1 edit
Originally posted by lucifershammerWhat if I make the additional claim that there is not a unicorn living in my toilet? Now, your epistemology requires you to at least temporarily believe two contradictory assertions. Further, it requires you to maintain that belief until such time as you can dismiss one as being false. If I never let you inspect my toilet, then you will forever look like an idiot for believing that I both have and have not a unicorn in my toilet.
Then I would believe you.
How is a scientific theory tested?
See bbarr's post for a more polite explanation.
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesWhy can't LH just revise his first belief in light of the evidence against your first claim provided by your second claim? If you told me that P, and I believed you, and then you told me that ~P, I would revise my belief that P in light of your further testimony.
What if I make the additional claim that there is not a unicorn living in my toilet? Now, your epistemology requires you to at least temporarily believe two contradictory assertions. Further, it requires you to maintain that belief until such time as you can dismiss one as being false. If I never let you inspect my toilet, then you w ...[text shortened]... th have and have not a unicorn in my toilet.
See bbarr's post for a more polite explanation.
2 edits
Originally posted by bbarrWell, then I'd just assert P again. Alternatively, what would he do if the contrary testimony came from two parties simultaneously instead of one, since he initially vests complete belief in all testimony?
Why can't LH just revise his first belief in light of the evidence against your first claim provided by your second claim? If you told me that P, and I believed you, and then you told me that ~P, I would revise my belief that P in light of your further testimony.
Here's another one.
Suppose I tell LH: If you doubt or seek evidence against the truth of this claim, you will surely die.
His epistemology requires him to initially believe it. Then, he would be suicidal to question its truth. Presumably he would believe it forever.
Further, I can form a conjunction of that assertion with anything else that I want him to believe, and he would be suicidal to not accept it. For example, I could get him to permanently believe that Mary had pierced nipples in a similar manner.
I exploit his fear to make him my puppet! Does this sound at all familiar?
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesWell, if you assert both P and ~P, then LH would be justified in paying no attention to your testimony regarding the truth or falsity of P. We constantly re-evaluate our beliefs in light of new evidence (or at least we ought to).
Well, then I'd just assert P again. Alternatively, what would he do if the contrary testimony came from two parties simultaneously instead of one, since he initially vests complete belief in all testimony?
Here's another one.
Suppose I tell LH: If you doubt or seek evidence against the truth of this claim, you will surely die.
His epistemo ...[text shortened]... similar manner.
I exploit his fear to make him my puppet! Does this sound at all familiar?
His point wasn't (or oughtn't have been) that testimony that P is sufficient to justify the belief that P. Rather, his point was that, absent evidence to the contrary, testimony that P is sufficient to justify the belief that P. Of course, this is also a mistaken view, as my point above was meant to illustrate.
Originally posted by lucifershammerIn addition to bbarr's exception, I find this analogy wanting. The existence of your red bus carries no implications for me beyond the fact that I may ride that bus downtown tomorrow. However, the implied existence of your god has the implication of peril for my immortal soul for all eternity. This point has been used as a sledgehammer by many of your more...excitable brethren.
My example is intended to point out that the normative state for us to evaluate each other's experiences is to believe them - not doubt them. If I tell you that I saw a red bus yesterday, you would normally believe me [b]unless you had prior reason to think otherwise.
However, with religious experiences, I observe that this "common sense" way of looking at things is inverted.[/b]
Therefore, while I may be more than ready to believe your solemn word that you saw a red bus, it will take much, much more than that to convince me of the existence of the Christian god. Additionally, as was also noted earlier, there are many red buses in circulation. I may have seen one before your claim to have seen one. Since all of my personal spiritual experiences have pointed away from the veracity of your god-claim, I'm afraid I must reject this analogy out of hand.
2 edits
Assigning truth values of zero or one to statements which cannot be established deductively is bad modelling. Unless we have some axioms about unicorns in toilets, until and even after we look in the toilet there is no need to make any sort of 'null hypothesis' of the form 'there are unicorns' or 'there are not unicorns'. Instead, we pick whichever of these two statements strikes our fancy, establish the prior probability that it exists, and add or subtract the weights of the various bits of evidence. Our answer will be the same regardless of which statement we have chosen to test, and even seeing the presence or abscence of unicorns on opening the lid does no more than add (or subtract, depending on whether which statement we've chosen; if we're doing it formally, the evidence will have the same modulus either way) a massive amount of evidence in favour of the corresponding claim. If this total evidence is sufficient to offset our estimate of the prior probability, then we conclude the opposite of whichever we initially chose. If not, then we stick with our original claim, with revised evidence. The point is that no commitment is made to either claim because it makes no difference which of P or not P we assume. Instead, we assume P to some subjective degree p between 0 and 1 and assume ¬P to some degree 1-p.
