[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Mojo]

- So anyway, I am currently trying to provide evidence and logic, supportive of my claim that we cannot eliminate ~A as a possibility. And as long as we can’t, and my other numbers are reasonable, A is very probably wrong. And, very probably, I will not have just one finite existence.

Even if this was the case, you are nowhere near proving immortality. For a start, if your A is "I will have just one finite existence" then ~A includes your not ever existing.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

- So anyway, I am currently trying to provide evidence and logic, supportive of my claim that we cannot eliminate ~A as a possibility. And as long as we can’t, and my other numbers are reasonable, A is very probably wrong. And, very probably, I will not have just one finite existence.

- Whatever, in my suggested formula I'm using a prior probability for ~A of only 1% -- and, sure seems like reasonable people have to accept that there is some possibility of ~A being the case. Would .1% be small enough? We can go as low as you want.

- And then,
- We have all sorts of anecdotal evidence of reincarnation, NDEs and OOBEs.
- Quantum mechanics seems to support a universal consciousness.
- All sorts of credible scientists do believe in a God.
- The ones who don't probably have a blind spot.
- Then, the reasons we think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body don’t seem all that demanding – i.e., 1) we think that nothing is non-physical, and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.

I think that you have essentially proved that this thread should not be in SMMT, at best it should be in R&P.

 

[dlorde]

... Yours is clearly an old, pop-psychology misunderstanding of "left and right brain," "creative vs analytical" and "transcendence vs. rational."

+1
This really is inexcusable when good information is so readily available; even wikipedia makes a reasonable fist of it.

 

[Agatha]

NDEs and OOBEs are not evidence of any kind for reincarnation or immortality.

Firstly, NDEs are culture-dependent. Christians report 'seeing' Jesus but never Hindu deities, Hindus report seeing Yamraj but never Jesus.
Until one researcher (Moody) described an NDE as involving a tunnel with a light at the end, very few people actually reported seeing a tunnel. After this research was published, many reporters of NDEs reported the tunnel. This suggests that belief and culture drives the pattern of the NDE. http://www.pacifica.edu/gems/grothmarnat/CrossCulturalNDE.pdf

Secondly, NDEs can be induced by artificial means, suggesting that the phenomenon is a natural brain response to lack of blood flow or oxygen to the brain.

OOBEs do not suggest anything more than some people have hallucinations of being outside their body under certain circumstances. In experiments, no person has been able to read notes placed away from their actual eyeline, or report any conversation taking place out of earshot.

Mundane explanations are not ruled out for either NDEs or OOBEs. Your assertion that "most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives" does not have any bearing on whether the phenomena are evidence of the supernatural; I don't know anyone who has won a lottery jackpot and yet hundreds of people win lottery jackpots every week. On the other hand, I know someone (my mother-in-law) who had an NDE, and someone (me) who has had two OOBEs.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

- Whatever, in my suggested formula I'm using a prior probability for ~A of only 1% -- and, sure seems like reasonable people have to accept that there is some possibility of ~A being the case. Would .1% be small enough? We can go as low as you want.

How about 1/∞? Would you be happy with that?

- We have all sorts of anecdotal evidence of reincarnation, NDEs and OOBEs.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

- Quantum mechanics seems to support a universal consciousness.

Citation needed.

- All sorts of credible scientists do believe in a God.

Argument from authority. Besides which, a far higher percentage don't.

- The ones who don't probably have a blind spot.

Citation needed.

- Then, the reasons we think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body don’t seem all that demanding – i.e., 1) we think that nothing is non-physical, and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.

The reasons you're citing certainly aren't the reasons I think that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. But you know that, because it's already been explained to you multiple times.

 

[Garrette]

Jabba's behavior is remarkably similar to CTers with the exception that Jabba disguises his incivility. Mind you, the incivility is there in huge amounts; he is simply adept at making it appear to a superficial reader to be sweetness and light.

His arguments consist of the same debunked points presented over and over again, temporarily retreated from and sometimes rephrased but always the same underneath. He gives tremendous credibility to his own uninformed and unrefined thought process while discounting the work and analysis of experts. He holds himself as among the select few with the wisdom and insight to see what is blind to us, the sheeple. And regardless how often and by how many audiences his arguments are shown fallacious he returns to them as if he has proven his point. And despite his continued rudeness and libel, he repeatedly plays the victim card.

Jabba is impervious to actual analysis, to rational thought, to the idea that he is mistaken, and in this context, to reality.

