Proof of Immortality, VI

[Mojo]

Asked and answered. Materialism contains no such notion, and you can't make potentiality work because you have to beg the question of a soul in order to keep potentiality from rendering inanimate objects equally as improbable as a soulless person. It's not as if you have made a secret of your preconceived proof. You worked it out via statistical formulation that all you'd need is a Big Denominator to render soulless people improbable with. You told us you were doing this. Now you're simply trying to invent something -- anything -- that gives you that Big Denominator and just beg it into existence so that it can serve what you predetermined the proof would have to be.

Even if he can foist the Yuge Denominator on us, there's nothing to stop us then using his formula to disprove the hypothesis that Jabba has an immortal soul. After all, he can hardly deny that that hypothesis includes "selves".

 

[JayUtah]

- That would produce a real, and different, person/self that otherwise, never had a chance. In other words, those two combinations of sperm cell and ovum do represent two real persons/selves that currently don't have a chance of ever existing. No one will ever know those 'potential' selves.

No, it doesn't "represent" anything of the sort. All your argument has ever been is a long string of different language that begs your central question. You whine because you think you can't effectively communicate your claim. No, you're just running out of ways to disguise your blatant illogic.

Your description of "the self" is functionally indistinguishable from a soul in all contexts and you're trying so very hard to paste it onto materialism where it doesn't belong. The sense of self under materialism isn't individualized. It isn't pre-existsent. It isn't static. It isn't dictated once and for all by genetic initial conditions. Self-awareness under materialism is none of the soully nonsense you're trying to make materialism explain. There's no concept of "potential selves," which is just a thin veneer over the begged question of a preincarnate soul.

Just no. You've spun this elaborate straw man for what you're going to "disprove," and thereby pretend to have proven some other individual claim. It's not as if this is nuanced or complicated logic. Your claims fail for very simple logical reasons that everyone sees, whereupon you rudely ignore them all and then try to blame your failure on their supposed closed-mindedness. Just sad, Jabba.

 

[Mojo]

If you're going to ignore the laws of space and time, then you don't need to prove anything. In fact, then you *can't* prove anything.

No, but he thinks he can force a draw. He tends to forget that he's the one claiming that he can prove something.

ETA: See also "Going Nuclear".

 

[RoboTimbo]

but, I think that most well-educated neutral minds would see what I mean.

You are absolutely correct. Well-educated neutral minds have seen exactly what you mean and have soundly refuted every point. Less well-educated and less neutral minds have failed to address the refutations.

 

[JayUtah]

I...In fact, then you *can't* prove anything.

Or conversely you can prove anything. Throwing the rules out the window simply removes the teeth from the concept of proof. Jabba wants a sympathetic audience. That's not what proofs are for. Sympathizers don't need proof; they already agree with the conclusion. The purpose of a proof is to demonstrate to people who don't already believe your conclusion that the conclusion holds as a matter of fact despite their disbelief. It lays out the reasoning why something has to be true based on what we know and can observe, not just reasons why someone should believe in it.

Jabba has started from the presumption that his believe is correct and that his proof is true. He has told us assuredly that he is as emotionally invested both in his belief and in his ability to prove it. To reconcile his failure to do so with his desire to do so, he at once changes the laws of physics to make his argument work, begs his critics to express agreement, and blames his critics for not being open-minded enough to accept it. If the conclusion can't change, then change the rules so that the conclusion doesn't have to. It's not enough for him simply to believe in the conclusion; he has to believe there's a valid line of reasoning that leads to it.

 

[zooterkin]

- I'm going to try to add this kind of 'potential' self up to infinity. I claim that there is an infinity of this kind of 'potential' selves.

Your claim is incorrect. The number of possible permutations of the human genome is calculable. It is a very large number, it is not infinite.

 

[MRC_Hans]

- How about those that 'could' have existed in the past?
- I'm claiming that by theoretically removing all the barriers that prevent the combination of particular sperm cells with particular ova (e.g.the space/time barriers, etc.), every possible combination represents a different person/self.

How does that influence the likelihood of your existence?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Dave,
- I might have run out of ideas as to how to effectively describe this claim to you and your colleagues -- but, I think that most well-educated neutral minds would see what I mean. Removing all the barriers preventing the combination of particular human sperm cells and ova, represents some of the number of 'potential' human selves.
- Hopefully, I'll be opening my new website soon, and attract some neutral minds and that they will see what I mean...

Insults, insults.

Hans

 

[Mojo]

Your claim is incorrect. The number of possible permutations of the human genome is calculable. It is a very large number, it is not infinite.

If it was infinite, every cell (or at least, every cell that contained a copy of his DNA) in Jabba's body would be of infinite size. I suspect that he would find this inconvenient. Just imagine the tailors' bills!

 

[JesseCuster]

I'm claiming that by theoretically removing all the barriers that prevent the combination of particular sperm cells with particular ova (e.g.the space/time barriers, etc.), every possible combination represents a different person/self.

If you remove the space/time barriers that prevent all sorts of impossible things happening, then you can make all sorts of wild claims about all sorts of wacky things.

Unfortunately this is the real world and you can't just ignore awkward facts.

Not that any of this matters. You may as well be debating how many angels can fit on the head of a pin for all help it's contributing to your proof of immortality argument. It's all entirely irrelevant to the big picture.

 

[The Norseman]

Moreover, you seem hellbent on debating these tangential minutiae while ignoring the problems with the meat of your argument. What has any of this got to to with anything? It's almost like you're deliberately trying to bore your opponents to death by arguing these pointless issues. None of this is helping your case at all.

