The God Delusion

[Jon Miller]

And yes, I am well aware of the fact that science uses mathematics, and the definition is generally the same.

However, science doesn't always hold itself to be formal in mathematics.. As such, when it is useful, it bends definitions to make discussion easier.

Which is what my statement was about, it wasn't about mathematics, it was a response to Whaleboy's claim of probability relating to agnnosticism and 50/50 probability.. and was to the effect that in science, when there is inadequent evidence to cite a confidence interval, that all possibilities are given equal probability.

And I well know how probability is defined.. I took senior level Probability course when you were still in grade school.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Which is what my statement was about, it wasn't about mathematics, it was a response to Whaleboy's claim of probability relating to agnnosticism and 50/50 probability.. and was to the effect that in science, when there is inadequent evidence to cite a confidence interval, that all possibilities are given equal probability.

There are uncountably many possibilities.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Does this magical "scientific probability" somehow behave differently from the mathematical theory? Can I use this special probability in a casino?

I know you aren't stupid, please think. I am refering to a specific way science refers to things it doesn't have the required evidence for.

Don't think I am stupid.

JM

[CrONoS]

If I'm right the spirit is the perfect unity of existence, the center a the circle(which is the teaching of christiannism/hinduism) in contast of the multiplicity and the diversity of the material existence. This is common to hinduism, christiannism. ( I'm not sure about Buddhism)

So, any discussion about the use the Cartesian duality seems worthless. The spirit was never thought in terms of duality. The subject is really more complex than this but my reading of religious text was always about the unity of the Spirits.

(Paulian theology seems to accept 3 different state of being into the man; body, mind, heart).

Maybe some Hindu polytubbies can throw some light over the Hindu teaching, but If my Baghhavad Gita reading is correct; The spirit is the perfect state of unity.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Which is what my statement was about, it wasn't about mathematics, it was a response to Whaleboy's claim of probability relating to agnnosticism and 50/50 probability.. and was to the effect that in science, when there is inadequent evidence to cite a confidence interval, that all possibilities are given equal probability.

There are uncountably many possibilities.

I already went over this with TLC

Not for the question "Is there something out there".

JM

[Kuciwalker]

What about the question "How many things are out there?" The answer your method gives to that directly contradicts the answeer it gives tot he first question.

[Lorizael]

"How many things are out there?" is not a question that a scientist would ask, because it presupposes that the underlying question "Is there something out there?" has already been answered.

You would not attempt to answer the quantity question until you had answered the binary question first, and hopefully, answering the yes/no question gives you more data so that you can develop a more coherent hypothesis when addressing the question of how many.

[Jon Miller]

Yeah, what the proper question is is, similiar to science, the key to the matter.

But remember, your statement of "How many things are out there?" has added information in it.

It is just like (in my example for atoms) if the question asked was "How many things could we break an atom up into?" It isn't a neutral question.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Lorizael
"How many things are out there?" is not a question that a scientist would ask, because it presupposes that the underlying question "Is there something out there?" has already been answered.

No, the answer could be 0.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
But remember, your statement of "How many things are out there?" has added information in it.

See above.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
No, the answer could be 0.

I knew I would regret not adding the qualifier, if it's been answered in the affirmative. Regardless, it doesn't change the point.

[Kuciwalker]

Yes it does.

JM's assertion is that you can use the principle "if you have no information about the probability of a set of events, you can assume they have equal probability." It's clear that this principle is internally inconsistent.

[Nostromo]

If I'm right the spirit is the perfect unity of existence, the center a the circle(which is the teaching of christiannism/hinduism) in contast of the multiplicity and the diversity of the material existence. This is common to hinduism, christiannism. ( I'm not sure about Buddhism)

So, any discussion about the use the Cartesian duality seems worthless. The spirit was never thought in terms of duality. The subject is really more complex than this but my reading of religious text was always about the unity of the Spirits.

(Paulian theology seems to accept 3 different state of being into the man; body, mind, heart).

Maybe some Hindu polytubbies can throw some light over the Hindu teaching, but If my Baghhavad Gita reading is correct; The spirit is the perfect state of unity.

aneeshm claimed that body and mind are two separate substances that interact, somehow. This position, substance dualism, we also call it cartesian dualism. I simply pointed out that the great majority of contemporary philosophers reject cartesian dualism. There are other forms of dualism, of course, but they reject substance dualism.

So we're talking about the nature of my mind, aneeshm's mind or your mind. Although you're not making yourself very clear, I don't think we were talking about the same thing that your are talking about.

I'm not sure what

"the spirit is the perfect unity of existence, the center a the circle(which is the teaching of christiannism/hinduism) in contast of the multiplicity and the diversity of the material existence"

means, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't refer to my, to your or to aneeshm's mind or soul.

[CrONoS]

@Nostromo:
Correct, I haven't realoaded the thread, and many new post was writed.

I was just reffering to the first post that started the debate over the mind, to add that the idea of the Souls, is really more complex than the cartesian duality. But you said "what" I wanted to say, on page 12(or 11) of the thread.

Edit:
And wanted to add a oriental perspective on the idea of the spirit.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Yes it does.

JM's assertion is that you can use the principle "if you have no information about the probability of a set of events, you can assume they have equal probability." It's clear that this principle is internally inconsistent.

You're arguing something thoroughly pointless for reasons that are mostly semantic.

I'm going to assume it's quite possible that you missed the part of the thread where Jon Miller said he didn't even want to say that the odds of god/no god were 50/50; he was simply arguing with Whaleboy on Whaleboy's own terms.

And really, a good scientist should not be asking how many there are of a thing before he is able to define what that thing is, and whether or not that thing exists in the first place.

Take the Drake equation, for example. Everyone who plugs numbers into the equation gets vastly different answers and everyone claims that their answers are true. This little bit of mathematical speculation is not exactly held in high regard as a result. The reason for this?

It presupposes that the question "Does extraterrestrial life exist?" has already been answered. But not enough objective data has been collected thus far to accurately answer that question, or even to accurately evaluate whether or not we fall into the same category as hypothetical extraterrestrial life.

No real scientist is going to take an answer they popped out of the Drake equation and claim that this is evidence in support of something. The scientific method is a very thorough and methodical process, and it doesn't move quickly. You cannot jump ahead.

At the stage when you are hypothesizing whether or not something exists, and you have no outside data to verify one way or another, you should not make any assumptions about the probability of one outcome or another.

But it is also an assumption to think that any probability different from 50/50 is more or less likely, and this is really what JM was arguing. He said that it was illogical (for Whaleboy) to assume agnosticism (50/50) was not valid without any good data one way or another.