[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Mojo]

I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.

No, I think they're intelligently designed.

 

[Akhenaten]

xtifr,
- I’m still trying to figure out where we agree, and where we disagree. In this case, you didn’t quite catch what I said.

You really need to get past this delusion that people aren't understanding what you're saying and embrace the realisation that they're simply pointing out how wrong you are.

- I didn’t say that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve ANY emergent properties – I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve THIS emergent property. I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.

No, you didn't say any such thing.

- Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

Hello . . ? Is this thing on?

 

[Mojo]

Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special.

If you are claiming that this particular emergent property is "special" in a way that means that no other emergent property can be used as an analogy, you will need to demonstrate this before you can say that the loaf of banana bread can't be used as an analogy.

 

[John Jones]

I didn’t say that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve ANY emergent properties – I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve THIS emergent property. I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.
-[...]

Nothing BUT a brain involves consciousness. You are attempting to make consciousness analogy-proof in your willful determination to put words in other people's mouth.

 

[Slowvehicle]

xtifr,
- I’m still trying to figure out where we agree, and where we disagree. In this case, you didn’t quite catch what I said.
- I didn’t say that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve ANY emergent properties – I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve THIS emergent property. I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.
- Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

And there it (finally) is...

To make the claim that there is some "special" thing about consciousness (mought just as well call it "soul"), you must provide evidence.

You are alone in this idea--please do not pretend that posters have agreed with you that there is something "special" about consciousness. That's what you have to start proving.

 

[Giordano]

xtifr,
- I’m still trying to figure out where we agree, and where we disagree. In this case, you didn’t quite catch what I said.
- I didn’t say that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve ANY emergent properties – I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve THIS emergent property. I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.
- Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

Once again, I will ask "what about the rest of us?" As to me, I disagree right now with this statement of yours.

Yes, I have serious objections and reservations so far. As said by the others here, there is nothing "special" about consciousness in the way you mean it. It, like the smell of banana bread, originates in a purely physical process. In the case of consciousness, it comes from the physics of a healthy brain. In the case of banana bread smell, the esters (and other molecules) come from the physics of a well-made banana bread. Different, yes, but not "special."

It is perfectly obvious that you want other posters here to agree with you that consciousness/self/sense of sense, pSOS (have you tried "spirit" yet?) is non-physical. Why don't you simply ask us if any one else here thinks this to be true? Why are your posts so transparently trying to get us to agree to something that you can twist to mean "non-physical." Even when you have to flatly ignore what they really said in their posts, and make up the opposite. Is this honest.

 

[xtifr]

First, I have to say, good job on the quoting. That was a really good way to do it; really clear. Thanks.

xtifr,
- I’m still trying to figure out where we agree, and where we disagree. In this case, you didn’t quite catch what I said.
- I didn’t say that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve ANY emergent properties – I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve THIS emergent property. I said that a loaf of banana bread doesn’t involve consciousness.

I'm fine up to here.

- Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

Well, yeah. Now you're outside the scientific model again. The scientific model doesn't say there's anything special about consciousness. It's a remarkably complex emergent property—perhaps the most complex we've studied—but that's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.

You're welcome to believe there's something special about consciousness. I know many people who do.* And if there were something special about it, it wouldn't disprove the scientific model, which doesn't actually claim there isn't something special about it. But it also doesn't claim there is something special about it. It's outside of the model, which doesn't depend on the truth of that proposition either way, so it's irrelevant, if your goal is to disprove the scientific model.

(And it still doesn't get you any closer to injecting infinity, either way, so why are we wasting our time on it?)

* I don't actually have a belief here; I'm waiting for more evidence. But I do believe that the preponderance of the evidence we have so far suggests that there is nothing special about consciousness.

 

[pakeha]

...Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

No, Jabba.
Consciousness is an emergent property of a functioning neurosystem, remember?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh for the love of...

This ain't that hard.

Consciousness is what the brain does, just like pumping blood is what the heart does. When someone tells you that the heart pumps blood you don't launch into a philosophical tirade about the nuance of it.

 

[AdMan]

- Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

Don't want to answer for xtifr, but personally

YES. Of course there's an objection.

PAY *********** ATTENTION and READ THE POSTS.

 

[Mojo]

I’m still trying to figure out where we agree, and where we disagree.

We agree about what you're saying. We disagree with what you're saying.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba for a moment think about how intellectually empty a statement must be for the only way to validate it to yourself is to lie to yourself that other people are agreeing with you when they aren't.

No one here is agreeing with you on any level in any way.

 

[Loss Leader]

Then, I went on to say that there is something about consciousness that is special. Do you have any objections or reservations so far?

Oh, I see. Something about consciousness is special. You can't say what. You can't say how. You can't explain why consciousness is different from any other property of any other complex system. You can't design a test for it. But something is special. That clears everything up.

I'm joking, of course. There is no difference between consciousness and any other property of a complex system. Thunderstorms aren't special, neither is hitting 88 mph in a Delorean.

You may say that consciousness is special because no other emergent property is unable to be duplicated. But if you said such a ridiculous thing, you would be: a) assuming your conclusion; and b) wrong.

