[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Akhenaten]

Different universes with different physical laws because in his universe consciousness is some sort of free floating thing that attaches itself to a human brain temporarily, inhabits a while then leaves again.

I hear you, mate. That's exactly how it seems to me too.

Reject the Jabbaverse! Your sanity is at stake!

 

[Akhenaten]

It's a nitpick that seems to have sunk deep.

It's the barbs that do it.

 

[Jabba]

Jabba, for the sake of moving the thread forward, l am now convinced that the "scientific model" is incorrect and should be discarded immediately. Can you explain why that proves (or even makes more likely) immortality of the consciousness?

Ladewig,
- The specific part of the scientific model I'm referring to is that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live.
- I'm claiming that the complement of that position is essentially immortality.

 

[Agatha]

But what you claim to have (essentially) disproved with your maths is the part of the scientific model which says that the probability of an individual consciousness arising is very small, yet non-zero. Your Bayes theorem, and your calculation, doesn't address anything about consciousness transcending death.

You are only looking at one tiny part of the scientific model. Even if I agreed with your maths and the figures you chose to put into the Bayes' theorem, none of it has anything to do with immortality.

To use an analogy, it's as if you've used mathematics to demonstrate that it's vanishingly unlikely (1/infinity) the sky is ever blue, and using that result to claim that you've essentially proved that stars are actually small LED lights attached to the outer atmosphere with superglue. The one doesn't follow from the other.

 

[Jabba]

A Scientific Model is a “testable idea… created by the human mind that tells a story about what happens in nature.” Another definition is “a description of nature that can predict things about many similar situations.”

What scientific model states that " each (potential) human "self" (consciousness) exists for one finite lifetime, at most"?[/quote

A "consensus opinion amongst relevant scientists regarding mortality" is just that: an opinion. This opinion, as I understand it, is based on the reasoning that "humans are immortal" is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof. No such proof has been introduced, certainly not by you.

Humots,
- I don't need to call this a "scientific model" -- "consensus opinion" is good enough for me.
- I disagree that mine is an extraordinary claim. I think that the consensus opinion above is an extraordinary claim. And, I'm happy to debate this sub-issue.

 

[Akhenaten]

Ladewig,
- The specific part of the scientific model I'm referring to is that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live.

Where exactly is this scientific model documented?

Link?

- I'm claiming that the complement of that position is essentially immortality.

Have you done any work on "up" being essentially the complement of "down"?

It's an important, often-overlooked field of study.

Or not.

 

[Jabba]

But what you claim to have (essentially) disproved with your maths is the part of the scientific model which says that the probability of an individual consciousness arising is very small, yet non-zero. Your Bayes theorem, and your calculation, doesn't address anything about consciousness transcending death...

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."
- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

 

[godless dave]

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."
- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

How can that be when the part of the scientific model you're addressing with your statistical analysis isn't the part that says an individual consciousness is finite?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."
- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

Mr. Savage:

At the risk of being accused of being condescending, what, precisely, do you mean by "(essentially) disprove"? In the Jabbaverse^TM, is it Jabbaspeak for "disprove, but not really", or "disprove in opinion, never mind fact", or "disprove the essences, never mind the accidents or the incidents"? Or does it mean something else entirely?

Further, I wish it were possible to get you to realize that, even could you prove, absolutely, that each of us did not have one and only one finite life, it is a false dichotomy to claim that that "proves" each of us, or any of us, are immortal. Consider the range of options: each of us has two finite lives, or three, or four; some of us have more than one finite life,; some of us have a practically infinite life; some of us have an actually infinite life...and so on.

As with arguing for creationism, it is not enough to say that "evolution is wrong"--you must present a viable, demonstrable alternative; it is not enough for you to claim that the "scientific model" is "wrong"--you must present a viable, demonstrable alternative.

To say nothing of the fact that you appear to be arguing against yourself, part of the time...if each fructification produces a new "soul" out of thin air, what does that do to your claims about reincarnation? If each fructification produces a new "soul" out of thin air, what evidence is there that each one of (or any of) those "souls" lives for an infinite period?

 

[Ladewig]

Ladewig,
- The specific part of the scientific model I'm referring to is that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live.
- I'm claiming that the complement of that position is essentially immortality.

Thank you.

 

[Akhenaten]

Humots,
- I don't need to call this a "scientific model" -- "consensus opinion" is good enough for me.

Since you're making it up as you "go", why not just call it "Barbara"

- I disagree that mine is an extraordinary claim.

Yeah, right. Immortality is just so mundane I don't know why we're even discussing it.

I think that the consensus opinion above is an extraordinary claim. And, I'm happy to debate this sub-issue.

Better make a list. These sub-issues are starting to pile up.

 

[Agatha]

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."
- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

No. If you look back in the thread and read your messiahornot stuff, what you have used in your model is the likelihood of "lots of unlikely things had to happen in the past to produce my individual consciousness here in the present". Nothing in that statement, the one you attempted to disprove, addresses consciousness dying with the brain, so the complement of it cannot be consciousness transcending death.

It's simply not enough to say "scientific model=everything we understand about reality" and then make the assumption that if you essentially disprove one tiny part of it (which you have not), you have then essentially disproved the entire model.

 

[Akhenaten]

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."

That's almost "exactly" what you "said (in the OP) 13 months ago. Does it not "occur" to you that you've made "absolutely" no "progress" whatsoever since "then".

- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

As Agatha and others have pointed out, this simply isn't true.

Immortality isn't the complement (or compliment) of infinite possible "selfs" any more than "orange" is the complement of "wet".

 

[Ladewig]

Ladewig,
- The specific part of the scientific model I'm referring to is that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live.

But once we have eliminated the idea that a soul is limited to one human lifetime, we are still left with many possibilities other than immortality. Maybe souls reincarnate six times and then evaporate.

