Proof of Immortality, VI

[Mojo]

Alright, to expand on this one:

2. If the brain gives us the mind, but using the mind we can make a new brain, have we not broken the bounds of the material philosophy at that point? (or something)

It was said earlier that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, which I really like by the way. But if that mind creates a new brain, and then manages to transfer* their mind to that new brain, does that not put an end to materialism or at least redefine it in some way?

*Not so much transfer as re-create. This brings to mind the old teleportation question. If the teleportation device creates a new duplicate of you, is destroying the original you an ethical act as part of the transfer, and is it really you that comes out the other end?

If someone thinks they are you, are they you?

 

[Imhotep]

If a teleportation device works by sending a massive communication to the receiving station that contains all the data required to create another version of the transmittee, where they are in fact duplicated in full, it creates a few questions.

Does it matter what happens to the original transmittee?
Would it matter to you, as the trasmittee?
What about if all those extra copies of people were put to work on a slave farm?
Is destroying the original the best solution?
Would you agree to be teleported?
How about daily, on the way to work?

 

[Jabba]

Dave,
- By "I would have to exist again," you mean that your physical body/brain would have to live again. But that is just another way of expressing your opinion re this issue -- i.e., your particular body/brain would have to live again in order for your sense of self to exist again...

It's not just my opinion, it's H, the hypothesis you claim you are trying to disprove.

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

 

[JayUtah]

Thanks Jay. I do like your formulation better. I think it's an interesting question, philosophically, perhaps only by a sort of rhetorical sleight-of-hand, but still interesting.

Jabba's argument has featured exactly the sort of sleight-of-hand you're referring to. It appears he hopes to entrap his critics by equivocating among an ambiguous set of words.

You mention engines. At the aerospace museum where I volunteer, in the service area, we have two old Pratt & Whitney engines, the kind that used to run the B-36 bomber and others. If you ask me "Are those the same engine?" I would probably answer yes, because I would take your intent as asking whether these were two specimens of the same design. They are.

But you could just as easily have been asking whether they were the same physical article. The answer to that, obviously is no. They are two separate physical objects. They are not the "same" engine.

Conversely you could ask, "Are these different engines?" Again the answer depends on your meaning. Yes, they are different in that they are separate -- two physical objects. They are not different in the sense that they are both the same model Pratt & Whitney engine. The are different in that one is in running order and the other is missing a few parts because we used them to replace items in the floor display specimen. If they both had all their parts, we could still say they are different in that one is turned on and running and the other is sitting silently in its stand.

Jabba's argument here is based in part upon asking questions like this, getting answers from his critics according to assumed intent, and then transferring the answer to a different meaning of the question.

 

[Mojo]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

Remind me, Jabba: who is supposed to be proving something here?

 

[Pixel42]

What you need to present here, Jabba, is your proof of immortality. All anyone else needs to do is point out any fatal flaws in it. Then you need to correct those flaws, or admit that you can't and accept defeat. After nearly five years of failing to address, let alone correct, the many fatal flaws in your "proof" you don't get to tell anyone else what they need to present.

 

[Imhotep]

Plato's chair comes to mind.

Can the "running-ness" of an engine be called an emergent property of a properly assembled and maintained engine?

 

[jond]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

You really ought to put in the effort to read JayUtah's post.

 

[JayUtah]

But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

What utter nonsense is this?

First, there is no such thing as "OOFLam." This is your straw man; none of your critics espouses it. You have ever only addressed materialism. Please do not attempt to disguise the weakness of your argument by inventing new words whose meaning you revise ad hoc.

The notion of "setting apart" is a requirement of your model. In order for what you say are the colossal odds against Mt Ranier arising and against you in particular arising, in each case the desired outcome needs to have been preordained and given its meaning prior to sampling. Materialism doesn't include any such notion, so you don't get to use it to push P(E|H) into the realm of the absurdly improbable. Your model cannot be used to refute materialism. But, undeterred, you're trying to say that there's a difference between how the significance of Mt Ranier (in its present form) is reckoned and how the significance of some existing human (in his present form) is reckoned. I.e., that they are somehow "set apart" differently. In materialism there is no difference. They are equally insignificant.

 

[JayUtah]

Can the "running-ness" of an engine be called an emergent property of a properly assembled and maintained engine?

"Running" or "is running" would be an emergent property of a properly appointed engine, yes. It's no different than "going 60 mph," which is what we used previously in this thread to express the property of a functioning machine. You want to carefully distinguish between language intended to describe the property and language used to evaluate the property. "Going 60 mph" is a property, a concept related to the concept of velocity. Just like "emits heat" is a property, while the quantity of heat and the abstract notion of heat transfer are subtly different -- but clearly related -- terms.

