godspell said
Intriguing, but I’m afraid I don’t have the context to understand the point you’re making (I know what GIGO means).
In ** you do not have permission to see this link **, ****based on prior knowledge**** of conditions that might be related to the event.
[…]
With the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** interpretation the theorem expresses how a degree of belief, expressed as a probability, should rationally change to *** account for availability of related evidence***.
[…]
Evidence and changing beliefs
Bayesian inference uses aspects of the scientific method, which involves collecting evidence that is considered consistent or inconsistent with a given hypothesis. As the evidence accumulates, the degree of belief in a hypothesis is modified. With enough evidence, it can often be made too high or too low. Thus, those who hold the Bayesian inference say that it can be used to discriminate between conflicting hypotheses: hypotheses with a very high degree of belief must be accepted as true and those with a very low degree of belief must be rejected as false. ****However, detractors say that this method of inference may be affected by a bias due to the initial beliefs that must be held before beginning to collect any evidence.****
[…]
The experts in statistics have questioned the theorem based on the limitations of its application, since it is valid only when disjoint and exhaustive events are met.
Similarly, specialists in traditional statistics confirm that only statistics based on repeatable experiments and empirical testing can be admissible, because Bayesian statistical probabilities admit relative conditions.
Christian apologists use Bayes to calculate the probability that the resurrection is historical. Mythicists, primarily Richard Carrier, use Bayes to calculate the probability that Jesus was a historical figure.
It reminds me of what’s called the Drake Equation, used to calculate the probability of intelligent civilizations in the universe. The problem of course is your priors. You essentially have to pull them out of your a…uh hat, and this makes the entire affair somewhat fanciful. Surprise surprise, Christian apologists come out with a high probability that the Resurrection is historical and the Mythicists come out with a low probability for Jesus being historical.
Stephen said
Christian apologists use Bayes to calculate the probability that the resurrection is historical. Mythicists, primarily Richard Carrier, use Bayes to calculate the probability that Jesus was a historical figure.
There are many pitfalls in the way Lane Craig uses the Bayes’ Theorem.
Let’s see a few:
Craig confuses (surely torturously) “claims” with “facts”
He mix the natural resurrection with the supernatural. Is the “God in the gaps” fallacy.
To make his argument more twisted and difficult to understand, he use a form of Bayes’ Theorem that contains terms that are not necessary for pure cosmetics.
In the end, you always get the same:
number of resurrections claims that are true
P (R / E): ——————————————- —————————-
number of resurrections claims
which is of the type:
X
P (R / E) = —————–
X + Y
Craig becomes confused again, proving that his mathematics are of preschool children. Thus, it certainly assumes that Y is very small; but errs when it does Y —> 0. Y has to be a number, as small as you want, but a number, not a limit process.
This results in the false conclusion that:
X
—————- = 1 (within the illegally established limit)
X + 0
But also X is very small, but Craig does not make X —> 0, as it turns out:
0
———– = 0
0 + Y
We see that the important, the essential, is not how small Y is, but how small Y is compared to X.
In summary, if b is the number of resurrection claims that are true and c the number of resurrection claims that are false, b + c will be the total resurrection claims and the following expression is reached:
1
P (R / E) = ——————
1 + c / b
and depending on the c / b ratio, which depends a lot on mere subjective issues, such as Craig’s Christian faith and the inpiration of the Holly Spirit he believe he have, the result can be very close to 0 or to 1.
Which means that this attempt to demonstrate the resurrection of Jesus is a pure bullshit!
Which means that the resurrection of the historical Jesus was totally false or completely true, depending on tremendously subjective circumstances.
Well, this is something I wouldn’t necessarily have expected to be discussing on a forum related to early Christianity. Let me just google–ah!–named after the man who developed it–a Presbyterian Minister. Of course. 🙄
People keep thinking math and life are the same thing. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG.
godspell said
People keep thinking math and life are the same thing. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG.
Bravo! Good observation.
Mathematics and life are not the same thing; Mathematics is larger than live! Or at least that is what William Lane Craig believes and therefore he dismember the math for everything: to demonstrates the existence of God, to affirm the resurrection of Jesus, to make supernatural the fine tuning, to assert the moral and ontological argumentes (math logic: modal axiom S5)…
Finally and as a simple curiosity, what do you mean by “named after the man who developed it – a Presbyterian Minister?”
Me don’t understand!!
Ah, here we go–
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Okay, starting to get a handle on this. Evangelicals wanted to say they’d mathematically proven this or that assertion of scripture (like the resurrection), which is theologically unsound to start with, because articles of faith are not to be put to the test, Jesus was damned clear about that when he talked to the red guy with the horns.
Carrier, not to be outdone for sheer absurdity, correctly pointed out they’d misused the theorem, and then proceeded to misuse it himself. He says that you can’t talk about the probability of there having been a Jesus because there is no basis for calculating said probability. Therefore, Jesus did not exist. He dresses it up a bit, but that’s basically his argument. And with one fell swoop, he’s disproved the existence of most of the people who ever lived in earth, not to mention a lot of pretty famous historical figures he actually likes.
Atheist logic can be hard to follow at times (don’t bristle, Stephen, I don’t mean you). Daniel Dennett, when arguing for non-human animals being insensate non-conscious creatures engaged in purely mechanistic response to stimuli, says that this is the default position, and therefore anyone who argues to the contrary has to prove beyond any doubt that it’s not true, which they can never do, so he wins!