 

[godless dave]

- And then,
- We have all sorts of anecdotal evidence of reincarnation, NDEs and OOBEs.

Didn't we already address this?

- Quantum mechanics seems to support a universal consciousness.

It most certainly does not.

- All sorts of credible scientists do believe in a God.

Appeal to authority.

- The ones who don't probably have a blind spot.

Based on what, your 1970s pop psychology misconceptions about right and left hemispheres?

- Then, the reasons we think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body don’t seem all that demanding – i.e., 1) we think that nothing is non-physical, and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.

What about the other reasons we have to think that consciousness is a property of the brain?

 

[Aepervius]

Jabba's behavior is remarkably similar to CTers with the exception that Jabba disguises his incivility. Mind you, the incivility is there in huge amounts; he is simply adept at making it appear to a superficial reader to be sweetness and light.

The few very good "debater" I know of are master at that. Which is probably why he wanted to use that form of discussion, he is probably very good at it, and utterly disappointed he cannot impose his rule, to give him home advantage.

Although i am maybe a bit petty with him here.

His arguments consist of the same debunked points presented over and over again, temporarily retreated from and sometimes rephrased but always the same underneath. He gives tremendous credibility to his own uninformed and unrefined thought process while discounting the work and analysis of experts. He holds himself as among the select few with the wisdom and insight to see what is blind to us, the sheeple. And regardless how often and by how many audiences his arguments are shown fallacious he returns to them as if he has proven his point. And despite his continued rudeness and libel, he repeatedly plays the victim card.

Jabba is impervious to actual analysis, to rational thought, to the idea that he is mistaken, and in this context, to reality.

I think he simply does not really read what we write. He simply acknowledged we wrote it, but ignore it, because as a premise, he dismissed in advance anything we can tell him, as we are dumb brain handicapped non right brain or whatever he hold, unable to see the truth.

 

[Garrette]

The few very good "debater" I know of are master at that. Which is probably why he wanted to use that form of discussion, he is probably very good at it, and utterly disappointed he cannot impose his rule, to give him home advantage.

No doubt.

Although i am maybe a bit petty with him here.

You would be justified, though at this point it isn't pettiness; it is simple observation, like pointing out that a player keeps kicking the opponent when the referee isn't looking.

I think he simply does not really read what we write. He simply acknowledged we wrote it, but ignore it, because as a premise, he dismissed in advance anything we can tell him, as we are dumb brain handicapped non right brain or whatever he hold, unable to see the truth.

Actually, I like your interpretation better. I'll go with it.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Jabba's behavior is remarkably similar to CTers

Jabba self-reported his membership of a Yahoo TWA800 discussion list.

 

[Jabba]

I raise the question again. Why is immortality a desired state of existence? Even if one's memory is wiped in the next incarnation, Jabba has cited past-life memories as one of his evidences of an immortal soul. If I were to grant the validity of past-life memories for the sake of argument, it would imply that the system isn't perfect, and some memories do in fact slip through the cracks. Wouldn't this be a horrific experience, for all the reasons I and others have enumerated? Everyone you knew in your past life is dead or lost, and you can never go back to the ones you loved. Is that the way you want things to be for the rest of eternity? What if it turns out your past life wasn't as a famous or important person, and you died violently or inconsequentially?

I'm having trouble understanding why this is something you'd want to have happen, simply from a belief standpoint.

Frozenwolf,
- Let me know if you mind me addressing you by name when I respond to you -- but for me, it's sort of disrespectful not to. And abbreviating your name a little is meant to promote friendliness...
- If you do mind any of that, let me know, and I'll gladly desist.

- Unfortunately, I just spent about an hour trying to answer your questions (immediately above), but somehow lost all my answers when I went to breakfast...

- Otherwise, I do fear oblivion. Certainly part of that is due simply to the instinct for survival. But then, I've had a relatively easy and enjoyable life and would like to keep going.
- I have a strong gut feeling that life is ultimately meaningful, that love is the "bottom line" and is what makes life seriously worthwhile. Consequently, I deeply fear the loss of loved ones, the end of the 'dance' -- but then, I wouldn't give up having the dance, for the world. Garth Brooks said something about that.
- I assume that I wouldn't really want the same life to go on forever, nor would I want to remember much about past lives.
- Whatever, I also assume that humans trying to understand this whole thing are like chickens trying to understand calculus. We can get only so far with our reasoning and imagination.

