Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

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Marcus
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Marcus »


So I just don't see how one can dismiss something just because one has no reason to accept it, without dismissing it a priori.
I was going to say DS didn’t say he had “no reason,” he said he had “no good reason,” implying he had considered the reasons, but I see he already explained that very well above.
If I assign something a low Bayesian prior probability, that's dismissing it from the outset.
Again, this may just be a problem of terminology, but if I dismiss something from the outset, it gets assigned a prior equal to 0, or something so close to 0 as to be indistinguishable from 0 (in the sense that in the absence of absolutely complete knowledge technically one wouldn’t assign a p=0). That is qualitatively different than just a “low” prior.
Last edited by Marcus on Wed May 18, 2022 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Physics Guy »

Perhaps I should clarify that I am not necessarily opposed to dismissing things from the outset. Life is too short to take everything seriously just because it could in principle be true. I just think that one should admit that this is all one is doing, and not try to claim moral or epistemological high ground.

Priors are by definition what you set before you consider evidence. The ability to set low or high prior probabilities is a practically valuable feature of Bayesian inference. You're allowed to do this. You just have to acknowledge that this is what you are doing, and not confuse a low probability that is due to a low prior with one that is inferred from evidence. If you feel that your priors are only reasonable, you are entitled to have and express that feeling; but a personal feeling it remains. If you want it to be more than that, you need to bring in some evidence.

You can't have cake and eat it, too. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence—for any value of "that", including skeptical ones.
Last edited by Physics Guy on Wed May 18, 2022 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Marcus »

DS has given several thorough responses about his evaluation of the concept. He’s not claiming any high ground, moral, epistemological, or otherwise.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

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I don't see how "no good reason" differs significantly from "no reason" here.

If the evidence lowers something's prior probability significantly then that is to say that there is good reason to reject the something. If the evidence raises the prior probability then there is good reason, instead, to accept it. Merely not having good reason to accept, as opposed to having good reason to reject, can only mean to me that the evidence is not clear one way or the other. In that case the only way to have a low posterior probability is to have a low prior probability.

That means dismissing things from the outset—simply assuming, before even considering evidence, that their probability should a priori be low.

One can do that. I think we generally have to do that. That doesn't mean we're not doing it. If someone like Kishkumen says, "You're just dismissing this from the outset", then the alternatives are either to present the positive reasons why you are dismissing it or to admit, Yeah, I'm dismissing it from the outset.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Kishkumen »

dastardly stem wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 1:36 pm
Could not agree more here, Rivendale. I'm surprised by what they jumped on to here. Those who think there's a God or a spirit world, tend to think those who don't see good reason for those are objecting from the outset. That certainly hasn't been my point. Its after much consideration for me, and that after I had been trained for decades to think that the imagined world was real. That's the opposite from at the outset.

We don't imagine an alien and think its really real. We don't imagine a bigfoot and think it's really real...that is if we're going to be rational beings. We need good reason to think they are real. To think they are real on bad reasons is just plain irrationality. That's no different for God or a spirit world, as I see it. They may complain that's positivism or scientism. I disagree and call it rational to think we ought to rely on what is more probable in our questions.
What is your definition of rational? You keep using that word, but you never define what you mean. It looks like anything that does not fall within the range of evidence you accept as evidence is irrational. I would love to know what your definition of rational is.

I can think of reasons to discount Big Foot and Nessie. I can think of good reasons to discount the antiquity of the Book of Mormon. On the other hand, human experience of interaction with other sentient entities is so pervasive that I have a difficult time dismissing it. I may have no clear idea of what is going on there, but I don’t put it in the same box as Nessie and Big Foot.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by dastardly stem »

Physics Guy wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 2:12 pm
I don't see how "no good reason" differs significantly from "no reason" here.

If the evidence lowers something's prior probability significantly then that is to say that there is good reason to reject the something. If the evidence raises the prior probability then there is good reason, instead, to accept it. Merely not having good reason to accept, as opposed to having good reason to reject, can only mean to me that the evidence is not clear one way or the other. In that case the only way to have a low posterior probability is to have a low prior probability.

That means dismissing things from the outset—simply assuming, before even considering evidence, that their probability should a priori be low.

