[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Mojo]

Then, I claim that extrinsic finiteness is intrinsic infinite.

 

[Slowvehicle]

- I suspect that I should be trying to describe two kinds of finiteness, rather than two kinds of infinity…

Good Morning,Mr. Savage!

...I, personally, suspect you should be talking about things, the existence of which, for which there is the first scintilla of evidence.

- The number of possible hands in a game of Texas Poker is finite. The number of possible combinations in the Lottery is also finite. That’s because the cards in our hand and the numbers on our ticket are drawn from a limited pool of possibilities. I’ll call this intrinsic finiteness.

...There is no "pool". There are a finite number of possibilities, due to the fact that a finite number of items can only be arranged in a finite number of ways. That finite number of ways does not exist, other than as a description of theoretical possibilities.

- I suggest that such is not the case for the number of possible selves – that any limitation on the number of possible selves is due to limits in external factors such as matter, energy and time.

The number of potential hands in a game of poker played with a standard deck is finite, because there are a finite number of ways a finite number of items can be combined.

The number of potential neurosystems is finite, because there are a finite number of ways the finite elements of a neurosystem can be combined.

How, in your mind, are those two situations different?

I’ll call that extrinsic finiteness; and in that sense, the number of possible selves is infinite.

You appear to have invented a condition where, because you have invented a term, a finite number of combinations of a finite number of items results in a potentially infinite number.

Unless you demonstrate that what you are calling a "self" is something other than an emergent property of a neurosystem, the finite number of potential neurosystems defines the finite number of potential selves.

- The same is true for the number of different potential Volkswagons.

The number of potential Volswagens is finite, because there are a finite number of ways the finite elements of a Volkswagen can be combined.

Does that sound familiar?

- Then, I claim that extrinsic finiteness is intrinsic infinite.

...and extrinsic blackness is intrinsic white.

...and extrinsic upness is intrinsic down.

...and extrinsic made-up-ness is intrinsic real.

- Then, I claim that this latter is the sense that applies to the number of potential selves.
- There is no intrinsic finiteness attached to the number of potential selves.
- There is no preceding set of potential selves; and in that sense, each new self comes out of “thin air,” and each new self is a brand new creation. There is no limit to thin air, and there is no preceding existence -- of any kind – for actualized selves…

The number of potential neurosystems is finite, because there are a finite number of ways the finite elements of a neurosystem can be combined.

Unless you demonstrate that what you are calling a "self" is something other than an emergent property of a neurosystem, the finite number of potential neurosystems defines the finite number of potential selves.

- I’m claiming that such should be the scientific conclusion.

Why should the "scientific conclusion" NOT reflect observable reality?

When do you expect to demonstrate that "most scientists" agree with you?

 

[sackett]

Oh please. Oh please.

...The Standard Model has consciousness as an emergent property, and is not "brand new, created out of think air."....

Yes, PLEASE tell me that the above is a coolly deliberate choice of words, and not just a typo caused by irritated keyboard-crashing.

Or if not, 's okay too, I'm sure we all still like it.

 

[Sideroxylon]

You wake up in the morning and you recall things that happened to you the day before. You can recall scattered and faded feelings, sights, sounds and emotions associated with events in your life history. Is your sense of a continuous self any more than such things? On what do we base our instinctive feeling of an essential self?

According to our best understandings, all of these thoughts arise from processes taking place in your physical brain. Imagine that using some futuristic technology that we could scan the state of every particle in your body and make an exact copy. The copy would think it was you because it had all of these memories, including of moments ago standing in the place you are looking at it from. But there "you" are staring back at it, having none of your "clone's" current experiences. He experiences the world from a new perspective and the difference between both your collection of memories grows as time progresses. How different would you both be in five years if you parted company now and lived different lives? In the sense of the continuous self that we instinctively feel, that person you now look at is not you, is he.

And when you wake up in the morning, in what sense are you the same person that went to bed the night before? Perhaps the continuous self we experience is all an illusion.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Yes, PLEASE tell me that the above is a coolly deliberate choice of words, and not just a typo caused by irritated keyboard-crashing.

Or if not, 's okay too, I'm sure we all still like it.

Well, Garrette IS a genius...

 

[Garrette]

Yes, PLEASE tell me that the above is a coolly deliberate choice of words, and not just a typo caused by irritated keyboard-crashing.

Or if not, 's okay too, I'm sure we all still like it.

Absolutely intentional.* A piece of insight that popped into my head from thin hair.