 

[dlorde]

...Until one researcher (Moody) described an NDE as involving a tunnel with a light at the end, very few people actually reported seeing a tunnel. After this research was published, many reporters of NDEs reported the tunnel.

It's worth noting that cerebral hypoxia is often first indicated by tunnel vision accompanied by loss of colour vision. Fighter pilots who encounter G-LOC during centrifuge training & evaluation have reported classic NDE and OBE experiences, including tunnels, bright lights, seeing relatives & the deceased, etc.

 

[jsfisher]

Even if this was the case, you are nowhere near proving immortality. For a start, if your A is "I will have just one finite existence" then ~A includes your not ever existing.

Both A and ~A include "I will have just one finite existence".

(His A has an "all humans are" condition in it. The complement, then, would have a "there exists at least one that isn't" condition. Nothing says Jabba is among those who aren't.)

 

[Akhenaten]

- So anyway, I am currently trying to provide evidence and logic, supportive of my claim that we cannot eliminate ~A as a possibility.

You have no evidence, your arguments are devoid of logic and you're either trying to ignore or have actually completely forgotten that that to which you are referring symbolically as ~A is still nothing more than your own meaningless concept of a "non scientific model" which doesn't actually exist.

And as long as we can’t, and my other numbers are reasonable, A is very probably wrong.

We can, they aren't and it isn't.

Your pretentions otherwise are now nothing more than a long-running joke.

And, very probably, I will not have just one finite existence.

Isis tells me that you are beyond wrong in thinking this. I have thanked Her profusely for the good news on behalf of us all.

- Whatever, in my suggested formula I'm using a prior probability for ~A of only 1% -- and, sure seems like reasonable people have to accept that there is some possibility of ~A being the case. Would .1% be small enough? We can go as low as you want.

Zero looks good.

And your inference that we are not reasonable people is noted. The only thing mitigating the potential offence at this arrogance is the safe, sure knowledge that your opinions count for nought.

- And then,
- We have all sorts of anecdotal evidence of reincarnation, NDEs and OOBEs.

I have evidence that you're fantasising.

It's not anecdotal.

- Quantum mechanics seems to support a universal consciousness.

Fish piss.

- All sorts of credible scientists do believe in a God.

What people believe has nothing to do with reality. Even your beliefs are not in question here.

Your "evidence" is.

- The ones who don't probably have a blind spot.

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.​

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here?
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"



​

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long.​

Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!​

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen.

- John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)​

​

- Then, the reasons we think that our consciousness is ultimately hooked to our body don’t seem all that demanding . . .

They're not just demanding, Jabba, they're imperative.

Produce some evidence to the contrary and then you might be able to justify this vapid assertion.

– i.e., 1) we think that nothing is non-physical . . .

Are you trying to tell me that I don't believe in dreams, the love of a good woman or the anticipation of drinking a schooner of cold pale ale?

. . . and 2) most of us don't know many people who have experienced an NDE or OOBE, or who 'remember' any past lives.

Most of us live in the world of the sane. We come here for the contrast.

 

[Garrette]

Are you trying to tell me that I don't believe in dreams, the love of a good woman or the anticipation of drinking a schooner of cold pale ale?

Beside being otherwise utterly correct, the most impressive part of your post (at this point in the thread) is your use of the highlighted bit.

My grandfather owned a beer joint in Kentucky, and yes that's what it was called: a beer joint. My father ran it for several years until we moved away from there when I was a toddler. What is sometimes now called a schooner in the States, is what my father called a fishbowl. He has a few of the old ones which are squatter, but with just as large a capacity as that in the link, and certainly heavier. I like them, and I empathize with my father as he bemoans the fact that he can no longer find a bar that knows what he means when he asks for a fishbowl of beer.

 

[Garrette]

+1
This really is inexcusable when good information is so readily available; even wikipedia makes a reasonable fist of it.

I have to cop to being a heavy Wiki user. I tell my own children and friends that it is usually fine for everyday familiarization, and when the question becomes a serious one requiring verifiable answers, it is usually an excellent place to start one's research.

 

[Akhenaten]

Frozenwolf,
- Let me know if you mind me addressing you by name when I respond to you -- but for me, it's sort of disrespectful not to. And abbreviating your name a little is meant to promote friendliness...
- If you do mind any of that, let me know, and I'll gladly desist.

How offensive it is that you offer this platitudinous dreck whilst at the same time completely ignoring about 99% of what is said to you here.

