Michael

Did you not see the irony in the correction itself?

Found an ironic image (while searching for "atheist picketer" to try to find something to throw in Sap's face). https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/7...

That's not just how we use the word "probability". We also use the word "probability" to talk about events that have already happened (e.g. the probab...

So your issue here isn't one of metaphysics or ontology or epistemology or anything like that? It's just about the appropriateness of a particular lab...

And what's a law? My suggestion is that a law just is a description. So if there's a description then ipso facto there's a law. Alternatively, a physi...

I don't get this. If a physical law just is a description of how things behave then if we have a description of how things behave then we have a physi...

The problem I find with those terms (at least with "confidence" and "degree of belief") is that they seem to refer to the strength of someone's (subje...

I think it'd be useful to just drop the term "law". Instead talk about wave/particle behaviour and our descriptions of it. Our descriptions will chang...

I think it is. If we're playing poker we might ask what the probability is that our opponent has a better hand. Simply saying "either he does or he do...

Yeah, you'd have to be retarded to try to make a joke like that.

No, it isn't. B is a different sentence. You can't go from "'this sentence is false' is neither true nor false" to "'this sentence is false' means 'th...

I don't understand the relevance of those questions.

Facts as true propositions are true. Facts as the situations that true propositions describe aren't the sort of things that are true. Except when they...

This strikes me as a problematic evaluation. Obviously we might say that the visible must be present-to-sight, but so too might we say that the audibl...

You're still conflating. You have one sentence, "this sentence is false", and you have another sentence, "this sentence is neither true nor false". Th...

Again, no. You're conflating statement A with a (different) statement about A. Consider the sentence "this sentence has four words". You can't say tha...

0.999... < 1.

When you say that the statement "this statement is false" is neither true nor false you're not saying that the statement "this statement is false" mea...

It's also occupying space that might otherwise be occupied by a white egg. So I think your original suggestion that it neither confirms nor disconfirm...

Well, I certainly think that his Philosophical Investigations changed my philosophy-life.

I think the explanation that what two distinct physical things (e.g. a gluon and a quark) have in common is that they are both physical is quite the c...

If the principle holds when there are just two things to consider then it holds when there are a trillion things to consider. And if you need the chan...

I believe this "vague" position is all the position particles have. It's not that they "really" have a non-vague position but we're just incapable of ...

The math in the example I gave of the white eggs. To start, we're talking about my example of white eggs. And also, given contraposition, they are rel...

As far as I'm aware, particles interact only when they do occupy the same space. It's only identical fermions that can't occupy the same space.

I don't know what you mean by this. A thing can be evidence even if it isn't taken to be. That's why "ignoring evidence" is a thing. Again, there's th...

But their actual confidence isn't relevant, as we're considering objective Bayesian probability, not subjective Bayesian probability. I believe that m...

They might not use the term "objective Bayesian probability", but what they understand evidence to be might be exactly this (i.e. increases the ration...

I'm using Bayesian probability, as just mentioned. What I'm saying is that, given it's using objective values, it isn't something that will vary from ...

Then what about my example of the eggs? It certainly seems to make use of objective values and so won't vary from person to person, even though it's a...

@"aletheist", from a brief look at the various literature on probability, am I right in suggesting that you take the frequentist view and I take the (...

Yeah, and that's what we use probability for; to determine the likelihood that our guess is correct, based on the available epistemic criteria.

I refer you to the Poker example I mentioned earlier. The cards have been dealt out and you have a pair of kings and your opponent either has a pair o...

If you've already flipped a coin (your first of the day) and it's landed heads then what's the probability that the first two coins you flip today wil...

Twice as many as there are non-black non-ravens. I don't think I am. If I say that nobody in my house is American I'm not saying that nobody in my hou...

I don't think any reasonable person will interpret my claim in this way. It certainly isn't implied, as you suggest. This doesn't seem right. If I say...

It wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be equivalent to "if something is a raven then it is black" (which is why this is the phrase I've been using si...

And this is where I disagree. Probability is an epistemic concern. It is perfectly appropriate to use the maths of probabilities to determine the prob...

It's not just "ordinary" talk. The actual mathematics of probabilities includes the fractions between 0 and 1. So I really don't know what you're talk...

This is contradiction. If two statements are logically equivalent according to contraposition then ipso facto they have the same truth value in every ...

I really don't understand what you're trying to argue here. I have provided references that show that P ? Q is logically equivalent to ¬Q ? ¬ P and th...

Not only did I beat you to the punch, but I have references, which makes it the objectively better reply.

I think the difference is that affirming the consequent is an error in deductive reasoning, but science doesn't claim to use deductive reasoning. Inst...

Oh, and that article is directly relevant to this. It mentions the raven paradox and even includes Hempel's theory that "(the observation report of) a...

Ah, my mistake. Thanks.

Perhaps a better way to look at it is the following. There are n non-black things. The probability that "if something is not black then it is not a ra...

The first reference was here, but directed at a different claim about the colour of eggs. A more general form was here. Also one about coins.

The claim is "if something is not black then it is not a raven". The probability that it is true isn't 0 if we have a green apple.

This is easier to understand if you use the phrases "if something is not black then it is not a raven" and "if something is a raven then it is black"....

Yes it does, due to contraposition. "if something isn't black then it isn't a raven" is logically equivalent to "if something is a raven then it is bl...