Like Carrier, he claims he’s on the high ground, and you have to push him off. When in fact that isn’t how science works (and if it was, the default position would still be that they’re conscious and the question is how much their consciousness resembles and gave rise to our own), but of course he’s not a scientist. He’s a philosopher who uses science without really understanding it. As Carrier is a con artist who uses pseudo-scholarship to sell videos. And fundamentalists are people who think you have to use mathematical formulae to prove things one is supposed to believe without questioning, because apparently everyone is mad now.
🙄
godspell said
Ah, here we go–[…]
Atheist logic can be hard to follow at times (don’t bristle, Stephen, I don’t mean you). Daniel Dennett, when arguing for non-human animals being insensate non-conscious creatures engaged in purely mechanistic response to stimuli, says that this is the default position, and therefore anyone who argues to the contrary has to prove beyond any doubt that it’s not true, which they can never do, so he wins!
[…]
Atheistic logic? Logic of atheists?
How can it be that I haven’t heard about this type of logic before?
And sorry if I tell you that I am surprised because I have a Master in Epistemology of Science and I had to study and know a lot about logic. And I also needed to study a lot of logic to succeed in the software exams when I obtained the degree in Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering.
I understand you, however, when you say that it is not easy many times to follow the logic of certain arguments or of computers software.
There are many types of logic: Syllogistic, Propositional, Predicate, Modal, Mathematical, Philosophical, Computational, etc. That whoever uses them in their arguments or in the use that is within the competence of a logic, be an atheist, theist, deiist, pagan, trapeze artist or circus clown, is totally irrelevant, as long as they use it correctly, with the utmost precision and clarity .
Regarding what you say about Daniel Dennett, I don’t know where that assertion come from. But if you’re interested, I recommend you take a look at:
Animal Consciusness
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Regarding the mathematics that certain ignorant people use to demonstrate their theism:
[…] Can you find God in numbers? Christian apologists like William Lane Craig say yes. Since God is infinite, we can study him through the mathematics of infinity.
Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly
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I work in a library, books about animal consciousness cross my desk all the time. It’s increasingly clear that every time we think we’ve found something unique to us, it turns up in some of them. Perhaps the only exception is religious belief. Which hardly goes to prove our superiority.
Nobody is ever going to say it as well as Louis MacNeice.
(typed from memory, can’t vouch for punctuation)
The gap between us and the brutes
Though deep, seems not too wide; their games
though played with neither bats nor boots
though played with neither rules nor names
seem motivated much as ours
not mentioning hungers, lusts, or fearsCow flicking tail, cat sharpening claws,
dolphin agambol, bird awheel,
transpose our hands to fins, to claws,
to wings, we more or less can feel
the same as they; the intellect,
is all we add to it, or subtract.The iceberg of our human lives
being but marginal in air
our lonely eminence derives
from the submerged nine tenths we share
with all the rest who also run,
shuddering, through the shuddering main.
Go plug that into some formula, why don’t you?
(I should of course have said ‘the logic of some atheists’ but that is what I said, regardless of what you inferred. Studying logic doesn’t prove one is logical. Or even less, rational. Not saying you aren’t, but it’s a brittle thing at the best of times. We’re always putting too much stress on it, and it shatters.)
And thanks for the bravo, but honestly, isn’t that obvious? Well no, it’s not, because people want more control over reality than reality will ever grant them. So we erect our castles in the air, and God (can you think of a better name?) knocks them back down again. Hopefully leaving us wiser for the exercise, but one must at times entertain doubts of that.
As to the article from the Dawkins website–which I know you were not defending–I just don’t see why people don’t just stop and laugh at themselves. I truly don’t. It’s like two cavemen sitting around a pile of pebbles, trying to prove/disprove the Big Bang. We don’t have the tools. Or the brains. Not yet, anyway. Obviously God can’t be proven or disproven, but both sides take this not as a truth to be accepted but as a challenge to be overcome. Well, good luck with that.
godspell said
I work in a library, books about animal consciousness cross my desk all the time.
Studying logic doesn’t prove one is logical. Or even less, rational. Not saying you aren’t, but it’s a brittle thing at the best of times. We’re always putting too much stress on it, and it shatters.).
Dear friend (can I call you that?)
I don’t think it is necessary to call your attention to the inconsistency of these two statements of yours.
Indeed, having studied logic – and having taught computer and material logic, as is my case – does not mean that one is logical or rational. It only means that one has studied and possibly understood something as difficult and complex as logic is in all its variants or types.
At best, it can be said that what is called the informed ignorance of the expert is acquired, which is very different from the almost total ignorance of the clueless in the matter.
In the case of someone who sells books of logic (or of animal consciousness) in a bookstore, it is difficult to argue that something is learned in that way about those subjects. At best, you can keep up to date with the bibliography.
I have been very interested in knowing the problem of consciousness—specially, the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers’ formulation) both in humans and in other species. And again I tell you that I believe that I have acquired the ignorance of the expert and overcome the total ignorance of the one who knows nothing about it.
As far as we know, consciousness is an emerging phenomenon of the brain (conscious part of the mind) and has appeared by evolution in many species, especially of higher mammals. Since evolution “invented” consciousness, there is a certain continuity in the development and importance of consciousness. In the human case, there seems to be a significant gap between the consciousness of humans and the mammals that follow us, such as the great apes. In that sense, we can say that we are a very unique species.
Regarding this, the book by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio “Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain” (2010) is very interesting.
My statements may be mildly eccentric, but not contradictory (at least to the limited extent it is possible to comment on reality without some level of contradiction).
You have told me nothing about animal consciousness I didn’t know (and nothing my dogs haven’t taught me long ago, not to mention my longtime observations of wild creatures). Perhaps Damasio would, but I have a very very long reading list. Call me what you like, just don’t call me late for dinner, okay? 😉
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