Assigning a number is just a means of quantifying that assessment. The assessment is the same thing, just a rough estimation of what that number is.

Except that there's no underlying numerical system for the levels of confidence that I have. If I look at a statement and my brain comes up with the word "plausible" to describe my level of confidence in it, I have no idea what number is being assigned if there's one being assigned. Furthermore, if I look at another situation and determine that it's "plausible" then if there is some underlying number that is being assigned to levels of confidence, there's no reason to think that the number for "plausible" in this situation is actually the same number as "plausible" for the previous situation.

You seem to have the construction backwards relative to me. You are assuming that there's an underlying number, and then my words attempt to approximate the number. But I see no reason that my assessments are number-driven.

Edit: Here's an example. I can say the following sentence: "I believe event X is unlikely, but I'm very sure that it happened." This can be a religious statement or it could be that I just walked by a roulette table and the last ten spins were black (because it says so on the chart). There are two different senses in which "probability" is being used here, and there's no conflict in my mind as to what I'm saying.

When you start talking about "you can't validate the scientific method using the scientific method" and how positions such as the OP's are "self-defeating"...you know what I'm saying.

Nobody needs to prove or disprove something 100% in order for it to have some sort of truth value. You keep holding everyone to the standard of absolute truth, but yet you live your life just fine without it.

When someone says "after sunrise tomorrow", you are supposed to understand what they mean. Don't be friggin nit and say "how can you validate that the sun will definitely come up tomorrow? you have to have faith to make that statement", etc.

In other words, if anybody told you the stories that Christianity talks about outside of Christianity, you would almost immediately dismiss them as something silly. The reason this happens is because we (subconsciously) assign probabilities to the LIKELIHOOD of such claims.

See? This is what I'm talking about! YOU DON'T NEED A NUMBER! Your brain has a rough idea about how likely something is. Acting like you need an exact number in order for your opponent's point to be valid is just side-stepping the real issue at hand (something you enjoy doing, whether you realize it or not).

Lest I be accused of ignoring you...

You've roundly ignored everything I wrote and informed me that religion tells us the what and the why. The only way I can possibly reply is by re-writing my entire last message. I don't see any reason to think that the ruminations of ancient civilizations, as filtered, transformed, interpreted, etc., down through the ages should be given special consideration. Why would I elevate their legends, stories, teachings, etc., above those of anyone else? Why would I take seriously anyone's claim that the stories are "true" as opposed to metaphor, exaggeration, myth, etc., when they tell of people rising from the dead or sticks turning into snakes?

I guess you can consider this rhetorical, since I've asked it before, seen your answer, and found it utterly and totally devoid of persuasive power.

I'm holding OP to his standard of truth. I'm not holding anyone else to anything. He claims to have zero faith, but upon examining his statements, he's clearly making faith statements. I'm not saying that his standard for truth is right or wrong or anything.

What I am saying that is if he is going to INSIST that other people play by these rigid epistemological rules, then it's only fair that other INSIST that he plays the same game.

Didn't I admit to this?

What I object to is the quantification of this process. It would not surprise me if there were non-transitive loops in my collection of assessments. (A is more likely than B, B is more likely than C, and C is more likely than A.) This sort of thing happens with preferences all the time (beef > chicken > fish > beef). This is all part of that non-rational decision-making that I had linked to before.

The underlying numerical system isn't real, it is a concept used to quantify that level of confidence. 0% - 100% level of confidence.

Exactly! The number would differ depending upon the level of confidence you have. The higher the level of confidence, the higher the number.

It is the other way around. There is no underlying number. You hear a claim, asses it, and then come to a conclusion as to what your level of confidence is regarding that claim. That hypothetical number and your level of confidence are generated simultaneously. The number is just a means of describing your level of confidence, not that you actively, consciously generate a specific number in your head.

Correct. The two differing probabilities refer to two frames of reference with respect to time. One is 'event X was unlikely to have happened before it did happen' while the other is 'event X is extremely likely to have already happened.' The probability is being used in the same sense, just applied at different frames of reference.

Where did I act as if you need an exact number?

I'm quite sure the "real issue at hand" is fully resolved by anyone who takes the time to think carefully about it. Nobody can "prove" the existence of God in the sense of being able to publish a peer-reviewed article about his existence. This is no different than the statement that nobody can "prove" that everything that is true is scientifically testable. That's just how it is.

See my statement about non-transitivity. The fact that it's not actually quantified in a strict sense means that you can run into such pathologies. The use of a % sign is also deceptive here.

Again, you're constructing it backwards. You're *ASSUMING* that there exists an underlying number, and any statement that comes forth is an attempt to approximate that number. I reject that this underlying quantitative system is actually real inside the human mind.

I think you're still backwards. Notice that you start with the claim "There is no underlying number." But then you refer to "that hypothetical number." You are asserting that "level of confidence" is associated to a number (hypothetical or not), and I'm saying that it's not.

On a scale of 0-100 of how confident I am about something, I can say that I'm "confident." I don't really know what the numbers mean.

