[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Slowvehicle]

Looxury! We used ta dreeeeam o' having a plank.

We 'ad tae borry flinders from the Widder Gustafsson and pretend they was plank.

(We a'n't 'ad planks since right arter the singularity, when th'youniverse was just this big accrost...)

 

[xtifr]

- Who says that the former is the current scientific model, and where do they say it?

It's called the Big Bang Theory. You may have heard of it? I'd expand on this point, except that you said:

- Just in case -- just to remind everybody -- the "everything is finite" model is the model that I've been addressing all along.

Gotcha. So I won't quibble further about the universe. Back to the sense of self. It appears from the brain. One brain = one consciousness = one sense of self.

- I’m not saying that consciousness comes from nowhere. Consciousness comes from a specific kind of physical state. It’s your particular illusion of a self that I claim comes from nowhere.

I think you misunderstand what sort of illusion it is. It's an illusion of the consciousness and it comes from the consciousness, and each consciousness has this illusion. So one brain = one consciousness = one sense of self.

Think about so-called centrifugal force^WP. It's not a real force--it's an illusion--but it comes from real forces. You can't have centifugal "force" without a spin, and you can't have a spin without something spinning. Spin is a property of an object, just as consciousness is a property of a brain, and centrifugal force is an illusion caused by spin, just as the sense of self is an illusion caused by consciousness. But without that underlying object (a child's top/the brain), you can't have spin/consciousness, and can't have centrifugal force/sense of self.

So, sense of self still does not come from nowhere, and the number of potential senses of self is limited by the number of potential brains. Which you have now agreed is finite!

- If we replicate your brain after you die, your particular illusion will not come back to life.

Because replicating your brain after die means creating a new (but identical) brain with its own (identical) consciousness and its own (identical-but-separate) sense of self.

And each time we replicate your brain, we’ll produce a new illusion.

Yes, because you created a new brain and a new consciousness. The consciousness is a property of the brain and the illusion of self is a property of the consciousness. The illusion of self doesn't come from nowhere. You created it, indirectly, when you created the brain.

One brain = one consciousness = one sense of self.
One brain = one consciousness = one sense of self.

IOW, each illusion will be undefined until its actual existence.

As will each consciousness and each brain. If that doesn't make their numbers potentially infinite, why would you think it makes the senses of self potentially infinite. Think, man!

 

[John Jones]

6998->7009

7009->7027
- Who says that the former is the current scientific model, and where do they say it?

7009->7027
- Just in case -- just to remind everybody -- the "everything is finite" model is the model that I've been addressing all along.

Your gibberish is no more intelligible than it was back in 2012 when you started this silly discussion.

*You sir, are making an argument against the current scientific model, though you have no clue what that model is.

*You sir, need to essentially prove immortality via Bayesian Statistics per your OP. You won't be able to do it, but I'm not going to let you off that hook without a lot of weeping garment-rending on your part.

Your only routes to intellectual integrity are to demonstrate that some intelligence is immortal, or admit you have no such evidence.

You've been wasting electrons all these years and you have nothing to show for it on any forum upon which you've been slathering this nonsense.

Without exception, you have been bested in every item of debate. Your concept of 'effective debate' has no merit since you abandoned any such concepts weeks ago.

If your wife, children, and grandchildren were interested in joining JREF, I'm sure we could sort this out for them.

 

[abaddon]

Your gibberish is no more intelligible than it was back in 2012 when you started this silly discussion.

*You sir, are making an argument against the current scientific model, though you have no clue what that model is.

*You sir, need to essentially prove immortality via Bayesian Statistics per your OP. You won't be able to do it, but I'm not going to let you off that hook without a lot of weeping garment-rending on your part.

Your only routes to intellectual integrity are to demonstrate that some intelligence is immortal, or admit you have no such evidence.

You've been wasting electrons all these years and you have nothing to show for it on any forum upon which you've been slathering this nonsense.

Without exception, you have been bested in every item of debate. Your concept of 'effective debate' has no merit since you abandoned any such concepts weeks ago.

If your wife, children, and grandchildren were interested in joining JREF, I'm sure we could sort this out for them.

Very sorry, but you are not the current LCP, Godless Dave has been fired and xtifr has been appointed.

You did not get a look in. I am invisible. Slowvehicle and Akhenatan are beneath contempt. Agatha does not exist. Giordano, pakeha and Mojo are all simply figments.

All of this will, of course, change at the appointment of the next LCP, so hold onto your hats. Without notice.

Loss Leader is obviously Satan for allowing Jabba to get his wish but fail miserably at the attempt. I know we all aspire to such heights, but let us set realistic goals.

 

[Giordano]

6998->7009

7009->7027
- Who says that the former [infinity] is the current scientific model, and where do they say it?

7009->7027
- Just in case -- just to remind everybody -- the "everything is finite" model is the model that I've been addressing all along.