The toilet-unicorn question is one answered by inductive reasoning, and I think something like the above, which is a quick-and-dirty explanation of a common formalisation of inductive reasoning, is a good model.
This question doesn't arise in deductive situations, because our assumptions are either arbitrary or dictated by the flow of the argument, and are suggested by the form of what we are trying to establish.
Originally posted by HalitoseAnd when we look too hard for the Divine Hand -- mere coincidence becomes the fantastic.
The only way a playwright can appear in his own stage play is if he casts himself a role. Often we are so fixated on our materialist presuppositions that we fail to see the Divine Hand moving through our midst -- the fantastic becomes mere coincidence.
Throughout history, people have attributed things they do not understand or have an explanation for to the work of God or magic. As people learn more about the world around us and discover how things work the things that are unexplained become fewer and fewer but many Christians continue deny what evidence is put before them (such as the Theory of Evolution) because they feel that if there is a rational explanation to everything then it excludes God.
The one flaw I see to attributing miracles to God is that miracles occur to people of all beliefs and even us Athiests experience them sometimes. So to draw the conclusion that a miracle provides evidence for your particular beliefs is flawed. I have met a person who claimed to be Budist and swore that whenever he meditated about something then things worked out. Interestingly he somehow did not attribute it to the work of a god.
Originally posted by twhiteheadThere is always the other extreme, thanks for pointing that out.
And when we look too hard for the Divine Hand -- mere coincidence becomes the fantastic.
Throughout history, people have attributed things they do not understand or have an explanation for to the work of God or magic. As people learn more about the world around us and discover how things work the things that are unexplained become fewer and fewer but man ...[text shortened]... hing then things worked out. Interestingly he somehow did not attribute it to the work of a god.
The one flaw I see to attributing miracles to God is that miracles occur to people of all beliefs and even us Athiests experience them sometimes.
An atheist experiencing a miracle? They probably do, but they would never attribute it to anything but Luck - the closest they get to the supernatural.
For a self-proclaimed logician, you're not making much sense. Let’s go through this slowly, tell me if I'm misrepresenting your position:
1) Miracles happen
2) They are not restricted to one religious group
3) This follows directly from 1) and 2) that miracles don't provide evidence for a specific religious group.
The problem with your thinking is that 3) does not take into account that many religions may hold a part of Truth. This does not mean that any one religion cannot hold all/most of Truth.
Interestingly he somehow did not attribute it to the work of a god.
This statement belies your ignorance of the Buddhist religion. Buddhism is not about venerating a deity, it’s about achieving the cessation of suffering – a release from the cycle of rebirth (and suffering) to the total transcendence of nirvana.
Originally posted by scottishinnzLol, I was taking for granted that people would understand that, though you are right, considering the level of biological knowledge displayed here sometimes I should have been more precise 🙂
You ONLY have one X and one Y chromosome? I'm worried about that - unless, of course, you mean one per cell (excepting, of course, your little swimmers).
Originally posted by HalitoseActually what I am saying is that miracles appear to happen. And 3 is not logically flawed. Even if one religion is the "true" religion, experience of miracles does not support (or provide evidence for) thier belief in any way.
For a self-proclaimed logician, you're not making much sense. Let’s go through this slowly, tell me if I'm misrepresenting your position:
1) Miracles happen
2) They are not restricted to one religious group
3) This follows directly from 1) and 2) that miracles don't provide evidence for a specific religious group.
The problem with your thinking is tha ...[text shortened]... hold a part of Truth. This does not mean that any one religion cannot hold all/most of Truth.
This statement belies your ignorance of the Buddhist religion.
Yes I know next to nothing about Buddhists. But the one I met did claim to experience the equivalent of miracles as a direct result of meditation.
Many "miracles" can definately be explained as mere coincidence. In fact most people have very little understanding of probability and what at first appears as improbable even to a mathematician may turn out to be very likely when the math is done. Many of the arguements put up against the theory of evolution rely on the "that couldnt happen by chance" claim.
What is interesting about almost all claimed miracles is that they are unprovable. That is you can never test them for validity using scientific methods or lie within the range of chance.
Some much publicized miracles such as healing by prayer is often obvious hoax as only unprovable diseases are healed. Lack of smell is a surprisingly popular one.