Proof of Immortality, VI

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Has there ever been an attempt to actually define "potential person?"

If I'm thinking about having a child, do I "give birth" to a potential person (my potential son/daughter)? If I change my mind the next day, does the potential son/daughter cease to exist? If I die, do all my potential children die with me? What if I have some sperm stored in a sperm bank? Do they then carry on?
 
I Am The Scum said:
Has there ever been an attempt to actually define "potential person?"

If I'm thinking about having a child, do I "give birth" to a potential person (my potential son/daughter)? If I change my mind the next day, does the potential son/daughter cease to exist? If I die, do all my potential children die with me? What if I have some sperm stored in a sperm bank? Do they then carry on?
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I was just thinking this talk of potentials and actualization reminds me of Aristotlean metaphysics. Even among people who buy into such philosophical frameworks I don't think it's accepted that potentials are countable and that those counts are useful for calculating probabilities.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,

- If your Dad hadn't existed during the same time as your Mom, your self could never have existed -- but that particular combination of sperm cell and ovum would still have represented a person -- you.

- Your Dad probably produced about a sextillion sperm cells in his life time (interesting coincidence). Your Mom probably came with about 500 ovum. You are here because your specific sperm cell got together with your specific ovum. If you have 2 siblings, the likelihood of you ever existing -- given OOFLam, and that your Mom and Dad had intercourse -- is only (1+2)/500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
- What I'm claiming is that the 500 sextillion combinations of sperm cells (from your Dad) and ova (from Cleopatra), still represent different selves though none of them really had a chance to "actualize."
- How many of your potential brothers and sisters never had a chance because your parents didn't have intercourse at the right time?
- Put aside the word "potential" for the moment. Would you agree that every combination of human sperm cell that has ever existed and human ovum that has ever existed represent different human selves?
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Apart from that being nonsense, you are also missing the point that the universe is full of very large numbers which are yet not infinite.
 
Jabba said:
- Put aside the word "potential" for the moment. Would you agree that every combination of human sperm cell that has ever existed and human ovum that has ever existed represent different human selves?
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No, each combination, plus the subsequent environment experienced by the individual, will result in a particular phenotype. It will not result in a particular "self" because there is no such thing: consciousness is a process, not a discrete thing, and your consciousness today is different from your consciousness as it was yesterday, or five minutes ago, or will be in five minutes' time.

Inserting the soul into your definition of materialism is both a strawman and begging the question.
 
Jabba said:
Would you agree that every combination of human sperm cell that has ever existed and human ovum that has ever existed represent different human selves?
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Do you think that monozygotic twins have one self looking through two pairs of eyes?
 
Mojo said:
Inserting the soul into your definition of materialism is both a strawman and begging the question.
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...which are two of our previously identified fatal flaws. A third fatal flaw from our list also applies: error in understanding how to reckon likelihood. Jabba begs the question that souls exist and are operative here, and he straw-mans materialism by equating self-awareness with his soul concept. And all that occurs under the auspices of altering materialism, H, so that P(E|H) comes out as the small number his argument needs.
 
Jabba said:
- Put aside the word "potential" for the moment. Would you agree that every combination of human sperm cell that has ever existed and human ovum that has ever existed represent different human selves?
Click to expand...

Of course not. Something that does not exist cannot "represent" anything.

And, of course, a self is not a zygote. A self is a sense that a functioning brain builds, from the sum or its experiences.


Hans
 
Jabba said:
Dave,

- If your Dad hadn't existed during the same time as your Mom, your self could never have existed -- but that particular combination of sperm cell and ovum would still have represented a person -- you.

