Cont: Proof of Immortality VIII

Jabba said:
jond,
- I'm claiming -- like the reincarnationists
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Which reincarnationists? Can you cite them please?

-- that your self is more than your memories.
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How are you defining "self" in this case? Before, you've said it's consciousness and self-awareness so that would include memories and continuity.

It's this "more" that I think might continue to exist, and recur in different brains.
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I'd have to see some evidence for this "more" you've yet to define.
 
Jabba said:
Give me your specifics -- either numbered, or one at a time.
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I did that back in June. You already said you couldn't address them, and have no plans to. I don't understand why I'm obliged to keep repeating myself for someone who already conceded.

And, don't tell me to go look for myself for your specifics...
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I linked the post every day for six months. And yes, I expect you to go back and read the parts of the argument you may have skipped. No one is obliged to coddle someone who brags about ignoring others' contributions.

you've written about as much as everyone else combined, and each post is full of name-calling.
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Calling you names would violate rules 0 and 12 of the member agreement. You don't seem to have reported any of my posts for moderation. You allowed Caveman to be so rude he got suspended, on the grounds that what he was saying had merit. Therefore I don't care if you accuse me of being rude. Give me the same consideration.

That's why I can't keep up...
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If you can't keep up with what I've already written, why are you asking for more?

\Anyway, do you accept...
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I've spoken at length -- great length, according to you -- about what is wrong with your argument. Stop asking distractive questions about the periphery. The problem is that you don't understand what any of the fomrulas are trying to do.
 
Jabba said:
I'm claiming -- like the reincarnationists
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You haven't defined this group of people or laid out their beliefs. You just refer to the name and leave the underlying concepts blank. In contrast your critics have told you what various common beliefs are among, say, the Dharmists, and you do not address those. You have not defined what you think reincarnation is or does, and when you do that in part, you contradict yourself.

-- that your self is more than your memories.
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But the soul in your model isn't even that. It has no attributes, according to you, and it does not retain memory.

It's this "more" that I think might continue to exist, and recur in different brains.
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And we seem to be back to where the soul requires the human body in order to have any sort of measurable existence, which puts the efficacy of the soul in your model only a slight step above materialism. Further, if the body is now the distinguishing factor, then you can't claim continuity across incarnations, which is what you have previously argued in your probabalistic model.

Once again you're contradicting yourself from point to point in your argument, wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
 
Jabba said:
The claim is that the new brain does share my sense of self -- it just (in most cases) does not share any (conscious) memories.
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Then you have no evidence that it is the seat of memory.

I used to hypnotize people. Twice I age-regressed them back to "previous lifetimes," and they came up with something. I sort of suspect that they just made up their stories, but then, it could be that hypnosis allowed them to access unconscious memories...
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No, you didn't "age regress" anyone. That purported use of hypnotism was debunked long ago. Consult, for example, the woks of Elizabeth Loftus.
 
Jabba said:
With which numbers do you disagree?
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Obviously, all of the ones that are just made up. In your argument, that's all of the numbers. You call them "estimates," but you were told what science and statistics considers an estimate. Your numbers are not estimates. In some cases you purport to compute or calculate those numbers, but the methods you apply are simply ad hoc rationalizations. They may fool the uninformed people you have tended to seek as an audience, but here you have to actually demonstrate rigor.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Fine! You are free to think that. Does it make your current brain more likely to exist?

Hans
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Jabba said:
- No.
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Fine!

- Under OOFlam, your sense of self is assumed to be a function of your current brain.

- In your belief (~OOFlam), it is something that cooperates with your current brain, let's call it a soul.

Thus, in both cases, your sense of self, in order to be experienced, depends on the existence of your current brain.

Therefore, OOFlam and ~OOFlam are equally likely, PROVIDED a soul is always available when a brain is spawned. If not, OOFLam is more likely (since we must assume that some potential brains somehow fail for the lack of an available soul).

Thank you. I think we made progress.

Hans
 
Jabba said:
- Maybe so.
- That would make a lot of sense. But so far, the more I think about it, the less I see room for error.
- I've noticed that you've been absent since 2/21. Since I've been making a lot of claims in that period, I've also been hoping that you didn't disagree with those particular claims. I suspect that was just wishful thinking -- but, can you tell me, specifically, where (I don't assume it's singular)you still disagree with my argument?
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I don't see where you've made any new claims. As before, I disagree with your whole approach. I think you are misusing Bayes Theorem.
 
