[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

[godless dave]

Do soul-crushingly bad movies count as evidence for the existence of souls?

 

[Sideroxylon]

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

Cheers. Will have to watch that.

 

[pakeha]

...To expand slightly on that thought; is it possible that your parents could have given birth to Nelson Mandela? If not, then the number of possible outcomes is less than infinity, now isn't it?

If yes, then I have some supplementary questions for you. ...

Thanks for a much needed bit of humour, O Magnificent One.

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

Jabba, you already know why what you're positing (2 sets of identical chemistry) is a no-go, don't you?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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

You are wrong about this. If you have two identical teapots, how many teapots do you have?

 

[Garrette]

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?

Intrinsically?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Cheers. Will have to watch that.

Honestly I wouldn't bother. Not even Scarlett Johansson spending most of her screen time wearing a basque can make the film anything other than tedious.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Honestly I wouldn't bother. Not even Scarlett Johansson spending most of her screen time wearing a basque can make the film anything other than tedious.

What a shame given the basic story's potential.

 

[Giordano]

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

No. Two identical DNAs will not produce identical chemistry. Either at the early stages of the embryos or especially after they encounter different experiences.

This has been explained to you just now by me and by different people.

Do you have a whole bunch of people on ignore, or are you deliberately ignoring all the facts that disprove your theory? Neither approach helps your "cause" because everyone else here, including lurkers, see all the posts and see all the flaws in your theories. Again, ignoring these criticisms only convinces everyone here that you have no response and therefore are clearly wrong.

 

[Monza]

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

No. You are saying they are different (i.e. not alike) when the premise put forth is that they are identical (alike). What they are is identical but separate. Two sets of identical chemistry would produce two sets of identical selves. These two identical selves are separate, they are not linked in any way.

Edit: To clarify, "identical chemistry" is meant here to mean 100% identical down to an atomic level (only possible as a thought experiment). As Giordano correctly states above me, identical DNA does not result in identical chemistry. Identical twins are not the same down to the atomic level.

 

[Giordano]

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

But we never got Jabba's answer to my question, "Do VWs have souls?" given that they, in common with "selves," are only finite due to extrinsic limitations. I think we should wait until Jabba answers the VW/soul question. By the way, my brother had a VW that may have had a soul, but it was an evil soul. In fact, I think he has nightmares about its soul being reincarnated as a Toyota...

In fact, Jabba appears to never have answered the repeated question of does identical = the same. I agree that this is one of the fundamental problems with his posts, despite everyone here trying to help him on this.

 

[Giordano]

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

They have different unique fingerprints as well: are fingerprints reincarnated by the very same logic you apply to "selves?"

Do I have Napoleon's fingerprints? Neat!

 

[Giordano]

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

No! Identical twins have quite different chemistry, which you can easily see if you look at their blood chemistry. You can even see this as resulting differences in their physical appearance. Don't their friends and family often have ways of telling them apart based on these small physical differences, even at birth? Don't they always have at least different fingerprints? Doesn't one often have a mole or differences in precise hair color?

 

[Sideroxylon]

No. You are saying they are different (i.e. not alike) when the premise put forth is that they are identical (alike). What they are is identical but separate. Two sets of identical chemistry would produce two sets of identical selves. These two identical selves are separate, they are not linked in any way.

Edit: To clarify, "identical chemistry" is meant here to mean 100% identical down to an atomic level (only possible as a thought experiment). As Giordano correctly states above me, identical DNA does not result in identical chemistry. Identical twins are not the same down to the atomic level.

How bizarre that such things have to be pointed out to someone apparently with a deep interest in this topic.

 

[Monza]

How bizarre that such things have to be pointed out to someone apparently with a deep interest in this topic.

No kidding. It was the same in the Shroud thread. There were pages and pages of people saying real blood (bluuurd) could be added to a piece of cloth as easily in the 14th century as the first. It never registered.

Ultimately, these two threads are a graphic illustration of the folly of starting with an outcome and trying to get the evidence to fit, rather than just seeing where the evidence leads.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Do soul-crushingly bad movies count as evidence for the existence of souls?

It may, in fact, be true that Christian Bale's acting is all we need know of Hell...

 

[Slowvehicle]

What a shame given the basic story's potential.

It does, at least, illustrate one of the problems with instantly-created identical selves.

 

[Giordano]

How bizarre that such things have to be pointed out to someone apparently with a deep interest in this topic.

I'm not sure it is an interest in this topic, so much as an interest in proving a particular theory correct. I think someone once said that denying a fact is easy if continuing one's employment depends on that denial. It may be the same in terms of theories instead of jobs.

I find myself a little more easy going now that this thread is in Religion instead of Science. But if I were Jappa I would think more about the implications of that change, and stop trying to distort or misunderstand science to "prove" his points.

 

[George]

I'm not sure it is an interest in this topic, so much as an interest in proving a particular theory correct. I think someone once said that denying a fact is easy if continuing one's employment depends on that denial. It may be the same in terms of theories instead of jobs.

I find myself a little more easy going now that this thread is in Religion instead of Science. But if I were Jappa I would think more about the implications of that change, and stop trying to distort or misunderstand science to "prove" his points.

So now that this thread is rightly in R&P then why not call his bluff and agree with him. Let him paint himself into a corner.

 

[Giordano]

My thoughts on the self were dramatically affected a number of years ago when I had to go in for a (minor) surgery. It involved general anesthesia, the kind where you are instructed to count backwards, slowly, from 10, and an entire chunk of your life is completely missing. Although most people refer to sleeping as "losing consciousness", it is nothing at all like that experience. Even while asleep, your brain is doing self-tasks and maintenance. When you are put under, "you" no longer exist. At all. It is a creepy feeling, but it really does bring home the fact that "you" are a fragile process, and completely dependent on that hunk of meat between your ears.

This question I find a very interesting one: general anesthesia versus sleep. Yes, I agree with Hokulele that when I woke up from general anesthesia I had no sense of the passage of time; I had been "shut off" for a while and then turned "back on" and this did feel very different from my nightly sleep. Intriguing. Yet I do know that we all go through different stages of sleep, so I wonder if the lighter stages of sleep, or some continued querying of the external environment (i.e. is someone trying to shake me awake?) gives us the sense of the passage of time when we sleep, as opposed to general anesthesia when someone can cut open our guts and we remain unaware...

 

[Jabba]

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

- If I understand your question, yes. But, I assume that you would agree that perfectly replicated human embryos would not be identical, in that they would not have identical selves -- even if we were able to give them identical environments till consciousness emerged.