Well, Garrette IS a genius...

This should be the sub-title on the JREF's banner, but in bigger type:

James Randi Educational Foundation
Where Garrette Displays his Infalluble Geniusishisness


*Well, that is at least one of the possibilities.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Absolutely intentional.* A piece of insight that popped into my head from thin hair.


This should be the sub-title on the JREF's banner, but in bigger type:

James Randi Educational Foundation
Where Garrette Displays his Infalluble Geniusishisness


Well, that is at least one of the possibilities.

Where Garrette Displays his INTRINSIC Infalluble EXTRINSIC Geniusishisness

FIFY

 

[Sideroxylon]

There's got to be a custom title in there for you, Garrette.

 

[Garrette]

Where Garrette Displays his INTRINSIC Infalluble EXTRINSIC Geniusishisness

FIFY

I like it, but we need "infinite" in there somewhere.

Jabba, can you help me out here?

 

[Garrette]

There's got to be a custom title in there for you, Garrette.

Hmmm:

Extrinsically Average but Intrinsically Genius?

 

[carlitos]

why in the god damn hell does Jabba use quotation marks around words???

- There is no preceding set of potential selves; and in that sense, each new self comes out of “thin air,” and each new self is a brand new creation. There is no limit to thin air, and there is no preceding existence -- of any kind – for actualized selves…

Jesus Christ. Thin air, or "thin air," whatever the hell that is, is the number of molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, water vapor and some other stuff that is held in the atmosphere by earth's gravity. That number, like all of the numbers you have been butt-raping in this thread, is finite.

 

[Akhenaten]

 

[sackett]

...A piece of insight that popped into my head from thin hair.
...

Hey, watch it with the hair jokes. You may be a enfinitely-genuine geniusoid, but you don't get to go around making tracks.

Or was that Akhenten? I'm getting confused.

 

[Jabba]

Good Morning, Mr. Savage.

No.

Consciousness is an emergent property of a neurosystem.

Neurosystems are material.

There is a finite number of possible neurosystems.

Slowvehicle,
- But, if we were able to reproduce a physical neurosystem, would we get the same self?

 

[Garrette]

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Garette.jpg[/qimg]​

 

[godless dave]

Slowvehicle,
- But, if we were able to reproduce a physical neurosystem, would we get the same self?

No, but that's irrelevant. We are still limited by raw materials, and there have to be people around to reproduce the neurosystem.

 

[Akhenaten]

Slowvehicle,
- But, if we were able to reproduce a physical neurosystem, would we get the same self?

The point remains "Jabba" that we'd still only "have" as many selves as there are "neurosystems".


ETA:

Ninja'd, although my post has more scare quotes and underlining, so I should win.

 

[Aepervius]

Absolutely intentional.* A piece of insight that popped into my head from thin hair.

*Well, that is at least one of the possibilities.

Let us say the possibility it was intentional is P(intent)=1/infinite.

So by jabba's reasonning it was a certainty.

or something

 

[Slowvehicle]

Slowvehicle,
- But, if we were able to reproduce a physical neurosystem, would we get the same self?

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

If your Auntie had wheels and a chain, would she be a bicycle if she had a handlebar moustache?

IMO, no.

If you were able, somehow, to reproduce a neurosystem precisely (even if you were able to reproduce a neurosytem precisely, at a precise moment), the same consciousness would not be expressed as an emergent property, because, among other reasons, beginning from the instant of duplication, the duplicate would be subject to a different set of experiences and influences. Even if, arguendo, the duplicate was identical at a given moment, it would, inevitably, diverge.

Not only that, even if the duplicate were constructed to a strict atom-to-atom correspondence with the original, it would be a...well, a duplicate...of the original. It would not be a second iteration of the original. It would not, in fact, be "identical".

And before you go there, do remember that a finite number multiplied by a finite number can only result in a finite number.

 

[Jabba]

- The number of possible hands in a game of Texas Poker is finite. The number of possible combinations in the Lottery is also finite. That’s because the cards in our hand and the numbers on our ticket are drawn from a limited pool of possibilities. I’ll call this intrinsic finiteness.
- I suggest that such is not the case for the number of possible selves – that any limitation on the number of possible selves is due to limits in external factors such as matter, energy and time. I’ll call that extrinsic finiteness; and in that sense, the number of possible selves is infinite.
- The same is true for the number of different potential Volkswagons.

- Does anyone here accept that we can make a distinction between two kinds of finiteness along the dimension of extrinsic/intrinsic?