Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

[zooterkin]

- No.
- I'll have to leave you behind and answer only those participants who are willing to be more specific. Though, I probably will respond to simple accusations or questions from you -- until you go back to telling me to look up something for myself.
- If I tried to look up whatever you tell me to, I wouldn't be able to answer anybody else.

More specific? I've never seen anyone more specific than JayUtah.

 

[Jabba]

If it shares your sense of self, it should self identify as you. As others have pointed out, your definitions lack any kind of rigor and constantly change to try to prop up whatever point you are trying to make. Just as you waffle between accepting that the self is a process the brain does and a separate entity.

As for your anectdoe about hypnosis and past lives, you yourself admitted that it’s most likely made up stories, so why present it.

As for OBE’s, remember where you left off the last time you brought up your most convincing case? I do.

jond,
- For now, I'll stick with .01 for P(~H). I'm willing to use .001 if that would help.

 

[JayUtah]

I'll have to leave you behind and answer only those participants who are willing to be more specific.

I was specific earlier this week. And then your excuse was that you didn't feel like trying to keep up. Now you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. "Jay writes too much." "Jay won't write when I tell him to." "Jay calls me names in every post." (Still waiting for you to substantiate that accusation in the manner I proposed.) Your participation in this debate over your proof seems limited to a litany of lame and contradictory excuses for why you don't have to answer criticism.

Though, I probably will respond to simple accusations or questions from you -- until you go back to telling me to look up something for myself.

Don't be so rude. I told you the answer to your question today was in a post I had written literally minutes previously. You literally just had to scroll up on that same page and read it. Apparently that's too much to ask.

So no, I will maintain the conclusion that you choose not to answer my posts because you know you cannot.

If I tried to look up whatever you tell me to, I wouldn't be able to answer anybody else.

You demonstrate both the ability and the willingness to scour the thread when it suits you, and post lengthy anthologies duplicating much of the prior discussion when you think you've caught your critics in a contradiction. You've done it two or three times just today. Then suddenly that willingness evaporates when someone asks you to exercise the same diligence in a non-selfish way. If you refuse to read what your critics write, then you don't deserve their attention.

 

[Jabba]

On December 27, you explicitly agreed that the materialist position is that it is a function of your brain.

jond,
- Right.

 

[JayUtah]

Please explain how you think that I'm misusing Bayes Theorem.

By using it to compute probabilities instead of likelihoods.

 

[JayUtah]

More specific? I've never seen anyone more specific than JayUtah.

I fail to apprehend the logic in someone saying, "I refuse to read what you write, but you're obliged to write more."

 

[Jabba]

You have previously stated that the soul itself has no specific characteristics, and that all its characteristics, all the things that make it "you", are produced by the brain.

Mojo,
- I'll need to re-think that. As a quick rethink, I halfway believe in reincarnation and if there is such a thing, I suspect that we do learn, and carry our learnings with us, as we progress through lifetimes...
- Though, I don't put a whole lot of stock in any particular explanation for the unlikelihood of my current existence -- I just think that -- scientifically speaking -- my current existence is like a total miracle.

 

[JayUtah]

I suspect that we do learn, and carry our learnings with us, as we progress through lifetimes...

Can you tell us something you learned in a prior lifetime and tell us how you know that's when you learned it?

Though, I don't put a whole lot of stock in any particular explanation for the unlikelihood of my current existence -- I just think that -- scientifically speaking -- my current existence is like a total miracle.

Nobody else puts any stock in your particular explanation either, including every statistician you've consulted. And most have been kind enough to explain in great detail why your particular explanation is mathematically and statistically incorrect, only to be rebuffed by you.

As you've been told several times, adding "scientifically speaking" to a sentence does not elevate it to the status of science. You've been told in excruciating detail by several different groups of people over several years exactly how and why your belief that your current existence is a miracle has no basis in science. Your response has been dismissive at best and rude at worst.

 

[RoboTimbo]

- No.
- I'll have to leave you behind

How about leaving your dishonesty behind?

and answer only those participants who are willing to be more specific.

Specifically, read the list of JayUtah's list of the fatal flaws to your argument and address them.

Though, I probably will respond to simple accusations or questions from you -- until you go back to telling me to look up something for myself.

Try honesty for a change. You're able to go back and find those you think support you. Go find those that specifically answer your questions, as you've been told.

- If I tried to look up whatever you tell me to, I wouldn't be able to answer anybody else.

You wouldn't have to. Try honesty for a change.

 

[RoboTimbo]

-- scientifically goofily speaking -- my current existence is like a total miracle.

FTFY

 

[Jabba]

Totally irrelevant. If you can say how many possibilities it includes, it isn't a complement.

