Why we're immortal

[Sunflowers]

yes there is. I am one. You're confusing the fact you don't see reason to believe I am one with there actually not being any reason. The fact I am one gives you reason to believe I am one, even if you're unaware of this.

I don't believe that there is any reason because you haven't provided any proof that there is a reason.

If someone says they are something, that normally provides others with reason to believe they are that thing.

Prove it.

I am a philosopher. You think I'm not. But you're not a philosopher, right? And no one else here is. If you were a philosopher, you'd know I was one.

Prove it.

What do you understand 'proving something' to involve? It's just that professional philosophers never say 'prove it'. It's the kind of thing an ignoramus blurts when he can't think of anything else to say.

So, for example, distinguish for me the several different meanings that 'proof' has.

[Sunflowers]

But my professional opinion of you is that you're very dim and extraordinarily arrogant and that your asshole makes more valuable contributions to the world than ever your head does.

And more than yours too. I feel bad for your waste, as it must be created by an inferior... being.

So you tacitly acknowledge that more value comes to the world via that end of your body than the other? Hmm, good come back. It's like I've said "you're an idiot" and you've said "yes, but you're a bigger one!"

[Not The Real JReg]

It's just that professional philosophers never say 'prove it'.

I'm not a professional philosopher so I don't see how this is relevant.

You made a bunch of statements without any evidence. Saying "there is evidence; I just haven't shown it to you" doesn't mean anything. You are not a philosopher. You don't have a PhD and I bet you couldn't even spell Pinocchio if you tried.

[Red]

So you tacitly acknowledge that more value comes to the world via that end of your body than the other? Hmm, good come back. It's like I've said "you're an idiot" and you've said "yes, but you're a bigger one!"

Ah, you were too dumb to understand the comeback, clearly.

Hint: It is implying you are beneath human and animal waste, even your own. Your waste can generate fuel, yet your mouth merely drains it. How I weep for the resources you waste in your prolonged existence.

I think you are enough of an argument in favour of anti-natalism. You've convinced me!

I am becoming increasingly convinced that you are actually a student of the professor you're parodying.

[Not The Real JReg]

I am becoming increasingly convinced that you are actually a student of the professor you're parodying.

Here, here!

[Red]

You made the banal point that sometimes clever people make mistakes and that it doesn't follow from a clever person saying something that it's true. You seriously think anything I said suggested otherwise?

Yes. You made a blatant appeal to authority fallacy.

'Descartes said it therefore it must be a good argument!'

This is different from a coherent argument from authority, when the authority in question is more qualified.

When your doctor tells you you've got cancer do you go away thinking "well, I probably haven't, because experts sometimes make mistakes" (answer: yes, you do, because you're not very bright).

It's usually a good idea to get a second opinion. Just because your first doctor didn't properly diagnose your intellectual disability doesn't mean he was right.

Science as you clearly don't know is about peer-review. If a physicist makes a physics-related claim, he or she certainly has more authority than the layman, but what he or she says shouldn't be accepted until reviewed by other professionals.

Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons were two qualified scientists (they both had PhDs) who claimed to have figured out cold fusion. When it came to peer-review, it turned out they were dead fucking wrong.

Oh, 'those'. Which ones? Spell it out.

We've already told you about the quantum mechanics one, which you idiotically and insultingly assume yourself to be more knowledgeable of than physicists.

With Biology, we know for certain that once your brain stops functioning, you die. 'You' cease to exist. Your consciousness vanishes from the realm of being. What is it about this that is so difficult to grasp?

Er, I thought recent developments in cheese cake recipes refuted Descartes? If you say otherwise, then you just reveal your ignorance of how to make a cheesecake.

What kind of strawman is that?

I'm not making any claims about cheesecakes in the way you are making arguments about quantum mechanics, considering how others have already given evidence as to why Descartes was wrong.

You're quite dim, aren't you?

I'm the dim one? You're the one who later claims to know more than scientists about quantum mechanics, yet I'm the dim one? Holy shit.

Are you sure you aren't trolling?

This is a 'philosophy' forum, not a 'science' forum.

Not sure if you know this but science is a branch of philosophy. There's a reason why people like Newton were considered 'natural philosophers' even though nowadays they'd qualify as scientists.

Descartes' argument is a philosophical argument - that's why we study it in philosophy and why no one studies it in science.

Science has the ability to answer longtime philosophical quandaries.

This topic is not a topic in science.

Yet it has been answered by science. How could this be!?

And yes, I know considerably more than most scientists do about it. And you. And everyone else on this thread thus far.

You are hands down the most arrogant and ignorant person I've ever come across, not just on this forum or the internet.

What qualifications do you have in this subject? Have you even talked to an expert in the field? Have you ever heard of Max Planck or Richard Feynman? There probably is someone literate in the science in this very thread, but I'm not sure if they are willing to waste the time.

I fucking dare you to have a discussion about this with an actual expert and claim to know more than them. I fucking dare you. Alert me once you've done this.

Surely there are a few at the diploma mill you work at.

Sorry about that. Sorry there are people who know more than you do about things.

This is a lesson you need to learn, not profess.

There are many people who know more than me. And you sure as hell are not one of them. You don't know jack shit. And that's okay; what's not okay is asserting you're smarter than everyone else here.

This is how you view yourself:

tumblr_46d054daa01146a35d322af541991dfd_9a5da68b_500.jpg

This is how you actually are:

977b214b9897d505e56e5895af46da85.jpg

No, the claims are philosophical. Physicists would not be insulted by them, for they are metaphysical claims.

Yes they would.

Now before you go saying 'I'm saying I know more than scientists about my 'philosophy' not quantum mechanics!', lemme remind you I said:

You seem to think you know more about this than actual scientists. That's a good one.