*Jabba stands in front of his house which has burned down, fallen over, been caught in a landslide, eaten by termites, and then washed away by a flood.*

Jabba "Please show me exactly where in my house a socket was was not properly grounded."

Jabba your entire argument is functional random nonsense from top to bottom. We're not going to handhold you through nitpicking the details.

There is no reincarnation, there are no souls, there is no mathematical probability that makes your existence more likely to be eternal than finite.

You are wrong. Wronger than wrong. Fractually wrong. Not even wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
 
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RoboTimbo said:
I would need to see some evidence that it's possible.
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Robo,
- Not that anecdotal evidence is necessarily reliable, but there is all sorts of it -- which I discussed in a previous chapter.
- Look up "reincarnation," "OOBE" and "NDE."
 
Jabba said:
Robo,Not that anecdotal evidence is necessarily reliable, but there is all sorts of it -- which I discussed in a previous chapter.
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You didn't discuss any of it. I went through the bibliography and actually read the papers. And for each of them, I outlined what its principal scientific flaw was. And there were many flaws. "Confirmation" of a claim, for example, was in most cases just asking the parents whether they believed the claim.

Predictably, you pretended as if that entire analysis didn't exist. And I knew this day would come -- the day when you would pretend you had made a decent showing of the evidence, when in fact you just threw a bunch of pseudoscience at the forum and ran away.
 
Jabba said:
jond,
- The claim is that the new brain does share my sense of self -- it just (in most cases) does not share any (conscious) memories.
- I used to hypnotize people. Twice I age-regressed them back to "previous lifetimes," and they came up with something. I sort of suspect that they just made up their stories, but then, it could be that hypnosis allowed them to access unconscious memories...
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If it shares your sense of self, it should self identify as you. As others have pointed out, your definitions lack any kind of rigor and constantly change to try to prop up whatever point you are trying to make. Just as you waffle between accepting that the self is a process the brain does and a separate entity.

As for your anectdoe about hypnosis and past lives, you yourself admitted that it’s most likely made up stories, so why present it.

As for OBE’s, remember where you left off the last time you brought up your most convincing case? I do.
 
Jabba,

You have refused to directly address a single one of your opponent's arguments. You have repeatably dishonestly misrepresented your opponent's claims. You have on multiple occasions falsely claimed people agree with you when they don't. You have on multiple occasions made up excuses as to why you can't participate in the thread you started. You have not made one single, verifiable statement of fact. You continually make claims and never back them up. You constantly ask for answers to questions you have already received multiple times. You have openly and fully admitted your ulterior motives for this discussion and expect people to pretend you haven't.

At no point have you argued honestly.

Where exactly are you getting off acting like you can make demands of anyone or dictate the behavior of this thread?
 
MRC_Hans said:
Fine!

- Under OOFlam, your sense of self is assumed to be a function of your current brain. - In your belief (~OOFlam), it is something that cooperates with your current brain, let's call it a soul.

Thus, in both cases, your sense of self, in order to be experienced, depends on the existence of your current brain.

Therefore, OOFlam and ~OOFlam are equally likely, PROVIDED a soul is always available when a brain is spawned. If not, OOFLam is more likely (since we must assume that some potential brains somehow fail for the lack of an available soul).

Thank you. I think we made progress.

Hans
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Hans,
- I assume that you're being facetious about the progress, but we might have actually moved a little...
- I need to tinker with your opening statement. I wouldn't just say that my sense of self is a function of my current brain -- in ~OOFLam, it likely has an existence outside of any brain.
 
Jabba said:
Hans,
- I assume that you're being facetious about the progress, but we might have actually moved a little...
- I need to tinker with your opening statement. I wouldn't just say that my sense of self is a function of my current brain -- in ~OOFLam, it likely has an existence outside of any brain.
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On December 27, you explicitly agreed that the materialist position is that it is a function of your brain.
 
Jabba said:
Hans,
- I assume that you're being facetious about the progress, but we might have actually moved a little...
- I need to tinker with your opening statement. I wouldn't just say that my sense of self is a function of my current brain -- in ~OOFLam, it likely has an existence outside of any brain.
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hans,
- I now need to tinker with my own statement -- I made a mistake.
- I'll be back.
 
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