Oh come on, you yourself admitted to the finite nature of energy, matter, and time as viewed by the SM, here on this very thread! You stated that you even asked a statistics expert, and searched extensively for your own notions of intrinsic vs. extrinsic finite objects. You asked us here on this forum. All with the repeated finding that the standard model does not agree with you, and that infinity doesn't exists in real life. Now you pretend you don't really know the answer that you were given? Or who gave and when they gave this answer to you?? What did all your sources say was the SM?

And yet you have been "addressing" the "everything is finite" model all along? Why if it is not the pre- existing standard? Did it just seem like an idea that some minority of us might have? Or is it the SM?

 

[PixyMisa]

7009->7027xtifr,
- I’m not saying that consciousness comes from nowhere. Consciousness comes from a specific kind of physical state. It’s your particular illusion of a self that I claim comes from nowhere.

And you are of course completely wrong. That is, again, brain function.

- If we replicate your brain after you die, your particular illusion will not come back to life.

If I have two identical things, Jabba, how many identical things do I have?

And each time we replicate your brain, we’ll produce a new illusion. IOW, each illusion will be undefined until its actual existence. There is no pool of potential illusions for it to be taken from. Each illusion will be brand new. Each will have no prior existence -- or "representation" -- of any kind. It will come from nowhere, out of thin air.

And this is of course completely wrong, again.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Truly effective debate - at best, an evolved mechanism to obscure the paucity of the reasoning of the person advocating this particular debating format

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Apologies, but I looked at Jabba's profile and was forced to comment

 

[Slowvehicle]

1-7068

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

I hope your work in preparing to present your actual evidence that the "soul" exists, and is "immortal", is going well.

 

[Jabba]

Isn't the sense of self part of consciousness? If one comes from the brain, why not the other?

Dave,

- A particular sense of self does "come from" a brain. Each new brain, produces a new consciousness -- and this new consciousness brings with it, or develops, a particular sense of self. It's just that the particular sense of self that is brought, or developed, is not fully “defined” by the brain and the brains’ experience. My particular sense of self had no prior … and, here’s where I can’t find an actually effective word/term/phrase for identifying the concept to which I’m trying to refer…
- I’ve tried prior “representation,” “recipe,” “blue print,” “formula,” “mold” and probably, some more -- suggesting that the brain and its experience defines the "what," but not the "who" -- but nothing seems to work that well.

- Whatever the right words, there is no such thing for any particular sense of self – and, in that sense, each sense of self comes from nothing. While “What” was clearly at bat, there was no “Who” in the on deck circle (I couldn’t help myself).

- That is the sense in which my particular sense of self came out of nowhere. Not being on any roster, I simply popped up in a batter’s box. Our TEAM doesn’t have a roster. The next batter could be anybody.
- And coming from nothing anyway, the possibilities are infinite.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,

- A particular sense of self does "come from" a brain. Each new brain, produces a new consciousness -- and this new consciousness brings with it, or develops, a particular sense of self. It's just that the particular sense of self that is brought, or developed, is not fully “defined” by the brain and the brains’ experience.

In the scientific model, it is fully defined by the brain. Even with neuroscience in its infancy, we have a general idea of where the sense of self resides in the brain, because when people meditate and report feeling a loss of the sense of self, parts of the prefrontal cortex show less activity on an MRI.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201106/how-mindfulness-meditation-alters-the-brain

In the scientific model, the sense of self is wholly defined by the brain. It does not come from nowhere.

 

[Jabba]

7027->7062

It's called the Big Bang Theory. You may have heard of it?

- Assuming that the Big Bang Theory is basically correct, what's the possibility that the Big Bang could happen again -- or, elsewhere?

 

[Giordano]

7027->7062- Assuming that the Big Bang Theory is basically correct, what's the possibility that the Big Bang could happen again -- or, elsewhere?

Jabba,
You may want to look at the title of this thread again. The title you chose.

 

[Jabba]

In the scientific model, it is fully defined by the brain. Even with neuroscience in its infancy, we have a general idea of where the sense of self resides in the brain, because when people meditate and report feeling a loss of the sense of self, parts of the prefrontal cortex show less activity on an MRI.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201106/how-mindfulness-meditation-alters-the-brain

In the scientific model, the sense of self is wholly defined by the brain. It does not come from nowhere.

- But if you replicated that brain, including its prefrontal cortex, you wouldn't get the same sense of self doing the meditating.

- You're saying that the particular brain does wholly define its particular sense of self. I'll need to think some more about this, but it could be that I actually agree.
- I would just say that there was no representation of that particular sense of self before the replica came into existence. The particular sense of self came from no preexisting formula -- and prior to its actual existence, that sense of self could have been anybody.

 

[Giordano]

7027->7062- Assuming that the Big Bang Theory is basically correct, what's the possibility that the Big Bang could happen again -- or, elsewhere?