- Your Dad probably produced about a sextillion sperm cells in his life time (interesting coincidence). Your Mom probably came with about 500 ovum. You are here because your specific sperm cell got together with your specific ovum. If you have 2 siblings, the likelihood of you ever existing -- given OOFLam, and that your Mom and Dad had intercourse -- is only (1+2)/500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
- What I'm claiming is that the 500 sextillion combinations of sperm cells (from your Dad) and ova (from Cleopatra), still represent different selves though none of them really had a chance to "actualize."
- How many of your potential brothers and sisters never had a chance because your parents didn't have intercourse at the right time?...
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godless dave said:
...
There were billions of potential combinations, maybe more. Of course a woman can only give birth to so many children in her lifetime.
Most importantly the number is finite. It's not infinite. Infinity is not the denominator...
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Dave,
- If we were able to freeze one of your sperm cells, and later unfreeze it without killing it, and then combine it with one of Madonna's ovum, shouldn't that produce a new and different person/self -- someone who otherwise wouldn't have had a chance?
- What if we saved your sperm cell for 100 years and combined it with an ovum from a, then, 30 year old woman?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- If we were able to freeze one of your sperm cells, and later unfreeze it without killing it, and then combine it with one of Madonna's ovum, shouldn't that produce a new and different person/self -- someone who otherwise wouldn't have had a chance?
- What if we saved your sperm cell for 100 years and combined it with an ovum from a, then, 30 year old woman?
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What about metal made into a knife and plastic made into a doll? Wouldn't those have represented a potential Volkswagen?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- If we were able to freeze one of your sperm cells, and later unfreeze it without killing it, and then combine it with one of Madonna's ovum, shouldn't that produce a new and different person/self --
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Equivocation ahoy!
 
Jabba said:
...Put aside the word "potential" for the moment. Would you agree that every combination of human sperm cell that has ever existed and human ovum that has ever existed represent different human selves?
Click to expand...

godless dave said:
... Not in any meaningful way.
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- Again, what if we can someday save sperm cells and ova by freezing them (or, whatever) and create a baby by combining them. Would the planned combination represent (in a meaningful way) a real, and new person/self?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- If we were able to freeze one of your sperm cells, and later unfreeze it without killing it, and then combine it with one of Madonna's ovum, shouldn't that produce a new and different person/self -- someone who otherwise wouldn't have had a chance?
- What if we saved your sperm cell for 100 years and combined it with an ovum from a, then, 30 year old woman?
Click to expand...

While you wallow in increasingly irrelevant speculation and hypotheticals, there are a dozen or so fatal flaws in your actual argument that are awaiting your attention. When you're finished playing Time-Traveling Matchmaker, I hope you'll remember why you're here.
 
Jabba said:
- Again, what if we can someday save sperm cells and ova by freezing them (or, whatever) and create a baby by combining them. Would the planned combination represent (in a meaningful way) a real, and new person/self?
Click to expand...



In the hypothesis you are trying to disprove there is no such thing as a "person/self". There are people, and they are conscious; consciousness is a property of the person, not an independently existing entity.
 
Jabba said:
- Again, what if we can someday save sperm cells and ova by freezing them (or, whatever) and create a baby by combining them. Would the planned combination represent (in a meaningful way) a real, and new person/self?
Click to expand...

We can already melt and reform metal and plastic has a half-life of 50,000 years. Does every scrap of metal and bit of plastic ever created represent a potential Volkswagen? Are Volkswagens immortal?
 
Jabba, for you to be you, you can only be a child of your parents. If you were a child of any other combination of mother and father you would not be you.

So the maximum denominator you use in your Bayes' calculation has to be limited by the ovums of your mother.
 
RoboTimbo said:
We can already melt and reform metal and plastic has a half-life of 50,000 years. Does every scrap of metal and bit of plastic ever created represent a potential Volkswagen?
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What Jabba is asking is not "would it represent a potential Volkswagen", but "would it represent a potential Volkswagen/going 60mph."
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- If we were able to freeze one of your sperm cells, and later unfreeze it without killing it, and then combine it with one of Madonna's ovum, shouldn't that produce a new and different person/self -- someone who otherwise wouldn't have had a chance?
- What if we saved your sperm cell for 100 years and combined it with an ovum from a, then, 30 year old woman?
Click to expand...

What if we did? What does that have to do with anything?
 
Mojo said:
What Jabba is asking is not "would it represent a potential Volkswagen", but "would it represent a potential Volkswagen/going 60mph."
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I keep thinking that going 60 mph is a process of the Volkswagen rather than a separate entity that occupies the Volkswagen.

My mistake.
 
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