Proof of Immortality, VII

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abaddon said:
But surely that doesn't matter. If Jabba wishes to mathematically describe the materialist position, he must describe the materialist position as it is, not some mutant version of it, regardless of whether or not he accepts materialism.
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That is mathematically true, yes. If you wish to formulate or discuss P(H) you must use H, not what you personally think H is or what you wish H had been. You may be entering into that discussion in order to show that P(H) is very low, and you may in fact believe it to be very low before you start the discussion or derive your formulation. But to compute P(something else) and call it P(H) is a straightforward bait-and-switch.

Paradoxically, jsfisher is overthinking one problem in urging us not to overthink another. He's getting at why Jabba insists on the bait-and-switch. The consequences of it have the mathematical effect you note, but the causes of it bear on what rebuttals are more likely to get traction. One going hypothesis is that Jabba is being deliberately obtuse. The hypothesis reads that Jabba deliberately refuses to address actual materialism because he realizes consciously that it would be an easy, quick, and devastating rebuttal to his claim.

Jsfisher's hypothesis applies Hanlon's razor to that hypothesis. Given the observable behavior, what is the de minimis explanation? Hanlon's advice is properly termed a razor because it prunes away complexity from an argument. The deliberate obtuseness hypothesis requires its proponents to prove Jabba's motive. (And several have decided to bear it.) Jsfisher's hypothesis requires nothing more than accidental or incidental blindness on Jabba's part, which amounts to a less complex hypothesis and a lighter burden of proof.
 
the main issue is that there is no persistent self awareness consciousness or whatever.
It as a concept has to be demonstrated before dsicussing at all.

the 'self', 'self-awareness' is a transitory event or process, it has no permanence of continuity. There is a body.
 
Dancing David said:
the main issue is that there is no persistent self awareness consciousness or whatever.
It as a concept has to be demonstrated before dsicussing at all.

the 'self', 'self-awareness' is a transitory event or process, it has no permanence of continuity. There is a body.
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Indeed, this has been from day one, the first and most obvious flaw for Jabba. Remember the time he even went so far as to contact Susan Blackmore directly? And yet he continues to base his formulation on the notion that the self exists as a separate entity that is drawn from a pool of selves and somehow attaches itself to your brain. It can only be willful ignorance at this point.
 
JayUtah said:
That is mathematically true, yes. If you wish to formulate or discuss P(H) you must use H, not what you personally think H is or what you wish H had been. You may be entering into that discussion in order to show that P(H) is very low, and you may in fact believe it to be very low before you start the discussion or derive your formulation. But to compute P(something else) and call it P(H) is a straightforward bait-and-switch.

Paradoxically, jsfisher is overthinking one problem in urging us not to overthink another. He's getting at why Jabba insists on the bait-and-switch. The consequences of it have the mathematical effect you note, but the causes of it bear on what rebuttals are more likely to get traction. One going hypothesis is that Jabba is being deliberately obtuse. The hypothesis reads that Jabba deliberately refuses to address actual materialism because he realizes consciously that it would be an easy, quick, and devastating rebuttal to his claim.

Jsfisher's hypothesis applies Hanlon's razor to that hypothesis. Given the observable behavior, what is the de minimis explanation? Hanlon's advice is properly termed a razor because it prunes away complexity from an argument. The deliberate obtuseness hypothesis requires its proponents to prove Jabba's motive. (And several have decided to bear it.) Jsfisher's hypothesis requires nothing more than accidental or incidental blindness on Jabba's part, which amounts to a less complex hypothesis and a lighter burden of proof.
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I disagree. Jabba has claimed that he will post some, all or none of the rebuttals here present depending on whether he "likes" them or not on some other site. Jabba linked that very site in this very thread (or one of it's precursors).

Given those claims, and the fact that everyone participating here was horrified by the misrepresentation on that site, why would I think anything else?
 
I've never been a fan of Hanlon's Razor myself, because pretending to be incompetent is a tactic malicious people use to get away with acting maliciously.

To put it another way, sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
 
abaddon said:
...why would I think anything else?
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You wouldn't necessarily have to. I'm one who thinks the burden of proof for duplicity has been met. As godless dave wrote:

godless dave said:
To put it another way, sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
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And he's right. Playing dumb and stonewalling are time-honored (if annoying) tactics in any litigious exercise. Done well, they are utterly convincing and may serve to win the day.

On the one hand, simply showing the basic error -- Jabba misrepresents materialism -- forecloses the need to discuss why he made it as a condition to determining whether his proof stands or falls. But regardless of need, that discussion will arise, if only in the altruistic sense of wanting to cure the proof instead of simply reject it. That's why I said jsfisher has simultaneously complicated and simplified the discussion. He's opening the door to questioning the reasons for error but at the same time holding back from what many of us seem to consider the most likely reason.

Does his de minimis proposal cover all the evidence, such as Jabba's design to pen his own drama based on this debate? It may. I don't think it does, but it may. I say that because in addition to dealing with the chronically malintentioned, I've also dealt with the profoundly mentally ill. Their outward behavior is not that dissimilar, depending on the illness. It can seem infuriating, but without clear evidence either of malice or of illness, our evaluation of the behavior is likely to turn on an assumption that the proponent is basically rational.

Joe Bentley has another hypothesis, which he enlivened yesterday at some length. Although not as minimal as jsfisher's allusion to cognitive incapacity, it doesn't rise to the level of malice as the prevailing hypothesis. His has the advantage of attempting to explain what we are perceiving as deception on Jabba's part.

