Proof of Immortality II

[Loss Leader]

- I'm just saying that all those potential people who never existed would have had reproductive cells, that combined, would have produced more reproductive cells, etc., etc.

So, Jabba, what chance would you assign the combination of Dave's dad's sperm and Cleopatra's ova? Would you assign it a chance higher than zero? If not, why are we counting it?

-- with no end of logically legitimate potential selves.

Wrong. Even if you counted all of these pairings as possible, there are still only a finite number of them. You cannot get to infinity by adding. The only way you can get infinity one side of an equation is to plug it in to the other side.

I'm saying that potential selves are just as numerous as the digits in the square root of 2.

Wrong.

- I doubt that explanation will fully communicate, but maybe, it will get us started...

The problem has nothing to do with your ability to communicate. I understand you completely. You're just wrong.

 

[Giordano]

So, Jabba, what chance would you assign the combination of Dave's dad's sperm and Cleopatra's ova? Would you assign it a chance higher than zero? If not, why are we counting it?

I must say: I like this question of yours very much. It gets to the heart of the issue very nicely. I know that you have now asked this question many times without a response, but who knows? The chance of a response is >0, although how much greater I do not know. But even if obtaining a response is impossible, there is still the potential of a response, according to Jabba.

 

[Jabba]

The human genome is of finite length, so has a finite number of possible sequences of base pairs. Combining any two of those possible sequences would produce one of the same set of possible sequences. There would still be a finite number of them.

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.
- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses. I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist. And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Jabba: An exactly identifical version of me would not be "me" because I'm defining me as this exact instance of me, forcing a distinction without difference into the matter so I can claim infinity, therefore Woo, therefore soul, therefore immortality.
Every Other Person: No here is a list of reasons why that is wrong and/or meaningless

Rather, rinse repeat for 2 years, 2 threads, and over 5,000 posts and we have advanced nowhere and accomplished nothing.

 

[George]

- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs...

The Von Jabba probe virus.

 

[Loss Leader]

- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses.

Jabba, please, I'm begging you ... for the love of all that is decent and good on this planet ... for the love of Jamie Otis from Married at First Sight ... please understand just this one thing:

You Cannot Get To Infinity By Adding.

 

[jond]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.
- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses. I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist. And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

By now you must be aware that selves/souls/experiencers/consciousness are processes, which are ongoing, right? You must understand that they are not separate things that exist on their own, right? You must understand that every bit of information your brain experiences shapes and alters the self/soul/experiencer/consciousness, right?

By now you must realize that a (impossible, but in Jabba's world that somehow still means possible) duplicate of your brains would think it's you and that neither your nor the duplicate would have any way of knowing which was the original, right?

So what is it that you imagine is immortal? Do you imagine brains are immortal?

 

[JoeMorgue]

You ever seen two kids see who can count the highest? And one goes "Infinity" and the other counters with "Infinity Plus 1!" because they obviously don't fully understand the concepts?

For just some baffingly unfathomable reasons I'm reminded of that. I can't imagine why.

 

[Giordano]

So what is it that you imagine is immortal? Do you imagine brains are immortal?

I have asked Jabba repeatedly what is immortal in his model (his own definition of "self" or "observer"): my sense of identity, my gender, my preferences in food, my way of interpreting what I see (observe), any aspects of my appearence, who I love, who I hate, etc. He has yet to reply in any fashion. So I am unclear how, by his own model, he will be Jabba again after he dies: what part of his "reincarnated" self will be Jabba? Why would it reassure him that he would live again? At least my kids have about 50% of my DNA and share some of their traits with me.

His lack of response to even very straightforward questions about his own model makes me doubt if he, himself, believes it.

 

[Giordano]

You ever seen two kids see who can count the highest? And one goes "Infinity" and the other counters with "Infinity Plus 1!" because they obviously don't fully understand the concepts?

For just some baffingly unfathomable reasons I'm reminded of that. I can't imagine why.

Don't be silly: every adult knows that infinity plus 1 is still infinity. Infinity plus a very large number, is larger than infinity, however. And infinity plus infinity is twice infinity, of course.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Don't be silly: every adult knows that infinity plus 1 is still infinity. Infinity plus a very large number, is larger than infinity, however. And infinity plus infinity is twice infinity, of course.

Infinity^{Infinity_Infinity}

 

[JoeMorgue]

*Scoffs* A single infinity? Not even an Infinity Squared? Or an Infinity Rounded Up? I'll even accept an Infinity + All the Grains of Sand in the Sahara but a single vanilla infinity? Why are you wasting my time with such tiny numbers?

I don't even break out the calculator until we're in Infinity ^ Infinity territory. Smaller than that it's just easier to do the math in my head.

 

[jsfisher]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.

If you mean "me" in the sense of your soul, then you have abandoned the scientific model, and your argument is worthless.

If you simply mean your sense of identity that is a property of your functioning neural system, then, yes, reproducing you molecule by molecule and energy state by energy state would produce an identical you, consciousness and all, and your argument is worthless.

 

[Agatha]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.

Which rules out immortality, if you were correct. Which side are you arguing for, again?

- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses.

Nope. If it were possible to reproduce your particular sequence, identical in every particular, then it would be another separate but identical you. New, different (in the sense of separate) but identical. Not you, but an identical consciousness. Because the sense of identity is not a thing but an emergent process. This may have been mentioned before, you might want to check back in the thread.

I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist. And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

No. Utterly and completely wrong. Wronger than a wrong thing on a wrong day, sitting in the wrong bucket, wearing the wrong hat.

 

[pakeha]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.
- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciousnesses. I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist. And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

Someone, consciousness, potential selves.
It appears Jabba hasn't grasped that those three 'tags' don't refer to individual, but rather ongoing processes of a functioning neurosystem.
It's like talking about potential leg lifting that will never exist if I don't go for a run this evening.

 

[godless dave]

- The following is “Right here.”


Dave,
- I don’t see such a claim in that passage. Please be more specific.

Here you go:

Here, we are NOT asking for the likelihood of my existence

 

[jsfisher]

You don't have to "Get To" infinity if you are already in it.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-universe-its-very-flat-and-probably-infinite

Jabba is not already at it nor does an infinite universe help him get there.

 

[xtifr]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.

Debatable. At least in the (purely hypothetical) case of making a perfect copy of someone, you can say it's the same person or a different person, and both statements could reasonably be considered correct!

(Just copying the DNA alone won't give you a perfect copy, of course; identical twins with identical genes still have different fingerprints, among other things.)

You can say the copy is a different person because your perfect copy would (obviously) be a separate individual from the original, but that's more of a labeling-for-convenience. In fact, both copies would be identical, and either (or both) could be considered the "real" person.

Which is why teleportation is indistinguishable from destroying the original when making a copy.

- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses.

Because each one would be a separate individual; not because there's any meaningful difference between them. If they were perfect copies (not just genetic twins), they'd all effectively be you, even though there'd be more than one.

I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist.

Ah, but there's still a finite number, whether or not you consider them different people or separate instances of the same person. The number of copies you can make, even in theory, and whether the base pairs are identical or not is still finite! It is a (very small) subset of the possible arrangements of all particles in the habitable portion of spacetime!

I mean, seriously, whether you realize it or not, you're arguing for a much smaller number than I was already offering you. If you take every possible arrangement of particles in the universe that match your genes (which is the limit of what you're talking about), and multiply that by the number of possible arrangements of the human genome, you get (by definition), a subset of all possible arrangements of all particles in the universe. An incredibly tiny subset, in fact.

And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

That would be true if and only if the number of arrangements of particles in the universe were infinite. But it's not. We've been over the Planck length dozens of times, Jabba. You can't just ignore physical reality and proclaim that motion is impossible, or whatever variant of Zeno's paradox you're favoring this week, because, according to the scientific model, the universe doesn't work that way. If your probability of existence were zero, then motion would also be impossible. But it's not, so it's not. This is the twenty-first century AD, not the 4th century BC. Lets stick to arguments that aren't centuries-stale and silly.

 

[Mojo]

You don't have to "Get To" infinity if you are already in it.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-universe-its-very-flat-and-probably-infinite

This has been another attempt to transmit information to the effect that a finite universe is not and has never been the default assumption among cosmologists or ancient Greek philosophers. The "burden of proof" falls upon those who assert a finite universe. Neither logic nor the observational evidence supports a finite universe assertion.

Then Jabba has another problem. If he has an infinite universe for his "potential combinations" to play out in, he needs to put infinity into his numerator. He now has an infinite denominator and an infinite numerator. This is the sort of absurdity he ends up with when he tries to shoehorn "infinity" into a formula.

 

[Mojo]

- But, reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs would not bring me back to consciousness. The result would be somebody else.

Nothing changed in the 11 hours between my last response to this point and your posting this, so I'll just refer you back to the answer I gave then:

Mojo,
- I'm operating under the assumption that replicating the DNA would not replicate the person -- in the sense that replicating my DNA would not bring ME back to life.

And you would be correct in that assumption, but not for the reason you think. Replicating a person's DNA will not replicate that person's consciousness because the consciousness (at a particular time) is the result of the state of the brain (at that particular time), and the particular brain state is the result of the DNA plus the environment and experiences of the person. The consciousness is a process, something that the brain does, not a thing that somehow springs into being at conception, birth, or any other point.

Replicating your DNA, environment, and experiences up to this moment (if such a thing could be done) would replicate you, but the replica wouldn't be you, it would be another person identical to you as of this moment. As you may recall having been told, if you have two identical items there are two of them, not one.

- And, if we kept reproducing my particular sequence of base pairs, we'd keep producing new, and different, particular consciounesses. I'm saying that these all represent potential selves that will never exist. And, in that sense of "potential," there are just as many potential selves as there are digits in the square root of 2.

Even without reproducing your particular sequence of base pairs, your own body keeps producing new, and different, particular consciousnesses. This is because consciousness is not a thing, it is a process. It is an emergent property of the brain, and a person's consciousnes at a given moment is determined by the state of their brain at that particular moment. The human brain is of finite size, and therefore has a finite number of possible states.