tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post3952077928911068083..comments2024-03-27T04:11:03.782-05:00Comments on Theological Data Mining: The Essential Equation of TheologyMatt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-82115378467515336152022-01-27T12:31:30.804-06:002022-01-27T12:31:30.804-06:00How to play keno casino | Kadangpintar.com
› games...How to play keno casino | Kadangpintar.com<br />› games › keno-casino <a href="https://www.kadangpintar.com/" rel="nofollow">kadangpintar</a> › games › keno-casino Kino <a href="https://febcasino.com/" rel="nofollow">febcasino</a> Online casino is a top online casino powered by Real Time Gaming. It is powered by KanaGames <a href="https://choegocasino.com/" rel="nofollow">choegocasino</a> and can provide a fun and friendly experienceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-45471585799257923922014-01-30T05:31:48.636-06:002014-01-30T05:31:48.636-06:00Josh, I agree that one's starting definition o...Josh, I agree that one's starting definition of God is paramount. In my post, I was referring to "a personal First Cause", that is, a free-willed agent that created our universe. It's certainly not as precise as the Christian description of God, but I find that many atheists are reluctant to grant the plausibility of even so general a definition of God, making subsequent argument to the plausibility of the Christian God futile. <br /><br />In my previous post, I was describing atheists who assign a vanishingly small prior probability to God (as defined above). Any defense of such a position immediately brings in esoteric metaphysical premises. In my experience, many atheists fall into this category. But I certainly wouldn't say this categorically; I readily acknowledge that atheists, like theists, span a wide range of worldviews.Corey Potvinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-56027516310744263562014-01-30T00:47:25.377-06:002014-01-30T00:47:25.377-06:00Sorry...thought I was editing...but deleted.
Your...Sorry...thought I was editing...but deleted.<br /><br />Your last sentence is very puzzling. You are not describing an atheist...you seem to be describing how you prefer to think of atheists.<br /><br />Cosmology is a central branch of metaphysics...but metaphysics has increasingly become a non-empirical (since the scientific method) philosophical pursuit into the nature of existence. The scientific method derives provisional truth...and new evidence either supports or diminishes veracity.<br /><br />Again...how you define GOD is profoundly important...is GOD an abstraction based on evolution...the GOD of the Old Testament...the GOD of a particular historical mythology?<br />josh korotkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05294029208034616376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-43747714070868993662014-01-29T23:28:28.127-06:002014-01-29T23:28:28.127-06:00I think both of you make some good points here. Co...I think both of you make some good points here. Corey, I totally agree that a lot of atheists have a very low prior (i.e., P(H)) for God (maybe even 0 in many cases), which means there's practically no amount of evidence that would be sufficient for belief. And Josh, I think you are right that many Christians have too high of a prior (maybe even 1 in many cases), which means they will always end up believing in God regardless of the evidence or lack thereof.<br /><br />I also agree, Josh, that how you define God is of paramount importance. That's why my next post will be all about defining God, including some mathematical tools that are very helpful for doing so.Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-46249470844280878952014-01-29T18:50:40.000-06:002014-01-29T18:50:40.000-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.josh korotkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05294029208034616376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-52991296378308273812014-01-29T18:28:59.942-06:002014-01-29T18:28:59.942-06:00The following is a tangent, but I don't get to...The following is a tangent, but I don't get to talk about this often. Dan mentioned moral arguments for God in his post. That line of argument has very little weight for me. I can easily conceive of a universe exactly like ours except without God and, therefore, without good and evil. People would still be compelled by their biologically and culturally evolved consciences to believe that willed actions have a moral dimension; they would simply be mistaken. I see nothing internally consistent about such a worldview. And, I don't think it makes much impact on the Bayesian analysis, since any species like ourselves would very likely have (possibly fictitious) moral inclinations, otherwise that species would very likely not have evolved (independently of whether God exists).