 

[JayUtah]

And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here.

Not "sounds like" -- is. You have expressly stated that your plan is to prove the mathematical near-certainty of immortality by refuting materialism. Leaving aside the blatant false dilemma, you can't meet your standard of proof by merely suggesting the hypothesis you have committed to refute is somehow irrelevant or simply someone's "opinion." You're trying -- and failing -- to shift the burden of proof. When you aim to prove your theory by refuting its competitors, you don't get to oblige your critics to supply an affirmative defense of those competitors while you provide nothing.

This is really very shabby, Jabba. If you're stuck, just be honest and admit it.

 

[godless dave]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

The same thing that sets you apart from other people: nothing.

 

[The Sparrow]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

LOL, "You need to disprove my evidence-less premise"

 

[John Jones]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

What you need to present here is proof of immortality. Stop trying to dishonestly shift the burden of proof, you scoundrel.

 

[Loss Leader]

Alright, to expand on this one:

2. If the brain gives us the mind, but using the mind we can make a new brain, have we not broken the bounds of the material philosophy at that point? (or something)

It was said earlier that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, which I really like by the way. But if that mind creates a new brain, and then manages to transfer* their mind to that new brain, does that not put an end to materialism or at least redefine it in some way?

*Not so much transfer as re-create. This brings to mind the old teleportation question. If the teleportation device creates a new duplicate of you, is destroying the original you an ethical act as part of the transfer, and is it really you that comes out the other end?

No, but your question is interesting. The mind is basically a constantly changing set of energy potentials across a slower but still changing physical network. If you were to recreate the network down to the atom and then somehow transfer all of the energy potentials to that new brain, what you would get is a new, working brain.

That brain would think it was you. It would swear it was you. But it wouldn't be. You would still exist, standing right where you were. If teleported, you would have been murdered by the machine.

A copy, even a perfect copy, is not the original.

Materialism is not inconsistent with your hypothetical.

 

[Loss Leader]

- Right. And that sounds like it ought to be relevant here. But what you need to present here is what sets Mt Rainier apart from other mts in a way that is meaningful re OOFLam.

Jabba -

How about I ask you, seeing as this is YOUR thought experiment, concocted by you:

How are all the different (and constantly changing) world's mountains unlike all the different (and constantly changing) world's people?

If your answer is anything like "humans are conscious/people have selves/mountains don't have souls" then you have begged the question, assumed the consequent and generally substituted your conclusion for your reasoning.

 

[John Jones]

Jabba -

How about I ask you, seeing as this is YOUR thought experiment, concocted by you:

How are all the different (and constantly changing) world's mountains unlike all the different (and constantly changing) world's people?

If your answer is anything like "humans are conscious/people have selves/mountains don't have souls" then you have begged the question, assumed the consequent and generally substituted your conclusion for your reasoning.

That's all he's done these last 5+ years.

 

[caveman1917]

In your theory, that essence is what is preserved after death as the soul. But in materialism it cannot be preserved after death, because the death of the organism results in the degradation of the persistent chemical and physical states that embody that essence as materialism theorizes it to be held.

Which does not necessarily imply mortality. There's nothing stopping some equivalent physical system from arising later on somewhere in the universe thereby allowing your "soul" to continue existing. From your perspective it would appear as if, upon death, you were transferred to some other physical form. As best as I can tell it's not only not impossible for this to happen but quite likely for it to. So even under materialism I'm still going with immortality.

You people should define your terms properly and construct a well-defined probability space, before any of these arguments can even really start. Materialism does not exclude immortality, hence immortality (~H) can not be the set-complement of materialism (H).

 

[StackOverflow]

Which does not necessarily imply mortality. There's nothing stopping some equivalent physical system from arising later on somewhere in the universe thereby allowing your "soul" to continue existing. From your perspective it would appear as if, upon death, you were transferred to some other physical form. As best as I can tell it's not only not impossible for this to happen but quite likely for it to. So even under materialism I'm still going with immortality.

You are dead wrong, as usual. Everyone knows that humans have souls but the moment a human dies, rainbow colored ewoks come to collect and destroy the soul.
Why? Because the god of the universes decided to not give ewoks a soul. Naturally they are angry at people who have a soul.

Please do a bit of research next time, ok?

 

[Mojo]

Which does not necessarily imply mortality. There's nothing stopping some equivalent physical system from arising later on somewhere in the universe thereby allowing your "soul" to continue existing. From your perspective it would appear as if, upon death, you were transferred to some other physical form.

Would it? I can see that it would appear that way from the perspective of the second entity, but why (and indeed how) would it appear that way from the perspective of an entity that no longer existed?