You fail again.

Mojo,
- I realized that I had previously provided the wrong number of possibilities.
- Though, I don't understand why being able to provide the number of possibilities would obviate it being a complement.

 

[JayUtah]

I don't understand why being able to provide the number of possibilities would obviate it being a complement.

It's not the number of possibilities that's the problem. It's that your last "possibility" is an indeterminate catch-all. That's just a different way of saying your list of possibilities remains incomplete. What Mojo is trying to help you understand is that you cannot cure the problems inherent to reasoning via the complement by trying to enumerate the possibilities. There will always be indeterminate possibilities in a set defined merely as what isn't something. This is why several groups of people -- including people you've specifically reached out to for expert commentary -- are telling you that your whole approach is wrong. Your whole approach is wrong, and this is just one of the many individual ways it's wholly wrong. You can't fix it by the minimal adjustments you're soliciting. Real statisticians don't reason through the complement the way you're doing. Instead they look at relative likelihoods. You aren't doing that. What you're actually using are probabilities, not likelihoods.

 

[CriticalThanking]

I've been dealing with things in real life (not sure whether the immortal or mortal one). Last I checked, Jabba was going to get with another stats expert. Did that happen?

 

[JayUtah]

I've been dealing with things in real life (not sure whether the immortal or mortal one). Last I checked, Jabba was going to get with another stats expert. Did that happen?

He says he reached out to someone at SUNY but hasn't heard back. He left us with the ominous suggestion that their silence was due to his having "told them too much about [his] idea." He hasn't answered requests for him to explain what he means by that.

 

[jond]

jond,
- For now, I'll stick with .01 for P(~H). I'm willing to use .001 if that would help.

For your current existence under ~H, you must now multiply .01 (or .001) x P(B) because you still have to account for the fact that your brain exists, whether or not you have a soul. You have again now agreed that P(H) = P(B).

 

[Mojo]

Mojo,
- I'll need to re-think that. As a quick rethink, I halfway believe in reincarnation and if there is such a thing, I suspect that we do learn, and carry our learnings with us, as we progress through lifetimes...

But you have no evidence for this.

- Though, I don't put a whole lot of stock in any particular explanation for the unlikelihood of my current existence -- I just think that -- scientifically speaking -- my current existence is like a total miracle.

...therefore you're immortal, huh?

 

[Belz...]

Jay,
- But how else could I refer to the ones I can't think of?

Maybe you should read the posts directed at you rather than look for snippets that you think support your conclusion.

 

[Belz...]

- No.
- I'll have to leave you behind and answer only those participants who are willing to be more specific.

You really never answer the specifics because you can't argue against it. You only answer the things you think are sufficiently vague that you can sidestep the larger issue. Your refusal to make an effort to deal with things that hurt your case when you make that effort to dig for stuff that you think supports your case is very dishonest.

- If I tried to look up whatever you tell me to, I wouldn't be able to answer anybody else.

No one else wants you to do anything else, anyway. Do what Jay has asked you for months and address the fatal flaws in your arguments. You should be able to find that post.

 

[Belz...]

I suspect that we do learn, and carry our learnings with us, as we progress through lifetimes...

That would be called a memory, which you agree you don't have. You have no way to tell if you're the same you as in an earlier lifetime, or indeed if such a life occured.

 

[abaddon]

True, but I don't see where any of his arguments actually require belief on his part. He's not trying to prove something about his god. He's trying to prove something about atheists and skeptics. It doesn't matter what ends up being right as long as skeptics are shown clearly to be wrong. Rebuttals that allege hypocrisy matter only if he has professed some specific belief and only if the fact of that belief (not the fact of what is believed) bears on his argument. It's theoretically possible to prove reincarnation is a better hypothesis without needing first to express a belief in it.

Not quite. Jabba will espouse any belief system if it supports his view. It is not about the belief system in itself, only about the idea that it might support the crank notion. Thus we end up with Jabba supporting RCC theology but also reincarnation. Both would claim the other is utterly wrong. Nevertheless, the aim is not to make cogent argument, but to arrive at a destination regardless how much one must express dishonesty on that same journey.

Now, being 49, I could drop from a heart attack tomorrow. Or anytime. Were I minded to seek any sort of after life (I am not) I would place my faith in one. Jabba seems to be placing his faith in all of them simultaneously.

I wonder what Jabba would do if it turned out that the Westboro Baptists were right? Or Jim Jones? Or Harold Camping (failure), or the pope, or not the pope, how about David Icke?

Bottom line, Jabba is not any kind of christian. Or Muslim. Or anything much beyond a personal made up pile of nonsense.