I wouldn't call the arguments on either side disingenuous as that word has an implication of dishonesty about it and I don't think either side is bein...
I would answer 1 in 6, but that just means that that's what I'd use in calculations about what to bet, in most situations. It's not a truth claim. It'...
What intrigues me about these attempted arguments for God is what a complete deficiency of faith they demonstrate in those that make them. If one trul...
This statement seems to say 'what I said is correct, even though it doesn't sound right, and if you search the internet you will see why it's right'. ...
No. Item 1 is an observation. For the sake of argument let's provisionally agree that the claim in 2 is justifiable. But 3 is a claim about probabilit...
I agree. I followed the link that Rank Amateur gave to the Robin Collins argument but it fell at the first hurdle, comparing the FTA to our finding a ...
I think the language game perspective doesn't concern itself with truth but with consequences. So truth is relevant to the language game only when it ...
My understanding of the language game paradigm - at least as presented by Wittgenstein - is that it's highly pragmatic and focused on the relationship...
This even applies to ranges rather than just single points. If W is the width of the range of parameter p within which life is possible, then no matte...
According to the post counter, this will be the 999th post in this thread. I'm rooting* for it to hit the big 1K, as it has been a most interesting di...
What an erudite abbreviation! It was only yesterday that I first heard an explanation of the chi-rho symbol, on this In Our Time podcast about the emp...
I inferred - correctly, as it turns out - that that's what you meant, and my response was in relation to that meaning of the term. I am not any sort o...
Why do you think you feel that way? I'm not a Huguenot, by the way. I'm not even a Christian any more. But I was brought up RC and know the religion p...
You are misreading my statement. I am not denying that some Christians believe the Ten Commandments are still applicable to them. What I am denying is...
I do though. Being a Christian is about following the ideas or teachings that one believes to have been given by Jesus of Nazareth, not about followin...
Interestingly, if the game only allows whole dollars - or even whole cents, and the player knows that, they can use it as the basis for another strate...
The Decalogue is for the Jews, not the Christians. There are only two Christian commandments, and they are both positive - exhortations to love. I don...
That paper appears to put forward the same position as mine: that always-switching delivers no expected gain, even if the envelope has been opened, bu...
In broad terms I do not disagree with that characterisation. But there is often more than one way to represent uncertainty, and these lead to differen...
Where I differ from that perspective is that I reject the notion that there is such a thing as a 'real' probability (aka 'true', 'raw', 'correct', 'ab...
If you right-click on a TeX formula and select 'Show Math As...' then 'TeX commands', then you can copy and paste the code for that in between and del...
Yes, if we assume a uniform distribution for X on the interval . If we assume a more shaped distribution that decays gradually to the right then it wi...
Indeed, and that's where utility curves come in. If a parent has a child who will die unless she can get medicine costing M, and the parent can only a...
Even in that more general case, the Bayesian approach can give a switching strategy with a positive expected net gain. Based on our knowledge of the w...
Buridan's ass was prey to indecisiveness that - hypothetically - caused it to starve. Do you think that your opinion on the topic in the OP will cause...
She doesn't have to estimate it accurately. There are only three possibilities. A. X<2X<c. In this case the expected gain from switching is zero. B. c...
I gave it above. The player would use it. They would estimate L, the maximum possible payout (eg the budget of the game show). The simplest approach i...
c is not an observer-independent item that can be known or not. It is a feature of the Bayesian prior distribution the player adopts to model her unce...
Yes, I agree. That is why I do not try to falsify opinions that seem to work well for me. I am open to others' suggestions when they think they have f...
Hi Benkei. Nice to see you join this discussion. Since X denotes the smaller of the two amounts, the first statement is true and the other three are f...
As Popper showed us, this is how science in particular, and almost all knowledge, works. We can prove almost nothing true, but we can falsify it. We a...
I think it would be a mistake to claim to know that things are inherently unintelligible, because it is hard to see how one could obtain sufficient co...
The resolution of the apparent paradox is that the probabilities are not 50:50 for most values of Y. Either the player has not adopted a Bayesian prio...
Yes that is approximately my position, although (1) I would replace 'claiming' by 'speculating' and (2) it would be overly simplistic to describe me a...
OK then, let's undismiss your first post. I don't agree that I did 'dismiss' it but let's undismiss it just in case. That post says: I can see no logi...
It seems like there's a point you want to make in your two posts, but I can't see what it is. Are you able to explain the point? It might be easier to...
One way out of the dilemma is to discard the idea that there is a sharp divide between objectivity and subjectivity, and replace it by the recognition...
Probability is used to model uncertainty, and nearly all uncertainty in our world is epistemological. If one is a Hard Determinist (a term that I thin...
Yes I know. As a former RC I find myself constantly being tempted to correct people that say or imply that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception s...
D'oh! You are right. What a silly mistake. Here is a proof that addresses the actual question being asked. We need to introduce another variable z bec...
I am not sure but I have a feeling you are referring to this, the semantic interpretation of a logical language. To make a logical theory meaningful, ...
My experience is quite the contrary of this. Most theists I've encountered do not recognise that at all. Instead they write and speak at length about ...
Whoa there! The teapot is from Bertrand Russell who, I think it should be acknowledged, engaged charitably with Christianity while rejecting its claim...
If the player adopts this as the sample space then they cannot use a uniform distribution as their Bayesian prior for X, because there cannot be a uni...
Why? It's not about helping, it's about her expected gain, which is a pure calculation and nothing to do with luck. And my analysis is for a single tr...
I have a lot of sympathy with the argument, but I'll have a go at Devil's Advocate: I think what the argument might be is that what matters to God is ...
Comments