It's not a time-bound problem. I would say that getting ten blacks in a row on a roulette wheel *IS* (present tense) unlikely. Even if I watch it happen, I would say that the event *IS* unlikely.

Unlikely events happen, and the fact that they do happen does not change their unlikeliness to happen (or their unlikeliness to have happened). So I can be fully confident that an unlikely event happened, and in no way compromise either the fact that the event is unlikely or compromise my confidence in the event. This is what I'm getting at with the example.

If you want to delve into this a little more deeply, when you say that an event *IS* unlikely, you're framing the particular event in some hypothetical envelope:

"It is unlikely that this particular roulette wheel will spin 10 blacks in a row in the next 10 spins."

If you frame it differently, you'll get a different result:

"It is likely that among all the roulette wheels spinning in the world, that at some point in time one of the wheels will have accumulated 10 blacks in a row."

The problem arises when the probability is not presented in some well-defined wrapper:

"What are the chances of getting 10 blacks in a row?"

Note, also, that in each of these problems, a prior knowledge of probabilities must be INSERTED in order to make sense of the situation. We can do this with a roulette wheel by assuming that the roulette wheel is a fair one (so that each number comes up with equal probability). We can even relax that a bit and say that they need only be "close" to fair.

This is not something that we can do with respect to metaphysical claims. Sure, you can try to do some sort of Bayesian thing with it, but as soon as you declare some well-defined system of counting and measuring the events, you reduce yourself to a study of the model of the thing and not the thing itself.

A common example of this is trying to come to some understanding of a stochastic process in real life. There really is no such thing. A stochastic process is some mathematical formalism. We can attempt to model real life situations with such a system, but this in no way means that the real life situation is actually stochastic, even if the models are accurate (to the level at which they are measured).

I will have to read the article a bit later, I don't have time for it at the moment. I skimmed through part of it, it looked interesting. Thanks for the link. Preference, however, is not the same as a level of confidence, especially since it it subject to (very quick) change depending upon exactly what aspect of the preference is being considered (ie. what you are currently thinking about - when we think about one thing, we often tend to forget about the others to which we are comparing it).

No, I already explained that the number is a description of your level of confidence. They are the same thing.

Emphasis on 'underlying.' If there is no actual number, but then you use one as a description, it is hypothetical.

Again, what this means is that the number describes your level of confidence. If you cannot compare your levels of confidence quantitatively, then you cannot say that you are more confident in one claim than you are in another. More/less are quantitative descriptions.

Again, they are a means of quantifying your levels of confidence. If you cannot quantify your levels of confidence, you cannot claim to be more confident in any claim over another. If this is the case (which we both know it is not) then all claims are equal to you in terms of reliability (in which case we can still ascribe a number, they would just all be the same and meaningless).

Ah, okay I misunderstood you then. The difference here, then, is what is being described. The first part of the statement, 'X is unlikely' describes the probability of the actual event happening, while the second part of the statement, 'but I am very sure that it happened' describes the probability that what you perceive to have happened agrees with what did actually happen.

You keep going around this notion, so I'll give another example of what I mean. My underlying point here is that I don't think confidence is stratified in the way that you're trying to force it to be.

Consider the two statements:

1) I'm confident that a quarter is an unbiased coin.
2) I'm confident that I won't die of a heart attack tonight.

Why is it that any two confidence statements are expected to be "compared" somehow? Do you believe it is true that there's some underlying linear system that will allow me to order EVERY SINGLE confidence statement I have in order of "levels of confidence"?

I'm saying that the number system that you've established (as percentages) does not effectively model how confidence is understood. Sometimes you can compare them (I'm confident that I will eat some turkey tomorrow > I'm confident I will eat an entire turkey tomorrow), but sometimes you can't. By forcing it into a linear model, you assume that every confidence statement can be compared with every other one. I just don't think this is the case.

I don't. Maybe He wants you to do so, because it will allow you to see the importance of your relationship with your wife, and thus you will have a happy long life. What do I know? I'm just a man. What I do know, however, is that He has instructed us not to commit adultery.

The aspect of God's mind that is already known is what's revealed, obviously. You brought up an easy example - adultery. The ten commandments prohibit the commission of adultery, so from there you can draw an inference.

You have your answer and it's not hard to understand. Please stop chiding needlessly.

I already went through this clearly enough and can only assume that the idea isn't simple enough for you. What isn't revealed is what's unknown.

That was what didn't make much sense? Come on.

Oh, of course not. You just happened to ignore all of the rest of it.

Persuading you was not the point of replying to you, it was courtesy like I mentioned. You asked the same question in two different paragraphs, one ending in universal and non-physical explanations and other in the nature of consciousness and happy living. If you don't like the reply, which I'm thinking you actually didn't read, that's something you must work out on your own.

Here, you're asking a different question. Special consideration over what? Elevate the stories (the word "stories" used in context of past references, I assume) and teachings above whose? Who is saying you should elevate them above others? Did I tell you to throw away your physics books and pick up the Qu'ran, Bible or Torah instead? Lest you forget, one side of the story tells us the why, while the other tells us the how. Ignoring one side of the story doesn't tell us the whole story.

