Bayes Theorem & Joseph Smith's Seer Stone

[huckelberry]

I think that the phrase extraordinary evidence is so vague that I think it consists of rhetorical hot air. Aristotle Smith explained quite well I thought. You want evidence that is relevant to the question. Do we have visitors from another planet? People seeing UFO simply does not touch the question. Tracking space ships leaving Mars and coming to earth would be relevant evidence.

Good points as well. I agree, Aristotle has some great points. Evidence relevant to the question is necessary, of course, also. But if it is to match the claim, and since some claims really are out of the normal from what we expect, then evidence has to be out of the normal also otherwise it does not overcome the out of the normal, right? Like Jaynes so beautifully demonstrated with ESP. It's not going to be extraordinary per se if one claim of ESP works. The extraordinary part is going to be no more faking it like they have for centuries, and build a track record of actual ESP accomplishment for the next upcoming centuries to overcome the prior and background weakness their track record has given us. Now THAT would be extraordinary! But this is a must do if any credence will ever be given to the phenomena...notice, it doesn't have to be supernatural, just extraordinary.

Philo,

I am not sure what you mean by extraordinary evidence. Considering the esp problem. Science wants repeatability because repeatability shows that the mechanism or process involved is at least partially understood. To have a single instance of what appears to be esp is appearance only without understanding. To understand and be able to repeat is the evidence that counts for the problem. Is that extraordinary ? It might just as easily be called the ordinary normal kind of evidence.

[Aristotle Smith]

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[Gadianton]

Speaking of "extraordinary" vs. "ordinary" claims, the folks at Sic et Non recently provided an example.

In grade school I was sent to the principle's office because I had behaved badly. I must have been crying, because the very imposing Sister Mary Alberta said, "Save your tears. You'll need them when you're older." Of all the things I learned in school and have now forgotten, I'll never forget that bit of wisdom.

A nice story. I'll probably pilfer it and use it.

But did it happen? Yes, most likely. And your saying that it happened is evidence that it did.

(See how easy that is?)

And did I mention that Sister Alberta sprouted wings and flew to heaven? But she left me a Golden Spiral Notebook that eight of my classmates will attest to.

(Is it still easy?)

Lol! What an ass kicking!

"Lousy Lou" takes a crack at it:

Exactly no one, including Sister Alberta, sprouts wings. The primary attribute of God is love. And we can and should strive to manifest that attribute in our families, and in our association with others as we are trained to become more like God in every though and deed.

If you knew a thing about Roman Catholic beliefs you would realize that merely being sprinkled with some water does not make anyone fit for the Kingdom of God

I think his argument is that we can ignore supernatural claims 99% of the time because God's purpose for us to to love (it's getting really hot in the kitchen here) and so talking about verifying the supernatural misses the mark. It's nice that he has an a priori framework that allows him to dismiss everyone else's supernatural claims. Maybe he should tell his buddy that he should have made a movie about God's love rather than Witnesses?

It's derailed from there.

[Gadianton]

I have to add: it's psychologically fascinating that Midgley gave a pass on the golden spiral notebook, but angels sprouting wings? Not on his watch!

Of course, angels being depicted with wings is a Catholic practice, and that must have awakened a deep prejudice. I think it's a fascinating example of people are wired for visceral repulsion to the weird of ideas of others. Funny though, he'd reveal such a thing unintentionally while lecturing on Gemli's ignorance toward Catholicism.

[Philo Sofee]

Aristotle
In my mind all talk of prior probabilities is tantamount to pretending that assumptions are somehow more empirical and mathematical than they really are.

Every assumption whether empirical or not is exactly mathematical. Nothing in Bayes says priors are the end of the issue, they are the beginning.
My prior when it comes to an incredible claim (let alone a supernatural one) is skepticism. That means, by definition, I am under 50% believing the claim until I see some reason to change my mind. That 50% is a number of my doubt. If it's lower, Bayes makes us clarify how much lower in a realistic manner. If it's a coin toss, keep it at 50%. We all have priors on claims made everyday, but those are not the probabilities. They are simply based on what we know at the moment, before we ever see any evidence. Everyone has this and use it. Bayes makes our assumptions more explicit to ourselves.

A prior is subjective. So is every person on earth. We are not getting rid of subjectivity with Bayes, we are specifying it in order to try and control it, if we can. Having a subjective prior if it condemns Bayes, condemns every kind of thinking and reasoning all together. Bayes is not or has it never been about getting concrete, it is conditional probability on all that we know for now, fully aware we are fallible and therefore changeable, amended on updating our knowledge with more and better more accurate knowledge. That's how I grasp it at this point.