 

[JoeMorgue]

In a very backhanded compliment Jabba is actually just directly stating something that a lot of Woo is based on.

It's the "X is unexplainable because I'm defining it as unexplainable" thing. Different types of Woo from a dozen different categories have used variations on it.

It's not totally his fault it sound absurd when you say it directly.

 

[Jabba]

I'm not xtifr, but I have an objection, and it's one I raised before:
I disagree that consciousness has any special property of identity. The consciousness in my body is me because it's in my body. The consciousness in your body is you because it's in your body.
In nature, each consciousness is unique because it is practically impossible to precisely duplicate every single factor that goes into producing and changing a human brain. That's where the uniqueness comes from.
The identity just comes from existing.

- Unfortunately, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand your position.
- As I understand your position, you believe that reproducing your body/brain would not bring you back to life – it would not reproduce “you.” You believe that reproducing your body/brain would create an “identical” PSoCS (Particular Sense of Continuous Self), but not “you.”
- But to me, that would mean that your body/brain does not define you exclusively – “you” are but one of many (an infinity?) of possible personas defined by your body/brain.
- But then, I’m pretty sure that you have claimed that it does define you exclusively…

- I rail on about this because it relates to my claim for infinity…

 

[Loss Leader]

- Unfortunately, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand your position.
- As I understand your position, you believe that reproducing your body/brain would not bring you back to life – it would not reproduce “you.” You believe that reproducing your body/brain would create an “identical” PSoCS (Particular Sense of Continuous Self), but not “you.”
- But to me, that would mean that your body/brain does not define you exclusively – “you” are but one of many (an infinity?) of possible personas defined by your body/brain.
- But then, I’m pretty sure that you have claimed that it does define you exclusively…

- I rail on about this because it relates to my claim for infinity…

If I bake a loaf of banana bread, it smells delicious. If I then make another loaf of banana bread from the same recipe, it will smell identically delicious, but it will still be a different loaf of banana bread.

And, since there are a finite number of stalks of wheat and bananas on the planet, I cannot ever make an infinite number of loaves of banana bread.

There's no difference between that and the PSoCS or whatever insane thing you're calling people these days.

 

[Slowvehicle]

- Unfortunately, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand your position.
- As I understand your position, you believe that reproducing your body/brain would not bring you back to life – it would not reproduce “you.” You believe that reproducing your body/brain would create an “identical” PSoCS (Particular Sense of Continuous Self), but not “you.”
- But to me, that would mean that your body/brain does not define you exclusively – “you” are but one of many (an infinity?) of possible personas defined by your body/brain.
- But then, I’m pretty sure that you have claimed that it does define you exclusively…

- I rail on about this because it relates to my claim for infinity…

Good Afternoon, Mr. Savage!

Thank you for this morning's addition to les mots Sauvage. I have to ask: is it your intent to imply that a "Particular Sense of Continuous Self (PSoCS)" is somehow distinct from a "Particular Sense of Self (PSoS)" a "Paticular Consciousness (PC)", a "Sense of Self", a "Consciousness", an "Identity" or (after much battement du gee-gee- mort)...a "soul"?

Does the fact that you have been singularly unable to evince any kind of actual agreement or complicity tell you anything about your claim,at all?

(Hint: the fact that you need agreement in order to pretend to be able to perform a mathematically prohibited perversion ought not to make you work even more frantically to pretend someone, somewhere, buys your position. Instead, it ought to lead you to ponder why you need to perform a mathematically indefensible unnatural act.)

Not to mention that you seem to have lost sight of the fact that all this about "duplicating" brains is hypothetical.

 

[Slowvehicle]

If I bake a loaf of banana bread, it smells delicious. If I then make another loaf of banana bread from the same recipe, it will smell identically delicious, but it will still be a different loaf of banana bread.

And, since there are a finite number of stalks of wheat and bananas on the planet, I cannot ever make an infinite number of loaves of banana bread.

There's no difference between that and the PSoCS or whatever insane thing you're calling people these days.

I have to ask: Is "PSoCS" a PC term?

 

[Mojo]

- Unfortunately, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand your position.
- As I understand your position, you believe that reproducing your body/brain would not bring you back to life – it would not reproduce “you.” You believe that reproducing your body/brain would create an “identical” PSoCS (Particular Sense of Continuous Self)...

You have now added "continuous" to your "PSoS". Where are you getting this from? It's pretty clear from reading the thread that nobody here (apart from you) thinks that the "self" is continuous.

And it is also abundantly clear that everyone here (apart from you) considers that the identical "self" that would result from this situation would not be continuous with the original "self", but would be another "self".

 

[godless dave]

- Unfortunately, I’m still trying to make sure that I understand your position.
- As I understand your position, you believe that reproducing your body/brain would not bring you back to life – it would not reproduce “you.” You believe that reproducing your body/brain would create an “identical” PSoCS (Particular Sense of Continuous Self), but not “you.”
- But to me, that would mean that your body/brain does not define you exclusively – “you” are but one of many (an infinity?) of possible personas defined by your body/brain.

An infinity of identical personas, if we by had infinite materials to make them from.

Just as the number of identical loaves of banana bread I can make from the same recipe is only limited by the available ingredients.