Proof of Immortality, VI

[godless dave]

Waterman,
- I basically agree with all that except that according to OOFLam my 'movie' never played before, will never play again and never had to play in the first place -- so, according to OOFLam it's pretty damned unlikely that my movie would happen to be playing in 2017 (Gregorian calendar).

Under H this is the only time it could play. The likelihood of you existing in 2017 might have been low (calculated before you were born) but the likelihood of you existing in 1817 was zero, because your existence depends on your parents' existence, and their existence depended on their parents', etc. I don't know why you think the time period you exist is relevant at all. It's the only time you could have existed.

 

[JayUtah]

...and never had to play in the first place -- so, according to OOFLam it's pretty damned unlikely...

Let's see how long it takes Jabba to figure out the contradiction in just these few words I've quoted.

 

[jond]

Waterman,
- I basically agree with all that except that according to OOFLam my 'movie' never played before, will never play again and never had to play in the first place -- so, according to OOFLam it's pretty damned unlikely that my movie would happen to be playing in 2017 (Gregorian calendar).

Jabba, however unlikely your existence may be, the materialistic model of OOFLam (in which the self is nothing more than an emergent property of your brain) is far more likely than your model of OOFLam (which includes the same unlikely brain, and an unlikely separate self, and a means by which the two connect.

Further, now is the only time you could be happening in the materialistic model, because you are the result of your parents copulation.

You will, of course, ignore this because you have no answer. But the jury will still see it.

 

[SOdhner]

SOdhner,
- OOFLam is the hypothesis that we each have only one finite life at most. The "we each" refers to our senses of self.

But there's no logical connection. There's nothing about your actual argument that hinges on having or not having any sense of self. Your actual argument is "it's really unlikely for me to exist", and that argument works the exact same way whether or not you have any sense of self.

I've seen you re-state your case a bunch of times and in none of them have you established any link between your actual argument (which is based on probability) and having or not having a sense of self.

More recently, I concluded that the prior probability of that hypothesis/possibility wasn't large enough to worry about.

And why not conclude the same about your own hypothesis? What specifically makes the one more likely than the other?

I basically agree with all that except that according to OOFLam my 'movie' never played before, will never play again and never had to play in the first place -- so, according to OOFLam it's pretty damned unlikely that my movie would happen to be playing in 2017 (Gregorian calendar).

I'm going to try this again.

1. Under H, there's no soul. Our sense of self is just an emergent property of our body, and is nothing special.

2. Since (under H) our sense of self isn't anything special, it has zero impact on whether or not something is or isn't likely. It's just a particular property of a thing in the same way that an object can have velocity, or electric charge, or whatever.

3. H does not see a person as fundamentally different than a rock when it comes to the grand scheme of things. Both are physical objects with various properties. Under H, neither has a soul.

4. If you're going to talk about the likelihood of something existing under H, that same logic can apply to both people and rocks because H doesn't distinguish between them in any significant way.


Please try to understand. I know that, to you, your sense of self is something very important because you think it's the immortal part of you. I get it. But your argument starts by talking about the expectations under H, and under H that's simply not a concern. Because of that your argument works equally well on rocks.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Jabba I would very much like you to answer a question for me please?

Lets say we get a hypothetical poster called Tom come to the forum. Tom thinks the moon is made from cheese and starts a thread discussing if it's a cow's milk cheese or a goats milk cheese. Then let's say we have a poster called sue. Sue responds to Tom by saying that his underlying assumption that the moon is made from cheese is completely wrong, so there is no point arguing what kind of cheese it is.

Is sue being rude?

 

[Belz...]

SOdhner,
- OOFLam is the hypothesis that we each have only one finite life at most. The "we each" refers to our senses of self.

Would you stop repeating that. Get on with it.

 

[Mojo]

Jabba I would very much like you to answer a question for me please?

Lets say we get a hypothetical poster called Tom come to the forum. Tom thinks the moon is made from cheese and starts a thread discussing if it's a cow's milk cheese or a goats milk cheese. Then let's say we have a poster called sue. Sue responds to Tom by saying that his underlying assumption that the moon is made from cheese is completely wrong, so there is no point arguing what kind of cheese it is.

Is sue being rude?

Mark,
- That depends on what kind of cheese it is made of.
- I'll be back.

 

[jond]

Oh, and Jabba, since you're back to insisting that you might have been Napoleon:

How would you differentiate between being
- Jabba now, and who used to be Napoleon despite having no memories, thoughts, or anything else that would connect Jabba and Napoleon and:

- Jabba now, whose self is an emergent property of his brain and who thinks he might have been Napoleon?

