]

- Anyway, I think that you already accept that the likelihood of the current existence of your self -- given OOFLam -- is no larger than 10^-100. Is that correct?

Nobody accepts this. Not godless dave nor anyone else.

Why?

Because:
1. It's a number you made up, with no evidence to support it
2. The likelihood of the current existence of you is 1. You exist.
3. Your existence depends on the existence of your parents, their parents, your grandparents' parents and grandparents and so on. The only time you could have existed is now.
4. Consciousness is an ever-changing process which is a product of a functioning brain. When you are asleep or unconscious, it stops. When you are dead, it stops.
5. 'Particular selves', 'specific selves', 'infinitely divisible buckets of consciousness' and the like are all concepts outwith materialism. You cannot use these concepts in your materialist hypothesis.
6. The 'self' doesn't come out of nowhere. The 'self' is a process which arises in a functioning neurosystem, just as going 60 mph is a process which arises in a functioning motor vehicle.

 

[JayUtah]

It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).

No, Jabba, your critics are not such troglodytes that they cannot imagine what you are talking about. Stop pretending you're better than everyone else. Instead your critics are correct in saying that the thing you are imagining is not part of materialism. When reckoning P(E|H) you have to use materialism as it is actually formulated, not how you imagine it might or should be.

From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive).

But you don't evaluate P(E|H) from your perspective. You evaluate it from the perspective of materialism.

I'll try to explain that later....

No, you won't. You'll just keep repeating it until people realize that's all you know how to do, then you'll gloat when they give up.

Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

"Self-hood" is not a new word that somehow saves your bacon, so stop making up words just so you can play around with their definitions. Under materialism everything that could possibly be you must be replicated if you replicate the matter. That's essentially what materialism means. It's not some nuance you can toss aside because it's inconvenient to your proof. It's literally the central tenet.

 

[JayUtah]

Anyway, I think that you already accept that the likelihood of the current existence of your self -- given OOFLam -- is no larger than 10^-100. Is that correct?

Literally no one has agreed to this. Literally everyone has challenged it -- not its value, but the very way in which you pretend to derive it.

This has been said so many times that I'm calling Big Fat Liar on this. You have to know that what you have just said is untrue.

 

[ferd burfle]

Anyway, I think that you already accept that the likelihood of the current existence of your self -- given OOFLam -- is no larger than 10^-100. Is that correct?

Stop doing this. Stop this dishonest and insulting behavior.

 

[Agatha]

- Agatha,
- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).
- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive). I'll try to explain that later...
- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

From your perspective, your imagination is doing a great job. But I can imagine all sorts of things from pink unicorns to green waterfalls in the sky that flow upwards. My imagination (and come to that, my perception) is a very bad guide to reality.

Like all humans, I'm hardwired by evolution to perceive patterns, particularly faces. Pattern perception is really useful when there might be a tiger at the edge of a clearing. A false positive keeps me safe, though I might run away for no real reason sometimes. A false negative, though, makes me a snack for a hungry predator. So relying on perception and imagination is not a good way to determine what is real and what is false.

I cannot understand why you think/perceive/imagine/believe that an exact duplicate of you, with all your neural connections exactly duplicated, would not be an exact duplicate of your 'self' at the moment of replication. Your 'self' - your personality, your memories, everything that makes you you - it's all generated by the neural connections in your brain. Duplicate that, and you have another you. Identical, but separate.

 

[Mojo]

- It would seem that I perceive (or, imagine) a concept that you and the others on this forum do not perceive (or imagine).

Nope. We know exactly what concept you are perceiving (or imagining). We are perfectly capable of perceiving (or imagining) the concept.

The problem is that you are trying to impose that concept on materialism, and it doesn't belong there. You asked how you misrepresent materialism: that's it right there.

- From my perspective, the replication would bring a new "self-hood." It probably wouldn't be me, it probably wouldn't be you and it might not be anyone else who is currently represented in a body (alive). I'll try to explain that later...
- Otherwise, we would have no idea "who" (what self-hood) it would be.

Your perspective is irrelevant to the likelihood of your existence if materialism is true. Please try to understand this, because until you do you will just be wasting everyone's time including your own.

If your existence is infinitely unlikely under hypotheses in which you have a soul, where does this leave immortality?

 

[JayUtah]

- According to materialism, it's here now in the way that it won't be here after your body dies. You accept that there is a process that will quit -- never to go again -- when your body dies.

Except in the case where the body could be hypothetically duplicated, or I suppose reanimated. Then all pertinent processes must return. Under materialism one simple rule suffices for all matter and all properties of matter: where there is matter, there are the properties of matter.

You've stooped to comical levels of effort to twist and except this one basic rule to make one specific property sound like some independently existing entity. The farther you go toward that, the farther away you go from materialism and the less valid your proof is.

 

[JayUtah]

Nope. We know exactly what concept you are perceiving (or imagining).

Because he told us so. He told us it was a soul. He went on to tell us that he doesn't want to use the word "soul" because then people could see he was begging the question. He's casting about for words he can use in its stead; today's word is "self-hood." Bereft of an actual viable mathematical proof, he figures if he can get away with begging the question then it's as good as winning.

The problem is that you are trying to impose that concept on materialism, and it doesn't belong there.

Which is why he has to mince words. It's not about proving that there are souls in materialism. it's about getting someone to agree that whatever equivocal concept he's hawking on any given day is part of materialism. Then he'll snap it back to be exactly equivalent to a soul. Sometimes it works for an hour or two, until the majority of his critics sees the equivocation for themselves and take the right steps to disabuse him of it.

Your perspective is irrelevant to the likelihood of your existence if materialism is true. Please try to understand this, because until you do you will just be wasting everyone's time including your own.

Yesterday or the day before, he tried to play teacher and tell someone the difference between a probability and a likelihood. Today, however, he's back to conflating P(H) with P(E|H) at the conceptual level.

 

[Mojo]

Because he told us so. He told us it was a soul. He went on to tell us that he doesn't want to use the word "soul" because then people could see he was begging the question. He's casting about for words he can use in its stead; today's word is "self-hood."

A while back, I started counting the different terms Jabba has used to mean "soul". I gave up at 50.