Why is your eternal hypothesis better than my six-times-and-vanish hypothesis?

 

[Humots]

Humots,
- I don't need to call this a "scientific model" -- "consensus opinion" is good enough for me.

Then why have you been referring to a "scientific model" or "scientific method" all this time?

If it's merely an opinion, then I don't see how its truth or falsity gives it the leverage to let us decide whether or not humans are immortal.

- I disagree that mine is an extraordinary claim. I think that the consensus opinion above is an extraordinary claim. And, I'm happy to debate this sub-issue.

So, human immortality in an as yet undefined manner (Reincarnation? Afterlife? Valhalla?) is not an extraordinary claim. I very much want to know how you support this, given the total lack of any evidence.

And I want facts, not your usual bullet point list of sub issues and sub-sub issues and sub-sub-sub issues to be reviewed as a prelude to a discussion of a proper way to debate whatever it is we're talking about.

 

[Humots]

Ladewig,
- The specific part of the scientific model I'm referring to is that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live.
- I'm claiming that the complement of that position is essentially immortality.

Jabba, what specific part of the scientific model says that each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live? What scientific model are we talking about?

And I believe I addressed the complement of "each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live" in December of 2012:

1. "each of us has but N, short, lives to live (where N is any finite number)"
2. "each of us has but a finite number of short, lives, to live that is a different number for each person"
3. "only one of us is immortal, all the rest have but one, short, life to live"
4. "all but N of us have but one, short, life to live, the other N are immortal (where N is any finite number)"
5. "I am immortal, and all the rest of you have but one, short, life to live"
   .
   .
   .

If A is "each individual consciousness has but one, finite, life to live"
then non-A is not "we are essentially immortal".

 

[Akhenaten]

The negation of a (for the sake of argument) specific statement is not automatically specific.

If Non-A is simply that "A" is wrong in some respect, then it could be that

1. "each of us has but N, short, lives to live (where N is any finite number)"
2. "each of us has but a finite number of short, lives, to live that is a different number for each person"
3. "only one of us is immortal, all the rest have but one, short, life to live"
4. "all but N of us have but one, short, life to live, the other N are immortal (where N is any finite number)"
5. "I am immortal, and all the rest of you have but one, short, life to live"
   .
   .
   .

Non-A is not well-defined or specific.

I'm going with #3.

Sucks to be you, mortals.

​

 

[Toontown]

Talk about a tautology! The specific brain is the "you" that is sentient. The brain isn't a tool for experiencing sentience, it is the thing experiencing sentience..

And that brain is the temporary subjective reprieve from eternal nothingness because___________?

That's right, Dave. There is no explanation. It just is. Acausally.

Two can play your little "tautology" game. Except I'll use the correct descriptor.

Of course that's all a you is.

So you agree, then, that a "you" is nothing more than an illusion conjured by the fundamental subjectiveness of sentient experience?

I'm me and you're you just like Mars is Mars and Jupiter is Jupiter. Mars can't be Jupiter and Jupiter can't be Mars. There is no mystery to differentiating one thing from another.

And these brains are their own respective temporary reprieves from eternal nothingness because____________?

That's right, Dave. You have no answers. That's just the way it happens to be. Acausally. Nor will providing a more complete tautological history of the respective geneses of our brains serve to fill in the blank. These brains are no anomalous, 1 in 10²⁵⁰⁰ momentary reprieve from eternal nothingness. As long as sentience generators exist, there is no alternative nothingness that is not experienced.

As for your proposed non-mystery about the differientation of Mars and Jupiter, that began at @t=0, and remains unexplained as well. So there's another blank you can fill in. ____________?

That "tautologous" word I supposedly don't understand is essentially a weasel-word that really means "fundamentally acausal".

So there are some blanks, Dave. I don't expect you'll be filling them in. Fundamentally, you've not nothing. You don't even know enough to find it odd that the presumed eternal nothingness never seems to be around. Come to think of it, that's another blank you can fill in. Where is that eternal nothingness, so conspicuous by it's absence _____________????

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

And that brain is the temporary subjective reprieve from eternal nothingness because___________?

The word "reprieve" implies that there was some conscious thing which existed before the brain and which exists after it.

The explanation for there being no consciousness before the existence of the brain, in a model in which consciousness is an emergent property of brain activity, is that there is no brain for the consciousness to be an emergent property of. The explanation for there being no consciousness after the brain stops functioning, in a model in which consciousness is an emergent property of brain activity, is that there is no activity for the consciousness to be an emergent property of.

Come to think of it, that's another blank you can fill in. Where is that eternal nothingness, so conspicuous by it's absence _____________????

It's a little confusing what you're asking here. You seem to be asking why we don't experience something during which we don't exist. I'm sure you can't be asking that, because the answer is blindingly obvious, so I'll instead ask you to clarify what you actually are asking.

 

[Jabba]

Agatha,
- I accept that I haven't (essentially) disproven anything so far. I just think that I can (essentially) disprove that part of the "scientific model."
- My calculation does address consciousness transcending death in that the compliment of that part of the scientific model is (essentially) immortality of the individual consciousness.

No. If you look back in the thread and read your messiahornot stuff, what you have used in your model is the likelihood of"lots of unlikely things had to happen in the past to produce my individual consciousness here in the present". Nothing in that statement, the one you attempted to disprove, addresses consciousness dying with the brain, so the complement of it cannot be consciousness transcending death...

Agatha,
- Somehow, we keep passing in the night...
- I don't understand what you mean by "what you have used in your model is the likelihood of."
- The part of the "scientific model" I've been trying to essentially disprove, is that each (potential) individual consciousness has but one, finite life to live -- at most. Then, I claim that essentially disproving that part of the model essentially proves immortality.