What do you expect? He's retired, no kids at home and I guess nothing else to do but to drag all this on until he dies. It's his hobby. It's a shame there's all the ego tied up in all of this; he's not trying to prove immortality per se, but how he's the only one brilliant enough to have figured it out. He's way smarter than the rest of humanity and we're all big meanies because we don't recognize his brilliance.

 

[zooterkin]

- How about those that 'could' have existed in the past?
- I'm claiming that by theoretically removing all the barriers that prevent the combination of particular sperm cells with particular ova (e.g.the space/time barriers, etc.), every possible combination represents a different person/self.

You don't need to enumerate all the possibilities in that. Just look at the number of base pairs in the human genome and calculate the number of variations; that will include all those of you and Cleopatra and so on.

There are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. If you simply work out the number of possible variations of the 4 possible values for each base pair, ignoring the fact that the majority would not produce a viable life-form, let alone a human, but which will include all the possible theoretical results of the coupling you seem obsessed with, you get a very (very) large number. It. Is. Not. Infiniite.

 

[John Jones]

- I'm going to try to add this kind of 'potential' self up to infinity. I claim that there is an infinity of this kind of 'potential' selves.

Nothing you ever promise to address amounts to anything more than "I'm slow and incompetent, but I'll be back".

 

[abaddon]

You don't need to enumerate all the possibilities in that. Just look at the number of base pairs in the human genome and calculate the number of variations; that will include all those of you and Cleopatra and so on.

There are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. If you simply work out the number of possible variations of the 4 possible values for each base pair, ignoring the fact that the majority would not produce a viable life-form, let alone a human, but which will include all the possible theoretical results of the coupling you seem obsessed with, you get a very (very) large number. It. Is. Not. Infiniite.

Well, trivially, that is 4^{3,000,000,000} (not infinity). But worse again, a rather large subset of that number will be non-viable. I don't know how large that subset is, not being a geneticist, but no matter how you slice it, it is not infinity, even if one includes the non-viable possibilities.

No amount of equivocation over, say my sperm and Cleopatra's ovum will magically turn the number into infinity by dint of wishful thinking. 4^{3,000,000,000} is a finite number which includes all possibilities of everyone who ever has existed or will exist or never existed at all. There simply are no other combinations outside of that limiting number.

ETA: The figure of 4^{3,000,000,000} assumes that all possible combinations are potentially available, but they are not. There have only been 120,000,000,000 humans over the course of human history, thus further limiting the possible results when added to the non-viable possibilities. It is almost certain that Jabba will ignore this.

I already asked Jabba about the parent problem. Jabba has two parents, who in turn had two parents(his grand parents x4) each, who in turn had two parents (his great-grandparents x8) parents and so on. Taking a 30 year generation, by the time one works back to the time of the Romans, Jabba alone has 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 ancestors. And that applies to everyone on the planet, all 7,000,000,000 of us. Thus the total number of ancestors required is 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 x 7,000,000,000 or 1,033,017,668,127,734,890,496,000,000,000. Given that only 120 bn humans have ever existed through all time, how is this possible? Needless to say, Jabba promised faithfully that he would be back to me and never did.

 

[John Jones]

Dave,
- I might have run out of ideas as to how to effectively describe this claim to you and your colleagues -- but, I think that most well-educated neutral minds would see what I mean. Removing all the barriers preventing the combination of particular human sperm cells and ova, represents some of the number of 'potential' human selves.
- Hopefully, I'll be opening my new website soon, and attract some neutral minds and that they will see what I mean...

I can hardly wait. You'll open your website and expose every freaking lie that has come out of your sewer-hole.

 

[John Jones]

- I'm going to try to add this kind of 'potential' self up to infinity. I claim that there is an infinity of this kind of 'potential' selves.

That would be another 5-6 years of your time and our time totally wasted.
Try something else.

 

[John Jones]

- How about those that 'could' have existed in the past?
- I'm claiming that by theoretically removing all the barriers that prevent the combination of particular sperm cells with particular ova (e.g.the space/time barriers, etc.), every possible combination represents a different person/self.

You could just as well theoretically miracle all the objections to your magic show out of existence, and and claim victory.

In fact, isn't that exactly what you are doing?

 

[zooterkin]

ETA: The figure of 4^{3,000,000,000} assumes that all possible combinations are potentially available, but they are not.

Well, I explicitly said they were not all viable, so I wasn't assuming that. I'm just setting a very generous upper bound (which is still not infinity) for Jabba's spurious denominator.

 

[abaddon]

Well, I explicitly said they were not all viable, so I wasn't assuming that. I'm just setting a very generous upper bound (which is still not infinity) for Jabba's spurious denominator.

I know.

Point is that even if one allows non-viable combinations, it still is not infinity. This eludes Jabba for reasons I cannot fathom.

 

[jond]

Dave,
- I might have run out of ideas as to how to effectively describe this claim to you and your colleagues -- but, I think that most well-educated neutral minds would see what I mean. Removing all the barriers preventing the combination of particular human sperm cells and ova, represents some of the number of 'potential' human selves.
- Hopefully, I'll be opening my new website soon, and attract some neutral minds and that they will see what I mean...

You are so full of yourself. Everyone sees what you mean, and is telling why you are wrong. But you cannot even begin to imagine any possibility that you are wrong. The person showing all the bias here is you, Jabba.