Proof of Immortality III

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Jabba said:
- The following quote seems to get at the basic issue here. I'm proposing the answer to what I think is a "gap" in our understanding of reality.

Gaps are the mother lode of scientific discovery. Most of the great scientific advances of the past began with gaps and ended with new presuppositions that put our whole comprehension of the world in a new light. The presuppositional argument, in other words, is not some sleight-of-hand way of postulating unseen entities to account for seen ones. Rather, it illustrates precisely the way that science operates and how scientists make their greatest discoveries. Copernicus, for example, set out to address the gaps in Ptolemy’s cosmological theory. As historian Thomas Kuhn shows, these gaps were well recognized, but many scientists did not consider their existence to be a crisis. After all, experience seemed heavily on the side of Ptolemy: the earth seems to be stationary, and the sun looks like it moves. Kuhn remarks that many scientists sought to fill in the gaps by “patching and stretching,” by adding more Ptolemaic epicycles.4 Copernicus, however, saw the gaps as an opportunity to offer a startling new hypothesis. He argued that instead of taking it for granted that the earth is at the center of the universe and the sun goes around the earth, let’s suppose instead that the sun is at the center and the earth and the other planets all go around the sun. When Copernicus proposed this, he had no direct evidence that it was the case, and he recognized that his theory violated both intuition and experience. Even so, he said, the presupposition of heliocentrism gives a better explanation of the astronomical data and therefore should be accepted as correct. Here is a classic presuppositional argument that closes a gap and in the process gives us a completely new perspective on our place in the universe.

D'Souza, Dinesh (2009-11-02). Life After Death: The Evidence (pp. 169-170). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

- And then, there was Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg...
- What's that? I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in laughter!
- But then, if I'm right, this is a revolutionary idea. What'r'ya'gonna'do?
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You're trying to shoplift some credibility by an Appeal to Authority Fallacy.

Here's what's wrong with this latest argument: Copernicus, Ptolemy, Kuhn et.al. Knew that the sun existed. They could even point to it. You can't point to a soul, nor is there a consensus that a soul even exists.
 
Jabba said:
- The following quote seems to get at the basic issue here. I'm proposing the answer to what I think is a "gap" in our understanding of reality.
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No, you're proposing something that you can't define, and for which there exists no observable effect or phenomenon. That's vastly different than science trying to explain what can be observed, but needing a paradigm shift to do so. You're simply saying you believe there's a thing that nobody can sense or detect in any way, and that if science can't talk about it then there's a "gap" in science.

This is the same humdrum rhetoric that every fringe theorist uses when he tries to decry science in favor of his intuition.

And then, there was Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg...
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Why does every woo peddler compare himself to the great scientists who actually accomplished things?

- But then, if I'm right, this is a revolutionary idea. What'r'ya'gonna'do?
Click to expand...

What am I gonna do? Until you can prove you're right I'm going to continue laughing at your ineptitude. Every fringe theorist fancies himself some great thinker or great discoverer, but never seems to actually do or think anything. The great thinkers were great because of what they could prove, demonstrate, or do.

<snip> In fact, I've watched you struggled with basic concepts in propositional logic. The only gap in this discussion seems to be what you think you can do and what you can actually do. Don't claim to be a revolutionary until you actually do something more significant than pulling numbers out of your kiester.


Edited by Loss Leader: 
Edited for Rules 0/12
 
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Jabba said:
- The following quote seems to get at the basic issue here. I'm proposing the answer to what I think is a "gap" in our understanding of reality.

Gaps are the mother lode of scientific discovery. Most of the great scientific advances of the past began with gaps and ended with new presuppositions that put our whole comprehension of the world in a new light. The presuppositional argument, in other words, is not some sleight-of-hand way of postulating unseen entities to account for seen ones. Rather, it illustrates precisely the way that science operates and how scientists make their greatest discoveries. Copernicus, for example, set out to address the gaps in Ptolemy’s cosmological theory. As historian Thomas Kuhn shows, these gaps were well recognized, but many scientists did not consider their existence to be a crisis. After all, experience seemed heavily on the side of Ptolemy: the earth seems to be stationary, and the sun looks like it moves. Kuhn remarks that many scientists sought to fill in the gaps by “patching and stretching,” by adding more Ptolemaic epicycles.4 Copernicus, however, saw the gaps as an opportunity to offer a startling new hypothesis. He argued that instead of taking it for granted that the earth is at the center of the universe and the sun goes around the earth, let’s suppose instead that the sun is at the center and the earth and the other planets all go around the sun. When Copernicus proposed this, he had no direct evidence that it was the case, and he recognized that his theory violated both intuition and experience. Even so, he said, the presupposition of heliocentrism gives a better explanation of the astronomical data and therefore should be accepted as correct. Here is a classic presuppositional argument that closes a gap and in the process gives us a completely new perspective on our place in the universe.

D'Souza, Dinesh (2009-11-02). Life After Death: The Evidence (pp. 169-170). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

- And then, there was Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg...
- What's that? I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in laughter!
- But then, if I'm right, this is a revolutionary idea. What'r'ya'gonna'do?
Click to expand...

Yep. Closing the gaps, moving the borders. Nothing revolutionary about that.

Hans
 
Jabba said:
I'm proposing the answer to what I think is a "gap" in our understanding of reality.
Click to expand...

That's wonderful.

Unless that you can establish that a gap exists, and that you have actual evidence for your proposed solution, no one cares.
 
godless dave said:
So OOFLam, the model you're trying to disprove, does or does not include the immaterial entity you called an "identity" above?

If it does, that would mean that you're trying to prove The scientific model is wrong about mortality by assuming it's wrong about the existence of souls.
Click to expand...

Jabba said:
Dave,
- OOFLam assumes, or at least implies, that an immaterial soul (what I called one's "identity") does not exist. I'm not quite sure how that relates to your assertion. Try again?
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Dave,
- I'm claiming that the math pretty much proves that OOFLam is wrong. I then agree that if OOFLam is wrong, the most likely explanation is that our "identity" is not made of material. IOW, that our identities are probably immaterial is an implication of the mathematical conclusion; the belief that our identities are immaterial is a result of the conclusion that OOFLam is wrong -- it is not the cause of that conclusion.
 
kyrani99 said:
You can't say that there is no proof of immortality because we cannot devise a scientific experiment to provide evidence for or against the hypothesis. Even if we found evidence, it is not proof. All we can say in that case is we have no scientific evidence. But that does not say we disprove immortality.

I cannot do any scientific experiment to prove or even provide evidence for your subjective experience but that does not disprove the reality of your subjective experience.
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kyrani,
- I agree. But unfortunately, I'm not doing you a favor by agreeing.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- I'm claiming that the math pretty much proves that OOFLam is wrong. I then agree that if OOFLam is wrong, the most likely explanation is that our "identity" is not made of material. IOW, that our identities are probably immaterial is an implication of the mathematical conclusion; the belief that our identities are immaterial is a result of the conclusion that OOFLam is wrong -- it is not the cause of that conclusion.
Click to expand...

Under OOFlam, the likelihood of me existing is 1, so I don't see how the math proves it wrong.
 
Jabba said:
IOW, that our identities are probably immaterial is an implication of the mathematical conclusion...
Click to expand...

No. There's nothing remotely mathematical about your claim. As before, you're using the language of math to disguise a rather obvious circular argument. You want to believe in the miraculous. You're trying to argue that math can prove the miraculous. But you can't even start trying to do that without first presupposing the supernatural. That's why your thread is in the religion subforum, not the science and math one.
 
Mojo said:
How many tosses would it take to roll a number between 1 and 1080!?
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As many as it takes you to again fail to distinguish between the general and the specific, thereby making probability practically useless to you.

Post #274 is your primer. Your question was rendered irrelevant there.
 
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