<br /><br />Of course, this view makes me a bit of an oddball, as the vast majority of theists and the majority of atheists take objective morality as a properly basic belief! Corey Potvinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-42207885602226444662014-01-29T18:17:40.489-06:002014-01-29T18:17:40.489-06:00How...precisely!...you define GOD has a profound e...How...precisely!...you define GOD has a profound effect on everything else. Every culture in history has had a belief in the divine and a mythology to explain the world around them....no room for grey shades here. josh korotkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05294029208034616376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-67110447458247297502014-01-29T17:54:30.111-06:002014-01-29T17:54:30.111-06:00I'm very glad you wrote this post, Matt. I had...I'm very glad you wrote this post, Matt. I had been planning to start a blog in part addressing some of these issues, but kept putting it off. I think explication of the Bayesian method is a critical apologetic tool, largely because it highlights the importance of carefully considering the prior probability of God's existence. If one takes P(H) to be virtually zero, then one is largely dismissing the evidence from the start. This, I believe, is a common mistake of atheists. To assume that God is extremely improbable a priori is to make some very unwarranted assumptions. I find that many otherwise empirically minded people too quickly dismiss the evidence available to them based on their (often latent) metaphysical beliefs. It's a stark example of unfounded faith trumping evidence. Corey Potvinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-64189178878684043192014-01-26T00:47:41.841-06:002014-01-26T00:47:41.841-06:00Hi David, thanks for the comment. I agree. I don&#...Hi David, thanks for the comment. I agree. I don't think it's possible (at least with our current level of knowledge and technology) to prove or disprove God, by natural or any other means. If we could, it wouldn't be faith. The "Does God exist?" question is only one of many for which the Bayesian framework is useful. It's also applicable to things like Bible interpretation. I'll be using it often on this blog, but I'll also write about a lot of other data analysis methods that are useful in other ways.Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-13549817121602148422014-01-25T23:42:33.049-06:002014-01-25T23:42:33.049-06:00Hey Matt,
Very interesting stuff! Obviously this...Hey Matt,<br /><br />Very interesting stuff! Obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I am curious how it develops. But just for the sake of throwing a wrench in the gears, there is also a probability that God may have written into natural law, physics and more, and even into our human capacity, that He will not be proven or disproven by natural means. Just a thought... :)David S.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-80610564364469070032014-01-25T20:37:55.980-06:002014-01-25T20:37:55.980-06:00Perhaps I got lost in a parenthesis...wouldn't...Perhaps I got lost in a parenthesis...wouldn't be the first time...will recalculate later.josh korotkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05294029208034616376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-26167372118340241672014-01-25T19:38:35.652-06:002014-01-25T19:38:35.652-06:00Thanks Josh. I'm not really trying to make an ...Thanks Josh. I'm not really trying to make an argument for God here, just using an example to explain how to weigh evidence with uncertainty. You could be right that, in this example, P(E|¬H) should be higher and P(H) should be lower, although generally I'm not comfortable with probabilities below 5% or above 95% for such things (for reasons I'll eventually write about). What those probabilities should be is a very useful discussion though -- much more so, in my opinion, than the usual debates people have on this subject.<br /><br />I'm not following your math. Using 0.01 as the prior instead of 0.10, P(H|E) becomes 0.037, unless you use a higher P(E|¬H). But it wouldn't go down to 0.0024 unless P(E|¬H) > P(E|H), which I think is a stretch, Hawking argument notwithstanding. I'll defer to him on the cosmology, but I think his argument (which I'll have to study more) is not so much an argument for a high P(E|¬H) as it is an explanation that fits the evidence, which is a bit different, though the fact that it does fit the evidence suggests P(E|¬H) shouldn't be too low.<br /><br />I agree that what you define as "God" makes a huge difference for the prior probability, and that the more vague definitions of God are a long way from the personal God of Abraham, etc. I've been planning to discuss all of that (including a graph) in my next post.Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-6616864690512648352014-01-25T18:23:47.992-06:002014-01-25T18:23:47.992-06:00Matt...I think the Devil is in the details! Refere...Matt...I think the Devil is in the details! Reference the following short lecture by Stephen Hawking at http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html. This would seem to support your .95 for P(E|H) IF the Universe was created as described in the book of Genesis. However..."the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside." There have been many attempts to "explain away" a possible beginning of time...the breakdown of physics re: the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Stephen agrees that the Universe had a beginning ...but uses imaginary time, real time, and boundary conditions to satisfy the dictates of physics. The ultimate point is that there may be an even higher probability for P(E|¬H) and a lower probability (e.g., .01) for P(H). In fact...if you only lower P(H) to .01 the resulting answer is .0024. Anyway...I feel your initial assumptions need much more clarity if you want to make a serious case for the existence of God. And of course...your definition of God requires more clarity as well. You may find this interesting...The Catholic philosopher John Haught warns: "For even if scientists concluded that some intelligent being had tinkered with the initial conditions and cosmological constants, pointing them in the direction of life and mind, this "being" would still be an abstraction, and not the living God of religion. It would be a great empty plugger of gaps, and not the personal God of Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad. The [strong anthropic principle] is no more capable of confirming or deepening our religious life than are the old arguments of God's existence. The realms of science and religion are radically distinct. Once again, then, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of both religion and science, we refuse to derive any theological consequences or religious comfort from this spuriously popular "scientific" theory."josh korotkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05294029208034616376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-54913260519795787842014-01-25T17:47:08.233-06:002014-01-25T17:47:08.233-06:00Thanks Dan! I think all of that fits nicely into a...Thanks Dan! I think all of that fits nicely into a Bayesian framework (pretty sure any probabilistic argument can at least be re-written in Bayesian terms, even if the probabilities are 0 or 1). <br /><br />I don't consider things like the ontological argument to be evidence per se, but it seems appropriate for estimating a prior probability. I don't think it would justify anything near 100% though, if you're talking about a personal and specific (e.g., Christian) God. 100% would only "bypass" Bayes' theorem in that it makes all evidence irrelevant.<br /><br />I suppose you could use those arguments the other way, as "evidence" that updates a lower prior (they might have to be "translated" into the form of evidence), but I think it'd be a lot more difficult that way. It would be an interesting exercise though!Matt Hauglandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-71947574398119934622014-01-25T16:56:19.849-06:002014-01-25T16:56:19.849-06:00Hi Matt,
Interesting stuff! I'm not sure I&#...Hi Matt,<br /><br />Interesting stuff! I'm not sure I'm completely sold on using Bayesian arguments in this way regarding the *particular question* of the existence/nonexistence of God, but neither am I sold against it. But, you've definitely got me thinking more about it. One issue of course is what sort of prior probabilities you apply, and even if it makes sense to apply such a probability in this case. (You'll recall we discussed this at some length at lunch the other day). Another thought: where do ontological arguments for God's existence come in to this analysis? Would they be considered at level 1 above, or level 2? What about some philosophers' arguments that belief in God can be considered "properly basic" (i.e. Alvin Plantinga has argued this way). If this is true, wouldn't this pretty much bypass Bayes' theorem, at least for this question? (Obviously, it might still apply to questions about God's character, whether Jesus is God, whether God acts in a scientifically detectable way, and so on.)<br /><br />Just some thoughts. I'm inclined toward a holistic view that God, and particularly the Christian God, makes the most sense out of everything I see in the natural world, human history, and my own experience. From this starting point, arguments like the ontological and moral arguments, while previously not holding much water on their own, seem much more reasonable to me, and I seek to understand them better within this paradigm (i.e. "faith seeking understanding"). Like we discussed, rather than a circular approach, I see it as more of a spiral staircase, where new information causes a re-evaluation of previously weakly-attested arguments. Perhaps what I'm doing is Bayesian, and I don't even realize it?Dan Dawsonhttp://withallmymind.netnoreply@blogger.com