Yet another paper Mopologists will ignore...

[_CaliforniaKid]

That link is great, Chap. Thanks for looking out for those of us who don't speak mathese.

[_Kishkumen]

It takes little more than a simple thought experiment to realize the falsity of the old "absence of evidence" schtick. Let's say we want to determine if someone's been living in my house while I was away on vacation. We check the fridge, and none of the food has been moved. We check the phone and electric bills, and there are no charges for the period in question. We check the toilet paper supplies, and none has been used. We check for fingerprints, and find none. Would any reasonable person really conclude that none of these observations constitute evidence of absence? There are certain things we'd simply expect to see if someone had been living in my house, and if we don't see those things then it must be considered improbable (though not impossible) that someone was living there.

Yes, but you can't prove that the Three Nephites weren't there, can you, CK?

QED.

[_Tarski]

The idea that one can't "prove a negative" is also nonsense.

[_TAO]

Because of this, there is literally an infinite possible list of permutations and possibilities that can be overlooked; you can't search for something if you don't know what it looks like.

Yes, if only the Book of Mormon were to describe Nephite civilization in some way: their weapons, livestock, buildings, religious practices, system of government, racial origins, technology.......we have no idea what to even look for!

And it just goes without saying that there are infinite possibilities. Maybe the Nephites had airplanes. Or laser guns. Perhaps they domesticated dinosaurs, or used nuclear reactors to power their underwater cities. The possibilities are literally infinite!

Undoubtedly, but that still doesn't cover the infinite possible list of permutations and possibilities that can be overlooked. Because, we can never be sure we searched 'everywhere'. Until we search 'everywhere', we cannot be sure of 'evidence of absence.

In addition, if the translation was non-direct like some apologists suggest, it wouldn't be as simple as identifying weapons, livestock, buildings, religious practices, etc.

[_TAO]

Then we get to the epistemological issues (subjectivity of truth, pragmaticism, etc) and things get more messy from there. =P

There are some historians who swear up and down that there was an ancient civilization in Assyria, but isn't that really just a matter of opinion?

Just as much of an opinion as that there was not an ancient civilization in Assyria ;-).

[_TAO]

Stak

TAO (Welcome back to the board by the way)

Bayesian Reasoning is not the end all of reasoning.

It’s a big topic in modern Anglophone Philosophy, if Mormon Apologists want to offer a real defense of their faith, they need to engage it.

In addition, the argument in this paper is kind of an invalid argument form.

That is most certainly not the argument presented in the paper.

Only temporarily for this post, haha.

Undoubtedly they have to deal with it.

Stak.... mmm.... that was the argument pressed in the portion of the paper I read, and most certainly in the small section you posted. "Under plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence", right? I was showing this was not a good conclusion to make if you can't certify by fact what the 'evidence' will be in the first place. That is, if you can't absolutely determine what you are looking for, you can't use 'evidence of absence'.

[_TAO]

It takes little more than a simple thought experiment to realize the falsity of the old "absence of evidence" schtick. Let's say we want to determine if someone's been living in my house while I was away on vacation. We check the fridge, and none of the food has been moved. We check the phone and electric bills, and there are no charges for the period in question. We check the toilet paper supplies, and none has been used. We check for fingerprints, and find none. Would any reasonable person really conclude that none of these observations constitute evidence of absence? There are certain things we'd simply expect to see if someone had been living in my house, and if we don't see those things then it must be considered improbable (though not impossible) that someone was living there.

It seems patently obvious to me that the statement that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is false in any case where p can be expected to follow from q with a fairly high degree of probability. I think what Carl Sagan (the originator of this quote) meant to say was that "absence of proof is not proof of absence."

That's because your able to solidly determine what you are looking for, and, furthermore, in a highly limited amount of space. In other words, your example has rigid limitations on it. And still, it has exceptions... and the only reason you are eliminating the exceptions is with common sense (people aren't going to wear a fully body suit and bring in all the food they eat while you are gone). With the Book of Mormon, you can't determine what you are looking for (so you are going to have to try every possible interpretation), you have a much larger space to cover (all of North and South America), and... you have no standard people psychology to go off of (people migrating across the Atlantic isn't persay normal). This results in a much harder needle to pick out of a haystack.

When you limit the circumstances a lot, then, absence of evidence become evidence of absence. But not until then.

[_TAO]

[quote="Chap"]
The rules, he explains, are as follows:

1. You choose a gate and tell him which you have chosen, but he does not open it.
2. He then opens one of the other gates you did not choose, always selecting one that leads to hell (you get to see the flames and stuff ...).
3. You then have to choose which of the two unopened gates you want to go through ... how do you do it?

Common sense reasoning says you should just toss a coin, because one of the two unopened gates must lead to heaven, and it seems equally likely that either one of the two unopened gates could be the one you want.

BUT COMMON SENSE IS WRONG!

In fact it is TWICE as likely that the the unopened gate that you did NOT choose is the one that goes to heaven. So you should ALWAYS change the gate you choose to the previously unchosen gate that St Peter did not open. Of course it may still lead to hell ... but you can't win 'em all.</blockquote>

That's not very good when applied to real life, ya' know =P.

That assume several things. First, is that there is only one heaven/hell gate. That isn't a very real-life scenario. Second, your game includes the choice in it's scenario (you are guaranteed that one gate you choose is hell) meaning that you have an effect. Also not very real-life scenario. The best thing you can do is try to psychoanalyze St. Peter, in which you could learn something that might help you.

In normal scenarios, you don't get the limited choices (such as one heaven, two hell) or the effect in the choice (a gate that isn't yours is one of the hells) to help you.

[_Chap]

Undoubtedly, but that still doesn't cover the infinite possible list of permutations and possibilities that can be overlooked. Because, we can never be sure we searched 'everywhere'. Until we search 'everywhere', we cannot be sure of 'evidence of absence.

Bayesian decision making, the topic of this thread, is based on probability. It therefore makes no claim to be 'sure' of anything, only to make (where appropriate) decisions about the probability of something being the case. I have already pointed out that those with pre-exisiting testimonies to protect seem (if this board is anything to go be) not to be overly concerned about low, or even very low probabilities being assigned, to their favored hypothesis, so long as that probability is non-zero.

In other words - so long as the proposition 'Nephites lived in ancient America' cannot be shown to be as utterly and completely false, at all times and in all places as the proposition 'There is a largest prime number, such that there is no other prime number greater than that number', then they are secure in their faith. That works only for those with pre-existing faith commitments of course: low probability of the historical claims of the Book of Mormon being true would probably (if known) be an effective turn-off for most uncommitted investigators.

In addition, if the translation was non-direct like some apologists suggest, it wouldn't be as simple as identifying weapons, livestock, buildings, religious practices, etc.

I have come to suspect from such evidence as is accessible to me that while the beliefs of some LDS apologists on matters such as the translation of the Book of Mormon may be flexible to the point of being almost infinitely adaptable in order to dodge any possible critical attack, ordinary LDS and those who represent them in the formal leadership think in rather more, shall we say epistemologically committed ways.

But leaving that point aside: just how non-direct would a translation have to be so that it would be unreasonable to say that the book claims as a minimum that a large civilization existed somewhere in the Americas for centuries, at first Judaic in its religion, and Hebrew in its cultural origins, and then (after the visit of Jesus to the Nephites in person) in very large proportion Christian? If the translation was so indirect as to mislead us on that core fact, would it be a translation at all?

If TAO is LDS, I should like to hear what his idea of the minimum historic content of the Book of Mormon might be.

[_Chap]

The rules, he explains, are as follows:

1. You choose a gate and tell him which you have chosen, but he does not open it.
2. He then opens one of the other gates you did not choose, always selecting one that leads to hell (you get to see the flames and stuff ...).
3. You then have to choose which of the two unopened gates you want to go through ... how do you do it?

Common sense reasoning says you should just toss a coin, because one of the two unopened gates must lead to heaven, and it seems equally likely that either one of the two unopened gates could be the one you want.

BUT COMMON SENSE IS WRONG!

In fact it is TWICE as likely that the the unopened gate that you did NOT choose is the one that goes to heaven. So you should ALWAYS change the gate you choose to the previously unchosen gate that St Peter did not open. Of course it may still lead to hell ... but you can't win 'em all.

That's not very good when applied to real life, ya' know =P.

That assume several things. First, is that there is only one heaven/hell gate. That isn't a very real-life scenario. Second, your game includes the choice in it's scenario (you are guaranteed that one gate you choose is hell) meaning that you have an effect. Also not very real-life scenario. The best thing you can do is try to psychoanalyze St. Peter, in which you could learn something that might help you.

In normal scenarios, you don't get the limited choices (such as one heaven, two hell) or the effect in the choice (a gate that isn't yours is one of the hells) to help you.

I have fixed the quotes for you.

From the beginning of my post I think it was perfectly clear that I was making a joke in saying that Bayesian reasoning might be necessary to your salvation:

I wonder if there are any other posters here who are wondering what the hell Bayesian reasoning really IS? Or worse perhaps, who are thinking to themselves 'Each time I look it up I understand, then I forget. Do I have to go through the math again, or just admit I am too dumb?'.

Well, there is hope! But first, why should you care about Bayesian reasoning? After all, it is not necessary to your salvation, is it? Well it might be. Here is an example (sorry, but this is not a very mormonized example)

After you die, you arrive in front of St Peter, who has to make the choice as to where you go. However, he has a new game that enables you to play a role in the choice! There are three gates, numbered 1, 2 and 3. One gate leads to heaven, the other two to hell. ....

Did you not understand that?