[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[PixyMisa]

xtifr,
- If I understand what you're saying, it didn't say what I was saying, and what I said wasn't a tautology. Mostly, I was trying to explain what I meant by "prior representation."
- Maybe I should call it a "mold." There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception -- IF there is no chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.

Self is brain function. If you have two brains, you have two selves.

 

[Akhenaten]

Just the problem I pointed out yesterday in a direct reply to you, and that several people have pointed out for pages and pages of discussion that you are rudely ignoring:

Dave,
- I didn't really understand that. Please elaborate.

It means that you should stop pretending that the objections to your claims for which you have no valid answer aren't as invisible as the Jury of the Unseen™ to whom you are wont to preach.

 

[Akhenaten]

1. godless dave
a. has
b. a problem with:

2. Your post
a. posted here:
b. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972828#post9972828

3. A problem
a. godless dave
b. has pointed out to you before
c. and others
d. have pointed out to you before
e. here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972532#post9972532
f. and here:http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972624#post9972624
g. and here:http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972704#post9972704
h. to name but a few
i. both before
ii. and after
iii. this post

4. And you
a. ignore objections
b. or don't read the objections
c. or rudely pretend the objections aren't there
d. and ask the questions again
e. plaintively.

5. Many posters have
a.tried to help you understand
b. patiently explained
c. humorously expalined
d. taken to drink
e. aged considerably
f. talked among themselves

6. But it
a. has not helped
b. (see 4.a.-e., incorporated by reference)

7. I hope this
a. makes it clearer
b. answers your question
c. at least amuses the pharaoh
d. does not offend you too badly
e. perhaps even causes you to consider your approach

8. Sincerely,
a. your willing disputant
b. JFred
c. Slowvehicle
d. Hintze

If only everyone would format their responses in this manner perhaps Jabba would be better able to understand them.

Just a couple of tips though:

1.0 Lists should contain at least one instance each of
1.1 "something else" and
1.2 "etcetera"
3.0 It helps to keep the jury on its toes if there's some inconsistency
3.1 in the sequence of numbering your list
2.0 items.

 

[pakeha]

Why are you talking about molds or prior representations?

Have you really not understood that the sense of self is merely a functioning of the brain?

Mould will render us all down to our constituent chemicals before Jabba agrees to this.

I daresay you're right, George.
Not even the the courteous responses of two eminent scholars on the subject were able to budge Jabba from baulking at this elementary first step to understanding what humans are.
It's a mystery to me, unless we're simply being trolled.

 

[Slowvehicle]

If only everyone would format their responses in this manner perhaps Jabba would be better able to understand them.

Just a couple of tips though:

1.0 Lists should contain at least one instance each of
1.1 "something else" and
1.2 "etcetera"
3.0 It helps to keep the jury on its toes if there's some inconsistency
3.1 in the sequence of numbering your list
2.0 items.

 

[George]

I daresay you're right, George.
Not even the the courteous responses of two eminent scholars on the subject were able to budge Jabba from baulking at this elementary first step to understanding what humans are.
It's a mystery to me, unless we're simply being trolled.

I'm always reminded of this post from almost two years ago.

He may not be a troll, but he is indistinguishable from one.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8304472#post8304472

It's often said the JREF message boards are training wheels for Muppets who will go on to troll other message boards. I'm not sure I follow this, this place is the mother load of skeptics. Where could he possibly go from here? What I find surprising is, how did it take him so long to find the place.
I think he's bored now. Most of his recent stuff is just plain goading.

I've learned a lot from Jabbas threads though, obviously not from the man himself but from the guys wielding the whack-a-mole hammers.
It's been emotional.

 

[godless dave]

Jabba, no matter how you phrase it, you will never fit immaterial souls into the scientific model for human consciousness, cognition, and self-awareness.

But here's the good news. According to the scientific model, the matter your self is made of is billions of years old and will exist for billions more. Molecules of water and carbon in your body right now will likely be in living organisms on this planet again in the future. Billions of years from now, some organism living on a planet circling a fourth or fifth generation star might even have atoms in it that used to be in you.

How's that for immortality?

