Timeline for Would seeing the stars spell out a sentence justify belief in a designer?
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17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 3 at 18:14 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | I’m not sure why my comments were deleted but I’m recommenting to state that my question wasn’t answered twice and hence there is no need to continue this discussion | |
| Feb 3 at 17:03 | comment | added | user6527 | Not read it, but I suspect this is a good place to start plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian given that you have cited the SEP yourself. | |
| Feb 3 at 17:02 | comment | added | user6527 | Sorry, the comments are not a good place for me to explain (subjectivist) Bayesian theory to you. I suspect it is well covered in the SEP, it is fair enough to ask questions, but it is not O.K. to ignore your errors when they are pointed out to you (your misinterpretation of SEP) and there is some onus on you to do some finding out answers for yourself, e.g. by investigating Bayesian probability. I answered you original question, it is not incumbent on me to continue to answer your auxilliary questions, especially when you ignore my previous points. | |
| Feb 3 at 16:54 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | Why do those alternative explanations figure? What is inconsistent in me believing that X is true without being aware of ~X and all other competing explanations of X? You haven’t really answered this question. Humans don’t actually go through all possible competing explanations for X when deciding on the strength of their belief for X anyways. Do you actually list explanations like “the moon is made of cheese” in your head before evaluating your strength of belief in the proposition that the moon is a rock? | |
| Feb 3 at 16:26 | comment | added | user6527 | "his only involves comparing a belief in X with ~X. Beliefs about other competing theories don’t directly enter the picture" sorry, that is nonsense, you can have beliefs/probabilitiies about multiple competing explanations- statisticians do so all the time. Do yourself a favour and acquaint yourself with Bayesian probability (subjective and objective). Note ~X may be a compund event, i.e. there are multiple ways in which X might be false. All of those explanations figure in evaluating P(evidence|~X) | |
| Feb 3 at 16:25 | comment | added | user6527 | @Baby_philosopher " That is not what it means in philosophy." as I said, I am not very interested in unproductive discussions that center on ambiguities in the meaning of words. As it happens, your SEP appears to talking about the justification of belief in just the way that Bayesianism defines belief/probability, which is what I was talking about. Probability theory originated in rational analysis of gambling. | |
| Feb 3 at 16:06 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | “degrees of belief are likely to be assessments of the relative plausibility” That is not what it means in philosophy. As per the SEP, “ Standard approaches equate degree of belief with the maximum amount the subject would, or alternatively should, be willing to wager on a bet that pays nothing if the proposition is false and 1 unit if the proposition is true”. This only involves comparing a belief in X with ~X. Beliefs about other competing theories don’t directly enter the picture. ~X isn’t a competing explanation. | |
| Feb 3 at 16:02 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | By implying that certainty is the only way to have absolute belief in X is begging the question. Using the word “absolute” implies degrees already. What is contradictory about believing in X but not being certain of it without the conception of a degree of belief? You would have to point out the inconsistency behind a representation of belief that is tertiary as many philosophers have historically done and still do. If you can’t, then it seems like we’re at a crossroads | |
| Feb 3 at 15:30 | comment | added | user6527 | ... of competing explanations. | |
| Feb 3 at 15:28 | comment | added | user6527 | @Baby_philosopher I just gave it to you. We can have no certain knowledge of reality, therefore there is no basis for absolute belief, there is always rational cause for doubt, which means we can only have degrees of belief. "Degrees of belief imply that one should have a certain number or vague sense of strength in a certain theory regardless of the existence of other theories." no, it doesn't, e.g. subjectivist Bayesianism. Certainly the "regardless of the existence of other theories" is unjustified, degrees of belief are likely to be assessments of the relative plausibility | |
| Feb 3 at 15:25 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | My question is: what is the rational basis for justifying degrees of belief? I can see a basis for feeling more conviction in A than B simply because we all feel that (I feel more confident in the earth being round than me being murdered tomorrow). But this is not justification of degrees but merely justification of comparative strength which in my eyes is different. Degrees of belief imply that one should have a certain number or vague sense of strength in a certain theory regardless of the existence of other theories. | |
| Feb 3 at 15:18 | comment | added | user6527 | hence there is no rational basis for claiming absolute (dis-)belief. | |
| Feb 3 at 15:17 | comment | added | user6527 | @Baby_philosopher Belief and Disbelief are not distinct, there is a spectrum with complete belief at one end and complete disbelief at the other. Suspension is denial of having a belief, so you can't call that a belief either. Philosophy seems to like exploiting vagueness in definitions, I am primarily a statistician with an interest in philosophy and I don't tend to find that kind of discussion productive or interesting. It is easy to justify degrees rather than absolute beliefs, "je pense donc je suis" shows we can't have completely certain knowledge of anything regarding the real world | |
| Feb 3 at 3:13 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | Belief in philosophy can be represented in a tertiary way (Belief, Disbelief, Suspension) or as degrees of belief as you stated. How can you justify representing belief in degrees vs. absolutes? You can’t use a degree of belief to justify that since that is the very notion in question. | |
| Feb 2 at 18:20 | comment | added | user6527 | @Baby_philosopher 1-epsilon (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_epsilon) | |
| Feb 2 at 17:23 | comment | added | Baby_philosopher | What is your degree of belief in the idea that belief should be represented as degrees rather than binary? | |
| Feb 1 at 9:16 | history | answered | user6527 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |