Proof of Immortality III

[Toontown]

Then it remains unevidenced and unsupported, and your claims -- direct and indirect -- about our obtuseness in regard to this point are completely out of line.

Yeah. That has been my intent all along. To leave it unevidenced and unsupported. To avoid trying to force-feed turtles in a quagmire.

I explained this to JayUtah at some length when he tried to impose his Rules Of Belief Divulgence on me.

Then by all means do. Until I pushed you on this you have mentioned it only as an ancillary factor to the probability discussion. Finally you admit it is central..

Well, I guess it just didn't occur to me that you wouldn't know sentience is central in a discussion about sentience.

Now I'm feeling quite daunted about the prospect of trying to discuss anything at all with you.

And this matters not one whit. More precisely, you have not shown it matters one whit; you have merely claimed so.

So we include inanimate objects in the discussion?

Tell you what. You go ahead. I'll catch up later.

Further confirmation that you are presuming the consequent Jabba has claimed to be able to prove. We'll use your word, sentience, as opposed to soul, though in the manner in which you use it I see no functional difference.

Well, doesn't everything pretty much confirm your presumptions?

You are presuming that sentience is separate from the matter and the processes of matter that gives rise to it and sneaking in the idea that it exists apart from it.

Really? I'm not aware of having said that.

I am aware that brains generate sentience. I am also keenly aware of the even greater misunderstandings this fact will generate, which I have no intention of trying to clear up.

Tell me how this matters. Describe it in detail in relation to your point; do not simply proclaim it as if that is proof. At this point I am not inclined to take you at your word on such things.


And again, explain how this matters to the point. Unless you demonstrate that sentience is more than the processes of the matter that give rise to it, your distinction means nothing.

Well, that looks like a busy little itenerary you have laid out for me.

I'm going to go ahead and assume I won't get paid for any of it, and decline.

Thanks anyway.

I will leave this to the far more knowledgeable jt512. He has addressed this quite well, I think.

Yeah, he got a bit confused over the difference between probability theory, it's sentient origin, and the behavior of physical objects. He made some unkind remarks. When I tried to correct him he became angry and called me a kook.

So that didn't go well.

This is highly disappointing.

Join the club. I can almost feel the mud sucking at my boots.

It is clear that you are quite knowledgeable on many things and can be very analytical. In your knowledge of probability and statistics it was clear long ago that you know more than I do. Yet you have not used that knowledge or analytic ability to follow evidence to its end; you have inverted the process and decided that sentience is a special snowflake and are now twisting what you know in an attempt to buttress that conclusion.

And you have attempted to deny me the right to use the most telling evidence I have, provided to me by the universe against odds stacked to some immense power. I just have to let that sit there unused, because you say it's a "special snowflake".

Well, I say it's not a special snowflake. I say it's evidence.

Two possibilities: you either believe your "special snowflake" evidence denial, or you're stonewalling. Neither possibility exactly imbues me with a burning desire to have a long, tedious, predictably disappointing debate with you about anything.

 

[Garrette]

Fair enough. We'll leave it exactly where it is. In other words, you say that sentience changes probability. When asked to expound, you don't.

No worries if you consider it my failing for not falling in line to buy your product.

 

[Jabba]

...
And having said THAT, let me see if I can get to center of your objection.

I know (at least to a degree such that I don’t let the infinitesimal possibility guide any of my actions) that I’m not winning the lottery. I also know (at least to a degree such that I let the almost certainty guide all my actions) that I exist. And, depending on how you calculate it, my existence is much, much, less probable than my winning the lottery. Given all that, why aren’t I incredibly suspicious of my existence?
Is that anything like a fair statement of your position?

Jim,
- It's the beginning of my position/argument.

Jabba, I’ve seen your arguments for several years now, and I don’t remember you ever posting anything like this...

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

 

[Toontown]

Fair enough. We'll leave it exactly where it is. In other words, you say that sentience changes probability. When asked to expound, you don't.

No worries if you consider it my failing for not falling in line to buy your product.

I didn't need the further confirmation of you putting more words in my mouth.

Thanks anyway.

What are you selling, BTW? Are you really saying a rock has some call to question the nature of it's sentience?

Are you saying I have no call to question the nature of my sentience, because a rock has no call to do so?

