Proof of Immortality, VI

[Mojo]

- I might have run out of ideas as to how to effectively describe this claim to you and your colleagues --

Good. Then perhaps you can stop doing it, and start addressing the many reasoned objections to your "proof". Everyone knows what the claim is, and using different terms to describe it won't magically make it correct or overcome the objections to the argument as a whole.

 

[Jabba]

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.

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.
- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

 

[John Jones]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

Why do you keep bringing those things up? No one but you does that.

 

[jond]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.
- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

Jab,
- how do you count things that don't exist?
- do we really need to revisit the thousands of posts demonstrating that you don't understand the concept of identical?

 

[jsfisher]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self.

Of course not. We'd produce an identical but different person. The self, on the other hand, is not a thing. You really need to stop referring to it as such.

We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life

The self was never alive, so of course it won't be coming back to life.

...nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.

A self does not have a first pair of eyes, so it would be unlikely to obtain a second.

Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

No, and for several reasons. Which reason would you like to ignore first?

 

[zooterkin]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.

Who's talking about bringing anyone back to life?

- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves,

We can, that's the point (or at least put an upper limit on it). It's not infinite.

we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

What on earth are you talking about now? What is a 'potential² self', and what does it have to do with the price of fish?

 

[theprestige]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure

[...]

f we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

Zooterkin's figure already includes all possible combinations, including combinations of combinations.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

 

[JayUtah]

I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self.

No one has agreed to this in the way you want it to mean. Stop equivocating. In materialism, there is no such thing as "same self" or "different self." That's you trying to paste on the idea of the self being a soul under a different name and make materialism explain it. There is no "same self" in materialism just like there is no "same going 60 mph" in automotive mechanics.

We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.

These are your foisted concepts, not any part of materialism. You're trying to make self-awareness under materialism functionally identical to a soul. It just isn't. There's no melodramatic "bringing back to life" or any of "second pair of eyes." Properties belong to entities, not entities to properties. There is no "existing self" to give anything to, or any of the other conditions that would hold for a soul. Self-awareness under materialism is an emergent property. You can't demonstrate that you know what an emergent property is, and you don't display any interest in finding out. When we say "emergent property" you seem to think we all just used a different word for "soul." A property doesn't, and can't, exist separately from the entity of which it is a property. That's what it means to be a property. While we can create additional entities that also display the property, there's no individualization to the property itself.

We've identified two fatal flaws to your argument that cover your foisting and straw-man stuff. Since you keep doggedly repeating the same error, it remains fatal to your proof for as long as you do it.

Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

No, that's not how combinatorics works. Let's chalk that up under the already identified fatal flaw of your general ignorance of mathematics.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.
- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

Everyone has agreed that the self is a process of a functioning brain. You agreed it is a process and not a separate thing. You are dissembling when you say otherwise.

Is there a simpler way to say it so you can understand it?

 

[JesseCuster]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self. We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life, nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.

So what? What does that have to do with anything?

What is this bizarre obsession you have with the eyes and the selves that look through them? What does any of this have to do with anything? I have no idea what or who you think you're addressing by bringing this up

- Also, if we could count all those 'potential' selves, we should also be able to count all the 'potential²' selves from the 'potential' selves combinations, etc.

All "those 'potential' selves"? All what potential selves?

Are you now counting non-existent copies of people as potential selves? You're just desperately adding ad hoc anything you can think of to your pool of potential selves.

But even if we grant you for the sake of argument to allow you to count them as potential selves, there's still only a finite amount of them because you can't make infinite copies of people. No matter how many times you add up finite numbers, the result is still going to be a finite number. You're never going to reach infinity by addition.

Just where do you think you're going with this?

 

[Jabba]

How is the number of potential human selves in any way relevant to the likelihood of a particular self existing?

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

 

[Pixel42]

Just like a simple lottery.

But existence/non-existence is not just like a simple lottery, Jabba, as has been explained to you more times than I can count.

 

[godless dave]

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

How is being born like a lottery?

 

[The Sparrow]

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

Even in a infinitely large lottery, a ticket WILL be drawn.

You of course will pretend otherwise.
There are zillions of examples of things actualizing from infinite sets.
Like bananas. There are as close to infinity as human dna arrangements (which is not infinity) as there are banana arrangements. yet individual specific bananas exist all the time. The specific banana is the numerator, all possible bananas is the denominator. This trivial example destroys your argument.
The likelihood of any banana is zero according to your argument.
You can stick your fingers in your ears and go lalala, and make your own website where you can screen out the criticisms of your argument. You are fooling no one but yourself.

 

[Hokulele]

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

A self isn't a ticket. It isn't a thing at all.

 

[Mojo]

Zoo,
- Thanks for the figure, but I think that most of us have agreed that even if we could create a perfect copy of a physical person, we wouldn't reproduce the same self.

No, what people have agreed to is that if we could somehow create a perfect copy of someone we would have perfectly reproduced all their properties, including their consciousnesses, but they would not be the same person because there would be two of them, not one. I can't imagine why you have such trouble with this concept. Do you really think that if you have a matching pair of candlesticks there is only one of them?

We wouldn't bring a dead self back to life,

No, because a) a second identical "self" wouldn't be the same self as the first one (your old problem with distinguishing singular from plural again) and b) "selves" don't exist.

nor give a second pair of eyes to an existing self.

No, because consciousness is produced by the brain, and each brain would be connected to its own set of eyes and not to the other's. And "selves" don't exist.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

OK, lottery. I have asked you before, but I expect you will keep ignoring the question: Potential selves, whatever it is, are persons not born. They are non-players in the lottery. How can non-players affect your winning chances?

Hans

 

[The Sparrow]

OK, lottery. I have asked you before, but I expect you will keep ignoring the question:...

Yet somehow "WE" are the closed mind biased ones.

 

[JayUtah]

I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.

You have an obligation to your critics to read and remember their posts. Or failing that, to go back and read them again when they become relevant and you wish to reference them. You seem to think not remembering a rebuttal makes it go away. Your proposal to publish a summary of this debate will suffer greatly from your inability to remember what the other side said.

Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

And if drawing a ticket in a lottery were like existing, that would mean something. But it isn't, so it doesn't. Why isn't it? One more time, it's because in a lottery there is a pool of tickets.waiting to be drawn. Conversely there isn't a pool of things waiting to exist. By definition, because that's what "exist" means. Entities don't exist until they do. That's why you had to invent a whole new ad hoc notion of pseudo-existence for your argument.

And as we learned from Volkswagens and bananas, alleged "potential" pseudo-existence prior to actually existing doesn't have anything to do with the probability of bananas and Volkswagens coming into being, or with whether they actually do. Despite the "infinite" number of "potential" things that supposedly pseudo-exist before they exist, things manage to exist. Therefore the probability that they will exist cannot be zero, which is what your model results in. And that's why you had to make up the additional proviso that Jabba® brand pseudo-existence -- now with Division-By-Infinity! -- applies only to souls. Because souls are just special in that particular way. Because you just somehow know that.

Yet somehow you're not begging the question and somehow your critics are all closed-minded.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Dave,
- I said this before, and you didn't agree -- but, I can't remember why.
- Just like a simple lottery. The more tickets in the ticket container, the smaller the likelihood that your ticket will be drawn -- given a fair drawing.

What's the likelihood that you will hit a particular atom in the side of a barn when you shoot at the side of the barn - given a fair shot?

Hey, it's kind of fun posting silliness that has nothing to do with whatever you're trying to prove. I assume that's why you do it, too?