- Also, which is more likely? (And why?)

 

[JoeMorgue]

Waterman,
- I basically agree with all that except that according to OOFLam my 'movie' never played before, will never play again and never had to play in the first place -- so, according to OOFLam it's pretty damned unlikely that my movie would happen to be playing in 2017 (Gregorian calendar).

FFS JABBA "OOFLAM" IS SOMETHING YOU MADE UP AND HAVEN'T SUPPORTED! YOU CANNOT POINT TO ITS DEFINITION AS EVIDENCE!

Nobody cares what "OOFlam" says because "OOFlam" is absolute gibberish that you made up.

 

[MetalPig]

Yes, my great-aunt. Towards the end she was almost completely incapable of assimilating new information, or remembering what people had said. Visiting her involved repeatedly having the same conversation and answering the same questions.

I think I see what you did there. If you didn't do it, I apologize.

 

[John Jones]

SOdhner,
- I gotta say, in its frustration, this is really interesting -- we just keep passing in the night...
- I can't seem to communicate what I'm trying to communicate...
- I keep thinking that somewhere out there are better words that would actually communicate...
- But so far, no luck.
[...]

Jabba, we understand you. There has never been a time when we didn't understand you.

Your arguments make no ******** sense. They never have. YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE RIDICULOUS -- especially your ludicrous and annoying claims about looking out of two sets of eyes.

 

[John Jones]

SOdhner,
- OOFLam is the hypothesis that we each have only one finite life at most. The "we each" refers to our senses of self.

OOFLam is some trash-rationalization you keep regurgitating when you realize that you have lost this debate.

Everybody knows it. The American people know it. The English speaking world knows it. You know it. Bob Dole knows it.

 

[wollery]

Jabba, you're talking bollocks, please stop.

 

[Monza]

Monza,
- Way back when, I took that possibility into account. More recently, I concluded that the prior probability of that hypothesis/possibility wasn't large enough to worry about.

But that hypothesis/possibility is only one of a near infinity of other possibilities, none of which are immortality. My point is that you cannot equate ~H with immortality.

 

[jsfisher]

SOdhner,
- OOFLam is the hypothesis that we each have only one finite life at most. The "we each" refers to our senses of self.

If you wish, but you still will need to face that problem that "life" is not a thing, but an emergent property of a functioning organism.

The version of H you are insisting you want does not include the materialistic reality hypothesis. Materialism, wherein you are not immortal and you do not have a soul, is one of the possibilities in ~H.

 

[Hokulele]

SOdhner,
- OOFLam is the hypothesis that we each have only one finite life at most. The "we each" refers to our senses of self.

Ah, so your H isn't materialism after all, but you are simply comparing one fantasy to another to find out which is more likely. Got it.

Do Superman vs. Spiderman next, please!

 

[sackett]

Okay, Jabba, I accept all your assumptions, priors, hypotheticals, how-about-if-maybes, and Bayesian formulations.

Now what?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay, Jabba, I accept all your assumptions, priors, hypotheticals, how-about-if-maybes, and Bayesian formulations.

Now what?

I mentioned to Jabba several years back (give me a second to cry over that fact) that essentially he's made a statement that is so devoid of intellectual meat that I even if I accept all of his assumptions I can't agree with him because even granting all that he hasn't explained himself well enough to understand what the hell he's talking about even outside the context of a debate or argument.

In Jabba's story he's written us into apparently we're all just supposed to start nodding and agreeing with him even though he has actually told us anything.

 

[Dave Rogers]

OOFLam is a parody of the scientific explanation for the sense of self.

In fact, it's yet another fatal flaw in Jabba's line of argument that hasn't been stressed very much as far as I can see (probably due to the fact that fatal flaws aren't in short supply). OOFLam is not, in fact, a necessary result of the materialistic hypothesis; in principle there is no reason why the process that gives rise to a sense of self could not be re-started after having halted, nor any reason why this process must necessarily terminate. So Jabba's repeated insistence that H => OOFLam is no more defensible than his repeated implication that ~H => immortality.

Dave

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Ah, so your H isn't materialism after all, but you are simply comparing one fantasy to another to find out which is more likely. Got it.

Do Superman vs. Spiderman next, please!

Well Superman would win, but if Spiderman can bring a friend in he could tag in Doctor Strange because Supes is weak to magic.