Well, one question is to define specifically what death he wishes me to accept before I leave the room. So when he says “You are dead.” And I ask “Which kinds of dead am I?” If he says:
“You are information theoretically dead. You’re also brain dead and clinically dead.” then that leads to an entirely different kind of much more confusing discussion.
(What exactly is he arguing with? If the answer is my soul, what is the nature of my soul? An ‘Elan Vital’ style answer doesn’t clarify anything unless learning to accept an ‘Elan Vital’ is the point of locking me into a room, in which case that will cause me to consider the room in an entirely different light.)
“You are information theoretically alive, but you are brain dead and clinically dead.”
(Your pattern of experiences has been teleported by some means to a locked room. You can resume experiencing things that are not the locked room when yoou have seen sufficient evidence that you accept you are brain dead and clinically dead.)
Or perhaps, “You’re information theoretically dead, brain dead, but clinically alive.”
(You are a comatose vegetable with irreversible brain damage.)
Or perhaps even, “You’re information theoretically dead, brain alive, but clinically dead.”
(It might be more accurate to say you’ve suffered massive trauma, exploding your body and head and throwing your intact brain from it’s body. There is no state of affairs where you don’t die, but technically your brain is still oxygenated for a few seconds and is producing a few last gasp hallucinations.)
Also, another question is “Do I even WANT to ‘cross-over?’ ” I mean, he says he is here to help me in that endeavor, but I don’t know if every rationalist would even necessarily be endeavoring to do that. Particularly not if told that by someone who also told them they lost Pascal’s wager. If I HAVE been transported into something similar to the Christian afterlife, accepting what might be the Devil’s implied axioms without double checking them seems likely to be a mistake.
Another pertinent question is “Which religion on earth is this situation in this afterlife closest to and how close is it?”
If the answer is “Catholicism. Mostly accurate with a few details wrong.” That may also lead to an entirely different approach from “Atheism. And really, not even Atheism is that close.”
I also want to note something else about your original post:
Is there any thing which, while actually true, could never be demonstrated in this manner?
Well, one question is to define specifically what death he wishes me to accept before I leave the room. So when he says “You are dead.” And I ask “Which kinds of dead am I?” If he says:
“You are information theoretically dead. You’re also brain dead and clinically dead.” then that leads to an entirely different kind of much more confusing discussion. (What exactly is he arguing with? If the answer is my soul, what is the nature of my soul? An ‘Elan Vital’ style answer doesn’t clarify anything unless learning to accept an ‘Elan Vital’ is the point of locking me into a room, in which case that will cause me to consider the room in an entirely different light.)
“You are information theoretically alive, but you are brain dead and clinically dead.” (Your pattern of experiences has been teleported by some means to a locked room. You can resume experiencing things that are not the locked room when yoou have seen sufficient evidence that you accept you are brain dead and clinically dead.)
Or perhaps, “You’re information theoretically dead, brain dead, but clinically alive.” (You are a comatose vegetable with irreversible brain damage.)
Or perhaps even, “You’re information theoretically dead, brain alive, but clinically dead.” (It might be more accurate to say you’ve suffered massive trauma, exploding your body and head and throwing your intact brain from it’s body. There is no state of affairs where you don’t die, but technically your brain is still oxygenated for a few seconds and is producing a few last gasp hallucinations.)
Also, another question is “Do I even WANT to ‘cross-over?’ ” I mean, he says he is here to help me in that endeavor, but I don’t know if every rationalist would even necessarily be endeavoring to do that. Particularly not if told that by someone who also told them they lost Pascal’s wager. If I HAVE been transported into something similar to the Christian afterlife, accepting what might be the Devil’s implied axioms without double checking them seems likely to be a mistake.
Another pertinent question is “Which religion on earth is this situation in this afterlife closest to and how close is it?”
If the answer is “Catholicism. Mostly accurate with a few details wrong.” That may also lead to an entirely different approach from “Atheism. And really, not even Atheism is that close.”
I also want to note something else about your original post:
Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem talks about things that relate to this concept. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems for details.