In a 1767 essay, Price shows that even if a person observes that the tide has come in a million times, on statistical grounds they cannot reasonably say it will never stop coming in. Using Bayes’ theorem, based on those million observations, Price calculated that there is a 50% chance the true probability of the tide not coming in one day is somewhere between 1 in 600,000 and 1 in 3 million. Therefore, he argued, it is not possible to eliminate the chance of a miracle based on a large number of negative observations.
Also this : https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blood-of-the-bayesian
Bayes is fine as far as it goes. It's not the end of rationality though.
https://qz.com/1315731/the-most-important-formula-in-data-science-was-first-used-to-prove-the-existence-of-god/
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Of course you can prove a negative. In one sense this can be the easiest thing in the world : your theory predicts something which doesn...
It is interesting just what can (appear to) be proved by logic and formalised reason. I realise I've gone ever so slightly off-topic but take this (attached) link. The automation of proof verification makes Kurt Gödel's formally orchestrated reasoning a bit simpler to complete (- yes, it is really a case of simulating an understanding of a reasoning process by determining if the logic is sound without actually understanding it, something of an oblique echo of Searle's Chinese Room here, I think, in that the successful shuffling of symbols by predefined rules may at the very least simulate intelligent comprehension).
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, even if an argument can be proved logically true, it does not follow that it possesses real world significance beyond the formal system in which it possesses such truth. Gödel is using an "Ontological Argument" which, like every other of its kind appears to possess an unproven (or unprovable ?) assumption in the prior existence (and greatness) of God before it even launches itself into logical contorsions.
IMHO, It is an error of induction in which a conclusion is asserted as an axiom...
https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4526
Saving for later. You have my permission to go off-topic with impunity. :)
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