Are you equally confident that both of these statements are accurate? Or are you more confident in one than the other? And how about this one:

3) I was abducted by aliens last night.

Are you equally as confident that that one is correct as you are that the others are correct?

I have no idea. I don't have any means of comparing the two.

You're getting side-tracked here. I do not deny that some statements can be compared with other statements. What I'm saying is that not every confidence statement is comparable with every other one.

I dont have a wife i dont believe in marriage. Adultery includes all sex outside of marriage afaik but this is kind of besides the point.

I dont get how you can say this and at the same time say "the mind of God is unknowable".

Do you agree you do know Gods mind when it comes to humans committing adultery ?

And my inference is that if it's known that God doesn't want us to commit adultery. Everyone who holds and professes this view speaks for and claims to know Gods mind and thoughts on humans committing adultery.

I dont mean to chide, it's just that your posts seem contradictory to me. We can let the conversation go though.

Of course you do! Compare the likelihood that you think 1) is true with the likelihood that you think 2) is true. You have already done this for both of them with 3), which is why you are less confident that it is true than the others

How?

I think that they are both more likely than 3 because I have as assumption that there do not exist aliens that abduct people. How does this particular assumption play into whether or not I'll have a heart attack?

By the way, you know that numbers are NOT necessary to make comparative statements, right?

What is this? You know very well I didn't mean "you" personally. You asked, "how do I know God doesn't want me to commit adultery." I was replying in context. We both could have said "one" instead of "you" and "me/I" - the meaning doesn't change.

Let me be as clear as possible. We "know" the mind of God to the extent that we know what His instructions for us are. It doesn't mean we understand God fully only because of what he tells us not to do, but instead allows us to have ideas on the "mind of God."

You're intent on saying that you need to understand a mind perfectly well before taking any instructions, and that's the reason why you won't care to look at any religion. That's a flaw in thinking. Well, put God aside for a moment. Good luck in the future with the rest of you interactions with other people, if you're going to understand their minds before doing anything.

As I already said, being given rules and instructions on prohibitions by God and inferring God's intents and reasons does not mean the following: "I know the mind of God" or "God's mind is knowable" - this second one meant to be taken as knowing full well. A hint or a bit of insight doesn't mean all is understood. You would think that I shouldn't have to point out something like that...

It's hard to imagine you can possibly still be confused on this matter after all of this.

Figure out which one is more likely to be wrong. Whichever is less likely to be wrong is the one in which you have a higher level of confidence. You may come to the conclusion that you are equally likely to be wrong about both, in which case you are equally confident about them both.

Exactly! You base the probabilities on how likely they are to be true. Since you do not believe that there are aliens who abduct people, you lose confidence in this claim, which makes it less probable. Your level of confidence is based upon your beliefs. The way it relates to the others is that you have beliefs pertaining to those statements, and you make similar decisions based upon those beliefs. With the heart attack, for instance, you make the assumption that you are in good enough health to not be in danger of having a heart attack. That, coupled with the belief that most people do not die from heart attacks every night increases your confidence that you will not die of a heart attack tonight, thereby increasing the probability that the claim is true. So based on these beliefs, you can assess how likely you think it is that each claim is true.

Or I might come to the conclusion that I really don't have a means with which to accomplish the task as you have laid it out!

Why not do it yourself? Lay out for me whatever method it is that you would use to determine which one you have more confidence in for yourself. Give me your "numbers." Do it in a way that you can convince me that this scheme of yours actually works for any two generic confidence statements.

No, I cannot. I can express some vague sense of confidence in various statements (this is more likely than that), but this is not the same thing as "how likely I think a claim is true." The "how likely" is a quantification scheme, which I keep telling you DOES NOT ACTUALLY EXIST. This mapping that goes from my collection of confidence claims to the interval [0,1] DOES NOT EXIST.

Edit: I also believe that it has been shown quite conclusively that people are TERRIBLE at estimating probabilities of events. So people may say such-and-such has a 90% chance of happening, but the real value could be significantly different. This puts your confidence scheme (using "how likely") in even worse shape because it shows that people don't actually think about their confidence of events numerically.

Just for fun, here's a graph that shows how people try to quantify words that express probability:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...ysis/fig18.gif

While this isn't precisely what I'm talking about here, it does highlight that people's quantitative sense of probability is all over the map even though we all have a sense of qualitative probability. If you care to read more, here's the link from which I obtained that graph:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...sis/art15.html

I skimmed over it, and it's basically part of a CIA analyst handbook, and it also talks about how we bias our confidence and estimations of events. It's not quite on topic, but it's close. Basically, when people are FORCED to assign numbers to their sense of probability, the result is often all over the place. It's an indirect reason that points to our basic inability to actually quantify our confidence levels appropriately.

This is true, and I think more accurately reflects how we actually make judgments/decisions. I do think I evaluate almost all my beliefs on some sort of probability, however in my head I think of it more in terms of: very likely, not so likely, could go either way, etc. Obviously assigning a particular percentage is not necessary.

5 days now since OP, thread has not been closed.
Is every mod of this forum on vacation, and the interns are running the show?