[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[carlitos]

You're aces, Loss Leader.

 

[pakeha]

- In that sense, there is no pool. We are brand new; created out of thin air, so to speak; and as such, our potential numbers are infinite. Would you agree with that?

Wait, what?
Weren't we agreed consciousness is an emergent property of physical neurowhatsits?

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

What do you mean, "if we were able to reproduce", Jabba?
You have grandchildren and I'd like to think you've some familiarity with the process involved.

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

Not I, and when I asked at the post office and the baker's and the pub, no one in my village, either.

...

By the way, have you ever read the Pasiong Mahal?

 

[Agatha]

Nein. Non. Niet. Nej. Nu. Nee. Nai. Aniyo. Não. Na. Nie. Bù. Nid oes. Nei. NO!

You seem uncertain.

I am on my way to Heisenberg University to ask if anyone there has the answer. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a signpost to help me on the way - perhaps the Pharaoh can help?

 

[Akhenaten]

I'm uncertain. Is this any use?

 

[John Jones]

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

- 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.
[...].

I'll call the above sophistry.

 

[Giordano]

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

Certainly not. No!

 

[Agatha]

If I could only work out whether these particles are waving at me, I'm sure I could find my way.

 

[Giordano]

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

If you could absolutely reproduce a physical neurosystem to the detail of every last action potential and neurotransmitter-receptor physical state, then yes, I think you would exactly duplicate the same "self" and thoughts. This is my idea of how consciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain. However, in a matter of milliseconds, the selves would diverge because their experiences were different. By the way- we cannot do this exact physical duplication even for clones or identical twins: the genetics are the same, but the physical neurosystems (either due to chance or to different experiences, e.g being in the left vs right womb) diverge.

 

[carlitos]

I am on my way to Heisenberg University to ask if anyone there has the answer.

Here's a tune for your commute:

 

[godless dave]

If you could absolutely reproduce a physical neurosystem to the detail of every last action potential and neurotransmitter-receptor physical state, then yes, I think you would exactly duplicate the same "self" and thoughts. This is my idea of how consciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain. However, in a matter of milliseconds, the selves would diverge because their experiences were different. By the way- we cannot do this exact physical duplication even for clones or identical twins: the genetics are the same, but the physical neurosystems (either due to chance or to different experiences, e.g being in the left vs right womb) diverge.

I think they would be identical but they would be two separate selves - they would not share experiences, thoughts, or feelings, even if they were having the same thoughts or feelings.

Like dealing the same hand from two different decks of cards. They're identical, but separate.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I think they would be identical but they would be two separate selves - they would not share experiences, thoughts, or feelings, even if they were having the same thoughts or feelings.

Like dealing the same hand from two different decks of cards. They're identical, but separate.

...like building the same model car with two different set of Legos.

 

[tsig]

- In that sense, there is no pool. We are brand new; created out of thin air, so to speak; and as such, our potential numbers are infinite. Would you agree with that?

That's not my mom's name.

 

[Garrette]

That's not my mom's name.

As I tell my wife when she insists the kids are really mine:

"Well, yeah, but how do I know they're yours?"

 

[Humots]

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

For myself, N O spells no. I mean, making up your own mathematics to prove you are right?

Jabba, this has got to be the biggest piece of nonsense I've seen anyone drop, and that's including the guy who said "Are you aware that the cold war was a fabricated reality".

 

[Monza]

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

Here it is, again, without the distraction:

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.

Something so simple as being the one on the right instead of the one on the left is enough of a difference to obviate the claim that the two neurosystems would be identical.

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", but a copy.

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

Good explanation. Perhaps Jabba is overlooking the fact that the neurosystem is not a static object. Learning and memory are attributed to changes in neuronal synapses, and it is this dynamic property of the brain that makes it impossible for these two hypothetical neurosystems to remain identical. Your brain right now is physically different from your brain this morning.

 

[Monza]

If you could absolutely reproduce a physical neurosystem to the detail of every last action potential and neurotransmitter-receptor physical state, then yes, I think you would exactly duplicate the same "self" and thoughts. This is my idea of how consciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain. However, in a matter of milliseconds, the selves would diverge because their experiences were different. By the way- we cannot do this exact physical duplication even for clones or identical twins: the genetics are the same, but the physical neurosystems (either due to chance or to different experiences, e.g being in the left vs right womb) diverge.

This is a great way to explain it.

 

[Loss Leader]

Good explanation. Perhaps Jabba is overlooking the fact that the neurosystem is not a static object. Learning and memory are attributed to changes in neuronal synapses, and it is this dynamic property of the brain that makes it impossible for these two hypothetical neurosystems to remain identical. Your brain right now is physically different from your brain this morning.

No, I think Slowvehicle had it right. Jabba believes the soul is some ephemeral spirit conjured out of the ether and assigned to a human host at some point during gestation. Since the soul comes from nothing but potentiality, he thinks the possible potential souls are infinite.

Of course, even if he were to prove that the soul is separate from the body and that it exists before and/or after the body's death, none of that would mean that the well of souls was infinite or that the soul was immortal.

 

[Humots]

I agree with:

If you could absolutely reproduce a physical neurosystem to the detail of every last action potential and neurotransmitter-receptor physical state, then yes, I think you would exactly duplicate the same "self" and thoughts.

subject to:

I think they would be identical but they would be two separate selves - they would not share experiences, thoughts, or feelings, even if they were having the same thoughts or feelings.

Like dealing the same hand from two different decks of cards. They're identical, but separate.

Of course, there's always the Moravec Procedure.

 

[Humots]

By the way- we cannot do this exact physical duplication even for clones or identical twins: the genetics are the same, but the physical neurosystems (either due to chance or to different experiences, e.g being in the left vs right womb) diverge.

????

 

[Garrette]

????

It's not just a matter of starting from a physically and neuronally identical point. Since different experiences will cause different firing of synapses and therefore different developmental pathways. Even if after one differing experience all the subsequent experiences are identical, the brains will never be the same and therefore neither will the selves.

The "left or right" example was to show that differing experiences are impossible to avoid. My perception of you as I stand in one spot is different from my perception of you if I stand 24 inches to the left. Therefore, the synapses will fire differently, even if only minutely.