One can do that. I think we generally have to do that. That doesn't mean we're not doing it. If someone like Kishkumen says, "You're just dismissing this from the outset", then the alternatives are either to present the positive reasons why you are dismissing it or to admit, Yeah, I'm dismissing it from the outset.
Then the disagreement is simply focused on terminology. I see your reasoning, and disagree calling it "from the outset" makes a ton of sense. As I said, from the outset I had already accepted a spirit world. I even treated all my dreaming and imagining experience as evidence for that spirit world. I'd call those spiritual experiences. It wasn't until I accepted, "OMG we're all just imagining that which we've been trained to imagine..." did I start to question that world. Calling my current position of needing better evidence to verify a spirit world, as dismissing it from the outset, seems silly in such a context, it seems to me. And that's why I disagreed with that characterization.

But, I see what you're saying. It's fine, if in a current discussion on it, I maintain my previously devised conclusion that there is no good reason to think there is a spirit world as "dismissing it from the outset" because I, prior to the discussion, have already determined there probably isn't a spirit world, fine. I hear ya. I just find it a silly way to characterize this.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Kishkumen »

So much is contained in that little qualifying word “just.”
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Marcus »

That means dismissing things from the outset—simply assuming, before even considering evidence, that their probability should a priori be low.
And few in this discussion are dismissing anything from the outset, so it becomes a moot point, definitional differences aside.
I don't see how "no good reason" differs significantly from "no reason" here.
Really?
DS wrote: To be clear, from the outset, I actually accepted a spirit world. It's what my parents taught me since I was aware of anything. I'm here after decades of accepting a spirit world for me. A spirit world really must have been in my mind given I loved my parents and trusted them, when I was young. Then as I grew, I too had spiritual experience. Now its far more likely that I dreamed and imagined a different world, as I see it, and called that a spirit world. I haven't said there is no possibility for a spirit world even today. I simply disagree that we have good reason to think there is such a world.
Maybe too much was left out of this story, which is understandable given it’s a common process for many here, and has been detailed in many other threads. When I made the same transition I put considerable effort into working through my analysis. There was a significant difference for me between the conclusion of “no good reason” and “no reason.” The implication of “no reason” implies no effort put into analyzing the reason, which was not the case. Given the decades spent being indoctrinated into this position, it’s very difficult to simply dismiss from the outset what was bred into one. Others have come to other conclusions, obviously.
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by Marcus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 2:18 pm
On the other hand, human experience of interaction with other sentient entities is so pervasive that I have a difficult time dismissing it. I may have no clear idea of what is going on there, but I don’t put it in the same box as Nessie and Big Foot.
Could you clarify who you are referring to when you say “other sentient entities” ?
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Re: Missing Scroll Theory & Catalyst Theory in light of Mormonism Live

Post by dastardly stem »

Kishkumen wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 2:18 pm


What is your definition of rational? You keep using that word, but you never define what you mean. It looks like anything that does not fall within the range of evidence you accept as evidence is irrational. I would love to know what your definition of rational is.

I can think of reasons to discount Big Foot and Nessie. I can think of good reasons to discount the antiquity of the Book of Mormon. On the other hand, human experience of interaction with other sentient entities is so pervasive that I have a difficult time dismissing it. I may have no clear idea of what is going on there, but I don’t put it in the same box as Nessie and Big Foot.
I'll quote Steven Pinker from his book Rationality:
As with most words in common usage, no definition can stipulate its meaning exactly, and the dictionary just leads us in a circle: most define rational as "having reasons," but reason itself comes from the Latin ration-, often defined as "reason".
A definition that is more or less faithful to the way the word is used is "the ability to use the knowledge to attain goals." Knowledge in turn is standardly defined as "justified true belief." We would not credit someone with being rational if they acted on beliefs that were known to be false, such as looking for their key sin a place they knew the keys could not be, or if those beliefs could not be justified--if they came, say, from a drug-induced vision or a hallucinated voice rather than observation of the world or inference from some other true belief.
--Rationality pg 36

Earlier, in hopes to explain the use further, he says:
Just as citizens should grasp the basics of history, science, and the written word, they should command the intellectual tools of sound reasoning. The include logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, the optimal ways to adjust our beliefs and commit to decisions with uncertain evidence, and the yardsticks for making rational choices alone and with others. These tools of reasoning are indispensable in avoiding folly in our personal lives and public policies. They help calibrate risky choices, evaluate dubious claims, understand baffling paradoxes, and gain insight into life's vicissitudes and tragedies.
Preface, XIV
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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