 

[John Jones]

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

You forgot to say "I'll be back".

 

[caveman1917]

No. It would be decayed. There would just be nobody to comment on it.

Do you have some sort of argument for this? Clearly there is an interaction between radioactive decay and observation - if the system is observed continuously then it never decays. Related, the probability that the system would have decayed depends on the last time it was observed.

 

[caveman1917]

Okay Schrodinger vice Heisenberg. Split the difference and call it a fiver.

Please feel free to show how this is a "very, very bad misunderstanding of Schrodinger trying to prove everyone gets their own personal reality".

 

[godless dave]

Do you have some sort of argument for this? Clearly there is an interaction between radioactive decay and observation - if the system is observed continuously then it never decays.

Um, what?

 

[caveman1917]

Um, what?

What do you mean "Um, what?"?

 

[godless dave]

I'm not familiar with any kind of radioactive decay that is influenced by observation.

 

[The Sparrow]

What do you mean "Um, what?"?

I believe he wants evidence for this assertion.

Similarly, if someone said to me that snowmen built the pyramids, my first reaction would be Um, what? - ie, the claim seemed so ridiculous I am tempted to think it was stated incorrectly.

I also would like evidence that radioactive decay stops in the presence of 'observation'.

 

[Loss Leader]

Do you have some sort of argument for this? Clearly there is an interaction between radioactive decay and observation - if the system is observed continuously then it never decays. Related, the probability that the system would have decayed depends on the last time it was observed.

There is no such interaction. We can date things going back long before people were around to see the decay. Are you saying the rock waited until people looked at it before it decided to be 4 billion years old?

 

[Mojo]

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM?

Not necessarily. Observation needn't involve consciousness; for example in the double slit experiments the "observation" can be the interaction of particles with a photographic film. It think what is generally meant by "observation" in this context is interaction with a non-entangled system, not necessarily one that is conscious.

 

[godless dave]

Not necessarily. Observation needn't involve consciousness; for example in the double slit experiments the "observation" can be the interaction of particles with a photographic film. It think what is generally meant by "observation" in this context is interaction with a non-entangled system, not necessarily one that is conscious.

You are correct about what physicists mean by observation, but it's not relevant to radioactive decay anyway.

 

[jt512]

The probability that a carbon-14 atom will decay in the next 5,700 years is 0.5. This probability is a physical characteristic of carbon-14. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sentience of anything, and, in fact, would be the same if there were no sentience anywhere in the Universe.

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM?.

I think it would be difficult to explain carbon-14 dating if that were the case.

 

[Garrette]

I didn't need the further confirmation of you putting more words in my mouth.

And you got none. My summary is accurate.

What are you selling, BTW? Are you really saying a rock has some call to question the nature of it's sentience?

Not remotely.

Are you saying I have no call to question the nature of my sentience, because a rock has no call to do so?

Not remotely.

The ability to question the nature of one's existence, whether or not that existence is sentient, simply has no bearing on the probability of that existence coming into being.

It's rather simple, just as your position is.


Allow me another attempt to summarize your position, though you will likely characterize it as putting words in your mouth. Please tell me where I err:

1. At a time just moments after the Big Bang, the following are true:

-----a. A specific rock has giganogargantuan odds of coming into existence
-----b. A specific sentience has gigangargantuan odds of coming into existence

2. Both the specific rock and the specific sentience came into existence

3. The specific rock's existence signifies nothing

4. The specific sentience's existence signifies something

5. The reason the specific sentience's existence signifies something is because.........??


If you could fill in the dots and the question marks it would be helpful.

 

[abaddon]

Um, what?

Seconded "Um, what?"

 

[caveman1917]

I'm not familiar with any kind of radioactive decay that is influenced by observation.

As far as I know all of them are.

 

[caveman1917]

There is no such interaction.

So you keep saying yet people keep measuring it, see post above.

We can date things going back long before people were around to see the decay. Are you saying the rock waited until people looked at it before it decided to be 4 billion years old?

The rock doesn't decide anything about its age, but I guess you could say that each atom in the rock decided to wait until it was observed before deciding whether it would "present itself" in the decayed or the non-decayed state.

 

[godless dave]

That's particle decay, not radioactive decay.