[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[Akhenaten]

- Good.
- Apparently, if we replicate the DNA of a person (as seems to happen with identical twins), we do not get the same self (in the sense above) in two different persons. Disagreements?

It's almost as if you've finally arrived at the point from which everyone else started this stupid discussion.

 

[Akhenaten]

- Apparently, we each have a sense of self, or individual consciousness, that is separate from other selves and is continuous for the life of our individual brains. If this sense of self is strictly physical, weakens with illness and age, goes on leave when we sleep, departs forever when we die and is illusory anyway -- so be it. It is still something that we all apparently have – certainly, I do. What are the disagreements so far?

After most people agree, isn't this when your next post gets rid of all the qualifiers and you state that everyone agrees that there is a continuous self that is of infinite potential origin and is not physical?

Exactly. Just like in his favourite episode of Perry Mason.

 

[Akhenaten]

- I'm trying to isolate our point of divergence. If I've already done that, I forget what it was -- though, I suspect that I never did it satisfactorily.

Truly effective debate, as practised by the best man in the fight.

What a sad joke.

 

[Akhenaten]

I think it was Norman Thomas who said, "I will not lead you to the Holy Land if i could, because if could someone else might just lead you out."

Why try to convince Jabba of our position, if he would just forget that we convinced him. His posts show every evidence of having forgotten everything we told him already.

Even more tragic is the evidence that he's also forgotten everything he's said himself.

 

[Akhenaten]

- IOW, this self, or aspect of the self, is not the result of chemistry.

Where IOW stands for I Only Wish.

 

[Mojo]

- Good.
- Apparently, if we replicate the DNA of a person (as seems to happen with identical twins), we do not get the same self (in the sense above) in two different persons. Disagreements?

OK, that's the "bait" bit done...

 

[Mojo]

- I'm trying to isolate our point of divergence.

The "point of divergence" is that you think you're right while everyone else thinks you're wrong.

 

[godless dave]

I like analogies. Should we have another analogy? I think we should.

Let's say you have a blueprint for a Volkswagen Beetle. The factory in Wolfsburg uses that blueprint to build two identical Beetles. Everything about them is identical. For the sake of this analogy, let's pretend they don't have any VIN numbers stamped anywhere on them, so they are exactly identical.

How many Beetles do we have? Two.

They both roll off the assembly line. A Volkswagen employee starts each one. Now each one has a running engine. A running automobile engine puts off an electromagnetic field.

How many electromagnetic fields do you think we have?

 

[Jabba]

If we replicate the DNA of a person and use it to create another person, we get two selves. Which, incidentally, is redundant.

- IOW, this self, or aspect of the self, is not the result of chemistry.

No, that doesn't follow at all. It is the result of chemistry. If you have two separate brains, you have two separate sets of chemicals.

Dave,
- I think that the appropriate terminology here would be that 2 sets of identical chemistry produce different results. OK?

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I think that the appropriate terminology here would be that 2 sets of identical chemistry produce different results. OK?

There would be two sets of identical chemistry forming two identical results.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Things can be identical without being the same. Funnily enough it works the other way round, too. Take Jabba's posts. None of them are identical, but many of them are the same.

 

[Loss Leader]

Dave,
- I think that the appropriate terminology here would be that 2 sets of identical chemistry produce different results. OK?

Why don't you skip to the part where you claim that, because 2 people can't be identical, there are an infinite number of potential people?

Because if you skip to that, we can address the real problem: infinity does not follow logically from anything you've said.

Just because two identical people would be separate people doesn't mean that you can create an infinite number of separate people. You can't. You don't have the time, matter or energy.

You play around with this DNA/separate selves nonsense because it's literally the only place you can find any agreement from anyone. But that doesn't make your infinity conclusion any more logical. It's a complete non-sequitur.

You are wrong.

 

[Jabba]

There would be two sets of identical chemistry forming two identical results.

Dave,
- I don't think they should be called identical -- they have different selves.

 

[carlitos]

Immortality & Bayesian Statistics
- I think that I can essentially prove immortality using Bayesian statistics.
- If this belongs in a different thread, or has already been done, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll present my case here.
--- Jabba

Any day now!

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I don't think they should be called identical -- they have different selves.

Are two Volkswagen Beetles idientical if they are from the same model year, are made to the same specifications, and painted the same color?

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- I don't think they should be called identical -- they have different selves.

No, they have identical selves.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I don't think they should be called identical -- they have different selves.

They also have different eyes, different noses, different kidneys, different heads, different brains, different hands, all made from the same genome.

 

[Mojo]

Dave,
- I don't think they should be called identical -- they have different selves.

Jabba, look carefully at the contents of the following quote box:

a a

There are two identical letters in the box. How many letter "a"s are there in the box?

 

[Sideroxylon]

If you could exactly replicate the state every atom in your body at a given time, just as some science fiction matter transmitters are described as doing, you would have two separate selves that shared the same identity. They would share the same identity by virtue of sharing the same memories but these identities would begin to diverge from the moment that the copy was created as they both started to accumulate separate experiences in their memories. They would be separate selves as neither would have the experience of being the other. To illustrate: Would you be happy to enter one of these science fiction matter transmitters if you were told that you would be disintegrated after the new copy had been formed?

 

[Slowvehicle]

If you could exactly replicate the state every atom in your body at a given time, just as some science fiction matter transmitters are described as doing, you would have two separate selves that shared the same identity. They would share the same identity by virtue of sharing the same memories but these identities would begin to diverge from the moment that the copy was created as they both started to accumulate separate experiences in their memories. They would be separate selves as neither would have the experience of being the other. To illustrate: Would you be happy to enter one of these science fiction matter transmitters if you were told that you would be disintegrated after the new copy had been formed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_(film)