 

[Jabba]

6279

- You guys figure that I need to keep rewording my ideas because my ideas don’t make sense. I figure that I need to keep rewording them because they’re especially difficult to communicate. Though sometimes, I reword them just to remind you of something I’ve already said. That latter is my reason for this current paragraph. The former is my reason for the following.

- My claim:
1. Your sense of self had no prior existence, or “representation,” of any kind prior to its current existence.
2. “Prior representation” would be chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
3. Apparently, there is no such chemistry re your sense of self.
- Problems so far?

6297

Just the problem I pointed out
yesterday in a direct reply to you, and that several people have pointed out for pages and pages of discussion that you are rudely ignoring:

6320

Dave,
- I didn't really understand that. Please elaborate.

6321

A self cannot be in two places at once.
I don't know how I can further explain the difference between two and one.

Dave,
- I wasn't sure what problem you had pointed out "yesterday."
- How's this? You're saying that reproducing your DNA after your death would not resurrect you.

 

[Jabba]

OK, let's use the mold analogy. If you have a mold for something, and you cast something using that mold, then you do it again using the same mold, do you have two things or one?

- You have two things.
- But, reproducing your DNA will not reproduce your sense of self. Your sense of self does not have a mold.

 

[godless dave]

- You have two things.
- But, reproducing your DNA will not reproduce your sense of self. Your sense of self does not have a mold.

Sure it does. If you reproduce my DNA, you will get a self that is - initially - exactly like mine was when I was born. Two identical selves from the same mold.

 

[Garrette]

- You have two things.
- But, reproducing your DNA will not reproduce your sense of self. Your sense of self does not have a mold.

Jabba, this post is sincerely meant with respect:

The sense-of-self is not separate from the consciousness; it is not its own thing. It only appears to be. That was (one of) the point of the Blackmore video.

If you insist on treating the sense-of-self as something that is created in addition to consciousness as opposed to being part of consciousness, then you are discussing what you want to be, not what is.

 

[zooterkin]

Sure it does. If you reproduce my DNA, you will get a self that is - initially - exactly like mine was when I was born.

No, I don't think you would, in practice, unless you somehow duplicated the conditions in your mother's womb exactly, at all stages of development, down to the atomic level. Remember, even identical twins don't have identical brains.

 

[godless dave]

No, I don't think you would, in practice, unless you somehow duplicated the conditions in your mother's womb exactly, at all stages of development, down to the atomic level. Remember, even identical twins don't have identical brains.

I agree. I was oversimplifying.

 

[PixyMisa]

- You have two things.
- But, reproducing your DNA will not reproduce your sense of self. Your sense of self does not have a mold.

Self is brain function.

 

[Jabba]

Sure it does. If you reproduce my DNA, you will get a self that is - initially - exactly like mine was when I was born. Two identical selves from the same mold.

Dave,
- Let's try this. Would you be resurrected?

 

[Mojo]

No, I don't think you would, in practice, unless you somehow duplicated the conditions in your mother's womb exactly, at all stages of development, down to the atomic level.

That is basically the hypothetical situation that Jabba invoked - two completely identical neurosystems in identical environments.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- Let's try this. Would you be resurrected?

No.

Something made to the same specifications as me is a copy of me. It's not me.

 

[Mojo]

Let's try this. Would you be resurrected?

No. It would be a consciousness identical to Dave's at that point, but it would not be Dave's consciousness.

Remember: if you have two identical things there are two of them, not one.

 

[Giordano]

Dave,
- Let's try this. Would you be resurrected?

I don't see how this isn't a "Have you stopped beating your sponse" question.

He has to answer no if he does not believe in resurrection. But this wasteful hypothetical nonsense about exactly duplicating your physical brain still allows for duplicating your thoughts, at least first. And you are left with two brains. So you don't need to invoke a mysterious non-physical "self" to say no to your question. Or to say yes if you mean duplicating the "consciousness" instead of resurrection.

By the way, is resurrection your new term to obscure the term reincarnation? Just trying to keep up..

 

[PixyMisa]

Dave,
- Let's try this. Would you be resurrected?

Self is brain function.