This was in regards to this statement:

If we knew why they did it, then they would not be 'spontaneously' popping in and out of existence.

So don't accuse me of misunderstanding you. What you were getting at is pretty clear.

Even in regards to your childish attempt at 'philosophy,' you still have no clue what the hell you're talking about.

Don't pretend you're a physicist or know what physicists think. A physicist would be no more insulted by them than a grocer would.

It's clear you've never talked with anyone literate in the sciences. You like living in your own bubble, where you talk and others listen!

Even if you were to tell your 'philosophy' to a physicist, they would tell you your argument is invalid, because:

Photons can't be divided, yet they appear and disappear (turn into something else) all the time. When a photon enters an atom, it can happen that it turns into the energy of an electron and an electron goes further away from the nucleus. Similarly, when an electron gets closer to the nucleus, it loses some energy, and that energy can, under some conditions, turn into a photon. Yet, there being "half a photon" would require quite a few things we think we know about physics to be false.

If you can demonstrate that what @teo123 said was empirically false, then I will consider your claim. Actually, scratch that; If you can demonstrate that what Teo said was empirically false, AND provide evidence for your position on immortality, then I will consider your claim.

I'm almost convinced you're trolling at this point, since I can't understand how anyone with half a brain can seriously argue what you are arguing, despite the refutation and disagreement of many people.

[Sunflowers]

@Red, you're not worth debating with. The insults and everything would be fine if there was some kind of a backbone of real argumentation going on, but there isn't. You don't seem to understand the basics. You need to engage with the argument: that is, you need either to challenge its validity or challenge the plausibility of a premise (which, incidentally, you don't do by just shouting 'science' at a premise). That our minds are indivisible is not an empirical claim and so is not one science can shed any light on. But even seeing this simple point is way above your intellectual pay-grade. You're on the intellectual factory floor happily zooming around on your forklift of ignorance.

[Sunflowers]

It's just that professional philosophers never say 'prove it'.

I'm not a professional philosopher so I don't see how this is relevant.

You previously said you were a philosopher.

I want to know what you mean by 'prove'.

For example, would you accept that a deductively valid argument with true premises 'proves' its conclusion?

[teo123]

I don't know what to say, @Sunflowers. I mean, it's hard to imagine how can somebody get things that wrong.
First of all, obviously, studying philosophy obviously can make one think he has competences he doesn't. This is, I think, especially true for the philosophy of science, since there can be a huge gap between how outsiders think science works and how it actually works.
Second, knowing a little philosophy can be worse than knowing no philosophy whatsoever. You seem unaware of the fact that almost all philosophers today, including dualists, consider Cartesian Dualism to be incoherent, primarily because of the mind-body-interaction problem. Furthermore, most philosophers today accept at least methodological naturalism. Also, most philosophers today adhere to positivism, and that means that scientific arguments are welcome in philosophy.
Third, you don't even seem to know a little philosophy, you seem to have misread what you think you know. Descartes didn't claim (and no serious philosopher would) that mind being indivisible proves it's somehow indestructible because of that. Here is what Descartes actually said about the indivisible mind:

There is a vast difference between mind and body, in respect that body, from its nature, is always divisible, and that mind is entirely indivisible. For in truth, when I consider the mind, that is, when I consider myself in so far only as I am a thinking thing, I can distinguish in myself no parts, but I very clearly discern that I am somewhat absolutely one and entire; and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet, when a foot, an arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind; nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, conceiving, etc., properly be called its parts, for it is the same mind that is exercised all entire in willing, in perceiving, and in conceiving, etc. But quite the opposite holds in corporeal or extended things; for I cannot imagine any one of them how small soever it may be, which I cannot easily sunder in thought, and which, therefore, I do not know to be divisible. This would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body, if I had not already been apprised of it on other grounds.

Regardless of whether this argument is valid, it clearly doesn't argue for the immortality of soul.

[brimstoneSalad]

Obviously the logic is valid, nobody is contesting that, but it is not sound because all of the premises are false (even one being false would suffice obviously). It's very easy to construct a valid but unsound argument.
And yes, they are empirical in nature (they have particular relevance to quantum mechanics, and no just because you have no understanding of QM doesn't mean it's nonsense). And yes, because they are bunk empirical claims they can be debunked. Shouldn't be too hard to understand. You're peddling the equivalent of quantum woo here without even realizing it.

It's irrelevant since such an appeal to authority of a philosophy teacher carries no weight (unlike authority in the hard sciences), but if you are a professor but unwilling to step up and prove that claim then you need to stop making it. You would not be the first academic on this forum, the first I've argued with, or the first to be corrected. You're still wrong, your ignorance of physics and informatics just makes you unable to see it. If you don't believe me just take a stroll to your physics department and ask.

As far as this thread goes, @teo123 is already doing a great job so I don't see much I could add if I wanted to. It's entertaining to read teo refuting(if you don't like the term debunking) the argument. From my perspective and not really having time to waste, the argument is so silly that I don't see much risk in anybody actually finding any of it credible. Flat Earth has a better chance of catching on than this one does.

Maybe I'm wrong and it is a serious argument. Show me it being used by a mainstream apologist and I may change my mind. Other than giving you a lesson in Quantum Mechanics 101 or computer science and expecting you to be humble enough to learn something I doubt anything will change your mind since you're committed to this. I don't think you actually care about arguing it, you're either trolling or an egomaniac trying to make yourself feel big by baiting and pwning noobs (or people you imagine to be noobs). Everybody is just laughing at you though, sorry. If you are actually a professor making this argument that makes it much more sad, I hope for your sake that you aren't.