Why don't you calculate it?
By the way, there is no elsewhere, unless you believe in the multi-verse. In which case there is a whole-nother thread on this topic and you should post there.

 

[Hokulele]

... and prior to its actual existence, that sense of self could have been anybody.

How on earth can anything be something when it doesn't exist?

 

[godless dave]

- But if you replicated that brain, including its prefrontal cortex, you wouldn't get the same sense of self doing the meditating.

No, you would get one exactly identical to it.

- You're saying that the particular brain does wholly define its particular sense of self. I'll need to think some more about this, but it could be that I actually agree.
- I would just say that there was no representation of that particular sense of self before the replica came into existence. The particular sense of self came from no preexisting formula -- and prior to its actual existence, that sense of self could have been anybody.

This is what you keep saying, but it is not at all what the scientific model says. In the scientific model, there is no aspect of the self that is not defined by the brain that produces it.

As a practical matter, every human self is unique because every human brain is unique. That's because there are so many variables that go into producing a brain. A human brain has around 86 billion neurons, and they can connect to each other in billions of ways.

Even identical twins do not have perfectly identical brains. And since brains change in response to stimuli, and no two people experience exactly the same stimuli, there is no way for two people to have identical brains.

A sense of self couldn't "be anybody". It can only be the sense of self produced by that brain. That's what determines "who" it is.

 

[Giordano]

- But if you replicated that brain, including its prefrontal cortex, you wouldn't get the same sense of self doing the meditating.

- You're saying that the particular brain does wholly define its particular sense of self. I'll need to think some more about this, but it could be that I actually agree.
- I would just say that there was no representation of that particular sense of self before the replica came into existence. The particular sense of self came from no preexisting formula -- and prior to its actual existence, that sense of self could have been anybody.

Even wronger and I have trouble believing that you haven't read all the other posts telling you why.

But, please as others have urged you, please move on to get this thread rolling. You are simply wrong to think that duplicating a physical brain would not duplicate its sense of self exactly, at time zero. It would. But neither we nor you know how to do this, so let's move on. Even let's forget about the SM, simply disproving it, which you have not done, would not prove your own model. So please provide evidence for you model. Next. Or I must conclude with others here that you have none.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Dave,

- A particular sense of self does "come from" a brain. Each new brain, produces a new consciousness -- and this new consciousness brings with it, or develops, a particular sense of self. It's just that the particular sense of self that is brought, or developed, is not fully “defined” by the brain and the brains’ experience.

Good Morning, Mr. Savage!

It is at the highlighted but that you founder.

Everything we know about neuroscience holds that, in fact, the brain and the brain's experiences, do, in fact, define the consciousness that is an emergent property of that brain.

It is sad to see that you have simply dismissed all the times it has been pointed out to you that two "identical brains" will have "identical consciousnesses", right up to the moment that the experiences of the two brains begin to diverge.

Heredity AND environment, and all that...

My particular sense of self had no prior … and, here’s where I can’t find an actually effective word/term/phrase for identifying the concept to which I’m trying to refer…
- I’ve tried prior “representation,” “recipe,” “blue print,” “formula,” “mold” and probably, some more -- suggesting that the brain and its experience defines the "what," but not the "who" -- but nothing seems to work that well.

The reason for that is that, in fact, the "self" instantiated as the consciousness that is an emergent property of a particular brain is, in fact, defined by the brain and the brain's experiences.

Attempting to slip a mysterious "other", that is NOT strictly and simply an emergent property of that particular neurosystem, is either disingenuous or downright dishonest.

- Whatever the right words, there is no such thing for any particular sense of self – and, in that sense, each sense of self comes from nothing. While “What” was clearly at bat, there was no “Who” in the on deck circle (I couldn’t help myself).

No. No. No. No.
Not even wrong.
And you have had this pointed out to you before.

The consciousness that is an emergent property of a particular neurosystem does not "come from nothing", but from the characteristics of the neurosystem as influenced by what the neurosystem has undergone. (This is why the questions about the effects of trauma, which you have simply ignored, are significant.)

To adopt your inelegant phrasing, the "who" and the "what" are inseperable characteristics of the emergent consciousness.

- That is the sense in which my particular sense of self came out of nowhere. Not being on any roster, I simply popped up in a batter’s box. Our TEAM doesn’t have a roster. The next batter could be anybody.
- And coming from nothing anyway, the possibilities are infinite.

No. No. No.
Not even wrong.
"You" did not "come from nothing".
"You" are an emergent property of "your" neurosystem.

Why not just present your evidence that the"soul" (the "who" you tried to distinguish from the "what") exists, and is "immortal"?

 

[Slowvehicle]

7027->7062- Assuming that the Big Bang Theory is basically correct, what's the possibility that the Big Bang could happen again -- or, elsewhere?

OT.

"Soul"?

"Immortal"?