Or is Re-Horakty Nepherkheperure Waenre Akhenaten beyond your somewhat-less-than-awesome copypasta skillz.

- Unfortunately, I just spent about an hour trying to answer your questions (immediately above), but somehow lost all my answers when I went to breakfast...

Unfortunately?

How is yet another repost of the same empty-headed nonsense in any way to be considered unfortunate?

<egocentric drivel>

- Whatever, I also assume that humans trying to understand this whole thing are like chickens trying to understand calculus.

I assume this:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable,
in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!​

I win!

We can get only so far with our reasoning and imagination.

We?

Don't flatter yourself.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Frozenwolf,
- Let me know if you mind me addressing you by name when I respond to you -- but for me, it's sort of disrespectful not to. And abbreviating your name a little is meant to promote friendliness...
- If you do mind any of that, let me know, and I'll gladly desist.

You've already been told, more than once, that addressing people by name is entirely redundant, and that abbreviating people's names is flat-out rude.

So once more, for the record - it's not considered the slightest bit impolite to just quote someone and respond without using their name, exactly as I have done here. At best you're simply wasting your time.

And abbreviating people's names without their explicit say-so is incredibly rude. Stop doing it. I'm not sure about this board, but I've certainly posted on boards where it was a bannable offence. Don't do it. No ifs, ands or buts, do not do it, because it is rude.

 

[Jabba]

Good Morning, Mr. Savage:

I am sorry that this is likely to offend you, but if this is supposed to be practical, empirical, objective evidence that the "soul" exists (particularly in the way you describe it) and is "immortal" (particularly given all the different situations you are willing to call "immortal"), it does not serve.

In essence, you claim that the reason you believe in an "immortal soul" (and I do not) is that you are better at appreciating something you can experience (and I cannot) because you are better at appreciating it than I am.

Where, in any of that, is anything that could be mistaken as empirical, practical, objective evidence?

You have, by buying into the excluded middle of "either holistic or analytical", constructed a "straw vulcan"; you seem to be implying that the reason I do not perceive any evidence for the "soul" is that I am looking for evidence, instead of simply holistically accepting that transcendence, in its very nature, lies beyond evidence.

The things you imagine are convincing to you, without evidence, because you imagine that they are the kinds of transcendent things that do not need evidence. When someone asks you to present evidence for your imaginings, and all you can offer is the holistic claim that your imaginings are not subject to evidence due to their transcendent nature; you are not demonstrating the "purely analytical" failure of imagination that prevents understanding on the part of your interlocutor, but the failure of you imagination to reflect reality.

You could have saved us a year and a half, by admitting that you have no evidence, only your holistic awareness of transcendence.

Please explain how the transcendent concept of the"immortal soul" that may or may not be serially reincarnated can be used to explain the fact that there are more humans alive than there have ever been. Do they all have "souls"?

Please explain how the transcendent concept of the "soul" as something immaterially "other" than an emergent property of the specific neurosystem in which it is found explains, or even addresses, the observed fact that trauma to the material neurosystem affects, sometimes critically, the immaterial "soul", and that extinguishing the neurosystem gives every evidence of extinguishing the "soul". Do you know what traumatic aphasia is?

I hope that you understand that I am not being dismissive.

If I have misstated your position, I hope you will hang in there and clarify--even if it turns out that it really is something you believe in a way that, to you, requires no evidence.

As it stands, it seems to me that you are claiming that the reason I do not understand that the soul exists is because I lack the understanding and imagination to accept that the soul exists, without evidence. Is that an accurate analysis of your position?

ETA: Agatha: you, and Pixel, and Paheka, and Mojo, all ninja-ed at least part of my post. Nothing like inhabiting overlapping signal spaces...thank you each and all (and those who are still composing) for helping state the issue in as many different ways as humanly possible.

Slowvehicle,
- Per usual, I need to narrow the focus.
- All I'm trying to do, so far, is support my claim that to eliminate ~A as a possibility is not warranted.
- Do you disagree?

 

[Mojo]

Slowvehicle,
- Per usual, I need to narrow the focus.
- All I'm trying to do, so far, is support my claim that to eliminate ~A as a possibility is not warranted.
- Do you disagree?

All ~A is is every possibility apart from whatever is defined as A. So, yes, eliminating ~A as a possibility is, for almost any defined A, not warranted. This doesn't get you any closer to your goal though.