Who is this 'Christian' Krauss is engaging? Seems a strawman.

As counter-evidence: see every thread in bbv4l which asks a binary/yes or no question

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, do you think RLK is just joking around (in the same way as, say, a 4L thread)? You know he posted an explanation in the thread I linked as to why the correct probability for a binary question that has no relevant information is actually 50/50 (iho), rather than unknown? If he's just kidding, fine, I suppose I'll look a little silly. But he seems to really think it is the correct answer rather than just a 'funny'. All I want to know is if there is some basis for it or not!

If I flip a coin and tell you (truthfully) that the coin is biased what is the odds it has landed on heads?

a) 50/50
b) anything except 50/50
c) other

You missed the point by grunching.

One example is William Lane Craig. Krauss says you can't prove that there is no teapot in the sky, you can't prove that we are not just a magical manifestation created 5 seconds ago with memories of the past hundred years.

William Lane Craig says Krauss' argument is invalid because we KNOW there is no teapot in the sky bla bla bla.

That is the problem. William Lane Craig doesn't seem to understand what 100% certainty is in the scientific context so why does Krauss and other scientists try to debate with a scientific point of view?It is just self-defeating. If WLC doesn't understand what 100% certainty is how would the average theist be able to understand it?

If one of the atheist debaters said it is not a 100% certainty that humans need water, theists would be rofling for years.

"It is not certain that god does not exist therefore it isn't impossible that god exists therefore it is possible that god exists therefore it is plausible that god exists therefore it is probable that god exists."

That is about the gist of it. There are many flaws in that dialectic, but the grievous error is in this...

"It is not certain that god does not exist therefore it isn't impossible that god exists"

...which does not follow. The "true" consequence of god's existence being uncertain is that we can't say that it is impossible that he exists, not that it is possible that he exists.

Mmm.. is it 50/50 because the coin has been tossed and the choice right now is whether or not it landed on Heads or Tails and we don't now how the throw was biased towards one or the other, but before the coin if flipped it's not 50/50 because we know there's a bias, even if we don't know what the bias is?

I'm not sure what this means. Are you saying computers have higher intelligence than humans? I don't think intelligence is measured by processing speed or memory capacity. I'm not sure the best computer is more intelligent than a Dachshund yet. In the future, who knows?

And none of this matters anyway. My only point was that it is not a great logical leap to assume consciousness is derived through a natural evolutionary process, rather than supplanted by some supernatural being. Consciousness increases the odds for a god no more than dark matter does.

I'm not a evolutionary psychologist. If they can't fully explain consciousness yet, I certainly can't. Again, my point was that there is no special reason to think we have it because of a supernatural being.

His logic is so bad.

Not a bad attempt. Bit busy just now so I'll link to this for an exposition of ways to think about that problem:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/oj/probability_is_in_the_mind/

If I am not mistaken dark matter is theorized but not observed. This is the exact opposite of consciousness. We observe it, at least in ourselves but have no idea what it takes to make a collection of atoms conscious. Furthermore consciousness is obviously something that religion's god would want to exist.

Put another way, anything that has present day scientists baffled increase the chances that God did it compared to if it didn't exist. The more baffling the more it increases it. And it increases it still further if this baffling thing is something that God wants. Of course this increase isn't much since there is nothing at the moment that is so baffling that we doubt it will remain unexplained. But consciousness is the best candidate I know of.

That’s not right. Briefly, if the proposition ‘God exists’ is not in violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction or any metaphysical/nomological constraints, then ‘possibly, God exists’ is true.

For example, ‘a bachelor is married' is (logically) impossible because as the terms are defined the proposition violates LNC. Likewise, that ‘a physical object can exceed the speed of light’ is (nomologically) impossible, because as the terms are defined plus the accepted laws of nature render such an occurrence impossible. So, since the existence of God doesn’t entail a logical contradiction in terms, and since as defined God is transcendental and hence not constrained by the laws of nature, it follows that God’s existence is possible.

I don’t know any theists who would dispute the bolded, nor do I believe you’ll find any on this board who will.

Tame_deuces is talking about epistemic possibility, not logical or metaphysical possibility. He is also criticizing the argument for being invalid, not claiming that the conclusion is false.

You keep talking about theists like we're a homogenous group of bumbling idiots. I'm all for being slightly imprecise to keep the language simple and manageable, but for me it's distracting from your message.

Thanks for the link, I did not realise this was a frequentist vs Bayesian position (clearly I defaulted to a frequentist position, I am only slightly familiar with Bayesian probability). I'm not sure if RLK is presenting this as such, its a little unclear from his explanation in the other thread:

From this thread:
Perhaps I am just too ignorant of Bayesian probability, but I still cannot see why the unknown binary situation would be considered 50/50 other than for arbitrary reasons. Why is it not <unknown>?

In a similar sense (though this is when you have more information, but is still about a 'starting point'):
You suggested applying Bayesian prob to the 'starting point'. Why can you not apply it to the question and then you can start with a better value (in some sense)?

I'd say its about 50/50 he is.

You're confusing risk-neutral probability and real-world probability.

I thought I was pointing out t_d’s misrepresentation of WLC’s argument. Obviously, “therefore, it is probable that god exists,” doesn’t follow from, “It is not certain that god does not exist.” But that it does is t_d’s framing, not Craig’s.

LL!

Because Bayesian prob treats probability as statements about uncertainty rather than statements about a property of a thing, the statement "there are two options and I don't know which is more likely" is equivalent to "I distribute the probability equally (pending information)" which is equivalent (for a binary situation) to "the odds are 50/50".

For the God example, one could make a pretty decent argument that the prior probability of God existing is not 50/50. Such an argument might go like this:

The space of logically-possible entities is far greater than the space of actually-existent entities, therefore the prior probability that any logically-possible entity actually exists is much lower than 50/50.

However, as a general approach I prefer to grant as many premises to theists as possible, so I have no problem saying (for sake of argument) that the prior probability of God existing is 50/50.

I don't think collections of atoms are conscious. Rather, atoms form brain matter which in turn, produces cognitive functionality within an organism. We are not the only animal to have this. Chimpanzees and other animals have shown a concept of self. A sea slug probably doesn't. Again, my only point was that it isn't a great logical leap to assume consciousness is just a very complicated and advanced form of cognitive function.

This presupposes there is a god. If we knew there was a god (but did not know what caused something), then I would agree the chance that god did it would increase. But I see no reason to presuppose a god.

Are you honestly giving credence to the tired old suggestion that god resides in the ever shrinking pocket of human ignorance? If we had this conversation pre-Newton, we could say the same thing about what keeps the planets in their orbits. That was pretty baffling at the time too.

It is also something that a conscious believer would want. Again, you are not only presupposing there is a god, but also supposing it's something he wants. None of this is very convincing to me.

I think first cause is a better candidate, because there is a greater chance we will know the answer to it. I think consciousness will be fully explained in time. At least it has a better chance than first cause. Either way, the chance for god will remain alive for quite some time even if it's in the last bastion of human ignorance.

I'm not sure how to talk about the "prior" probability without resorting to something like your first, i.e that it would be less than 50/50. I guess I'm a little confused as what the prior probability takes into account, but "either it does or it doesn't" doesn't make a ton of sense to me.