I'm certainly not the only one here expressing a degree of confidence in the ability to distinguish actual incapacity from feigned incapacity. For example we look at how Jabba's befuddlement comes and goes correlated with whether obtuseness would help or hinder his point du jour. But in the end we're all arguing from ignorance. I read jsfisher as saying that if we insist on arguing from ignorance, the de minimis argument is easier to sell, even if we others have good reasons to disagree with it.
 
godless dave said:
I've never been a fan of Hanlon's Razor myself, because pretending to be incompetent is a tactic malicious people use to get away with acting maliciously.
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I too am rather uncomfortable with Hanlon's Razor in practice because:

1. It frames incompetence as the lesser evil to rudeness which I'm not 100% on board with.
2. It ignores the fact that in some cases, in some contexts, and framed in certain behaviors being incompetent is being rude.

After 5 years, over a half dozen threads, two sorta distinct message boards, a dozens of people explaining everything to him in every possible way the fact that Jabba isn't even disagreeing with us in new ways is rude. His total Teflon pan like ability to grasp anything we're saying or any level is rude, and this statement is true whether it's honest or an act.

But feet to the fire I've never been of any variation on the Poe/Troll defense. Being thick or rude doesn't stop being thick or rude because you're doing it ironically or for effect. Hanlon's Razor is just another variation on that, just substituting "Way past the point of reasonable intentionally uneducated about the topic you profess to be an expert on" for trolling.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Yes, we have. It's strictly conditional on there being such a thing as a soul which everyone has and which happens to be immortal, but apart from that minor technicality it's pretty solid.

Dave
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Seems like you are saying that my soul is immortal but I am not. A lot of good that does me!
 
JoeBentley said:
I too am rather uncomfortable with Hanlon's Razor in practice...
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Indeed, the intent is to avoid attributing to one cause what can just as easily be attributed to a less egregious and more prevalent cause. The question I'm wrestling with is whether the benign cause really has as much explanatory power in this case. The error often committed by the zealously parsimonious is the inappropriate exclusion of less agreeable evidence. The point of any philosophical razor is to eliminate extraneous causes and effects, but I -- along with others here -- am not convinced that we're pruning dead branches here.

I may have erred in invoking Hanlon on jsfisher's behalf because he's arguing the spirit of Hanlon, not necessarily the letter. Hanlon wants to talk about legitimate misunderstandings and reasonable neglect, not the cognitive block I believe jsfisher is alluding to. The spirit of Hanlon is merely to note that less is caused by malice than is attributed to it.

It frames incompetence as the lesser evil to rudeness which I'm not 100% on board with.
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Nor I, when the incompetence seems deliberate (as in this case) and when the rudeness appears intentional (which it does in this case). Hanlon would have us talk mostly about which is more prevalent, as a guide to parsimony, not necessarily which is more acceptable as a guide to moral judgment. In the specific scenario the razor is meant to apply to, prevalence incidentally increases as malice decreases, but I agree with you and others that this does not describe all situations. As with any parsimony aid, it should be applied only where it is applicable.

It ignores the fact that in some cases, in some contexts, and framed in certain behaviors being incompetent is being rude.
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Yes, any razor tacitly requires ceterus paribus, and we must look at the totality of the argument being pruned. The question "Why is Jabba misrepresenting the materialist hypothesis?" can still be answered "Because he can't conceive of anything but animism," without waiving Jabba's responsibility for all the other nonsense he's argued. Is he similarly cognitively foreclosed from understanding the Texas sharpshooter fallacy? Does a hardwired predilection for animism excuse a clear incompetence in statistical reasoning?

I'll let jsfisher comment on the scope of his admonition, since I don't know what it may have been. But for me, no an innocent cognitive block against materialism doesn't excuse all the other points on which Jabba has asserted willful ignorance and exercised a prerogative to stand mute before the court. All that considered, the more parsimonious conclusion in my opinion is malice. Alternatively Jabba is in a demographic for which suspicions of dementia are not inappropriate, but we here are strictly enjoined from considering those, for good reasons.
 
jond said:
Indeed, this has been from day one, the first and most obvious flaw for Jabba. Remember the time he even went so far as to contact Susan Blackmore directly? And yet he continues to base his formulation on the notion that the self exists as a separate entity that is drawn from a pool of selves and somehow attaches itself to your brain. It can only be willful ignorance at this point.
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Thank you for reminding us. Susan Blackmore advised Jabba to actually read her published opinions. What an astonishing turn of events that was!
 
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John Jones said:
Thank you for reminding us. Susan Blackmore advised Jabba to actually read her published opinions. What an astonishing turn of events that was!
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And he read part of the introduction to one of her books. Which he then quoted out of context.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Yes, we have. It's strictly conditional on there being such a thing as a soul which everyone has and which happens to be immortal...
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No, no, it's conditional on there not being souls, immortal or otherwise, because under the hypothesis that we have immortal souls it is so unlikely that we get our own souls that it is impossible for the hypothesis to be true if we have our own souls. We can only exist if we don't have souls, because otherwise we would have to be someone else (you'll never guess who!).
 
godless dave said:
And he read part of the introduction to one of her books. Which he then quoted out of context.
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And this was my humble contribution; being an owner of said books, I offered to verify his quotes but for some reason, he never took me up on the offer.
 
Mojo said:
No, no, it's conditional on there not being souls, immortal or otherwise,[...]
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Well, yes. That too. So it's proven that we're immortal if and only if there is such a thing as a soul, and also that we're immortal if and only if there isn't such a thing as a soul, so we must be immortal and Eddie Van Halen is going to join the band.

Dave
 
godless dave said:
I've never been a fan of Hanlon's Razor myself, because pretending to be incompetent is a tactic malicious people use to get away with acting maliciously.

To put it another way, sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
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Oh, that's quite good. May I quote you?
 
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