[Aristotle Smith]

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[Physics Guy]

Repeatability is important for ESP if by ESP we mean a claim that some kind of extra-sensory perception is an ability that some people can exercise at will or at least something that happens reasonably often. But this is only to say that if something is claimed to be repeatable, then that's a claim that should be demonstrated. It's not true at all that repeatability is the only basis for believing in anything.

As a kid I once fired an air rifle pellet and hit the very center of my target bottle cap, and I was really happy about that. I liked to tell people that I had done it that once. If you were inclined to doubt my claim that it happened even once, then sure, it would have been powerful evidence in support of my story, if I could have pinged a dozen bottle caps one after another right in front of you on demand. But in fact I couldn't have done it again to save my life. That was what was so cool about the story, that it was a wonderful fluke. I never pretended to be a great marksman. I just said it happened once, because it did. It was a kind of extraordinary claim, but not extremely so, and I think it would have been perfectly reasonable to believe my story just because I told it, though maybe not to have bet your life on my story being true.

The lottery ticket is an interesting example of claim and evidence. I think maybe what it really shows is that "extraordinary" is actually vague and unhelpful concept in this kind of discussion. Sagan's soundbite sounds good but it's not so clear that it actually means anything.

I don't think you can claim millions based on weak evidence. I'm pretty sure there's a hard-to-diddle track record of who bought each ticket, when and where, and that the tickets themselves are hard to counterfeit. The process is rigorous and robust against fraud, even though it inherently deals with events that are both regularly occurring (each month) and rare (one in ten million tickets). That may be interesting, but using the word "extraordinary" in talking about how lottery winnings are claimed is just an awkward and confusing way to talk about the process.

(In case this isn't clear, I'm not trying to rebut anything Aristotle has said, just chiming in with what I think is agreement.)

[huckelberry]

I think the concern for world view that Aristotle expressed could be illustrated by the fallowing.

I am able to see the question of Jesus being raised from the dead differently by adjusting the world view. I can honestly switch glasses to see the matter differently. One glass says the following. It is clear by the wonder of the world and our ability to interrelate with that wonder that there is a God and we have the ability to connect with an awareness of God. These are so basic that to deny God is extraordinary and would require extraordinary evidance to accept. It is clear that Jesus lived with a special connection to that God. His teachings strength, his power to connect with people,and his healing powers all show these. He specified something extraordinary was going to happen. These are foundations making resurrection a possibility. Review of historic records show that his followers report Jesus as raised from the dead back to the earliest years after his death. Those followers report he met and communicated with them. The evidence is clear, Jesus was raised from the dead.

I can switch glasses. There is two much pain and disease in the world to think an involved God is present at all. Jesus impressed people but it seems entirely possible stories grew up about him. For Jewish people first century Ad was a time of serious uncertainty so people looked for extraordinary solutions. The desire helped create stories. The combination of stories with that strong proposals made by Jesus created a belief system that people found desireable and inspiring. Christianity grew but that does not mean the stories are true.

Which glass I am warIng would radically change the numbers for a computation. I suppose one could run multiple versions of the computation. Maybe one could see something in the comparison. I am unsure of that however.

[malkie]

I think the concern for world view that Aristotle expressed could be illustrated by the fallowing.

I am able to see the question of Jesus being raised from the dead differently by adjusting the world view. I can honestly switch glasses to see the matter differently. One glass says the following. It is clear by the wonder of the world and our ability to interrelate with that wonder that there is a God and we have the ability to connect with an awareness of God. These are so basic that to deny God is extraordinary and would require extraordinary evidance to accept. It is clear that Jesus lived with a special connection to that God. His teachings strength, his power to connect with people,and his healing powers all show these. He specified something extraordinary was going to happen. These are foundations making resurrection a possibility. Review of historic records show that his followers report Jesus as raised from the dead back to the earliest years after his death. Those followers report he met and communicated with them. The evidence is clear, Jesus was raised from the dead.

I can switch glasses. There is two much pain and disease in the world to think an involved God is present at all. Jesus impressed people but it seems entirely possible stories grew up about him. For Jewish people first century Ad was a time of serious uncertainty so people looked for extraordinary solutions. The desire helped create stories. The combination of stories with that strong proposals made by Jesus created a belief system that people found desireable and inspiring. Christianity grew but that does not mean the stories are true.

Which glass I am warIng would radically change the numbers for a computation. I suppose one could run multiple versions of the computation. Maybe one could see something in the comparison. I am unsure of that however.

I like this explanation!

It would be more to my taste if you were to change "There is two much pain and disease" to "I see no reason". But perhaps that's a third pair of glasses.

[huckelberry]

Malkie, I suspect that some effort could devise more variations. Each one would probably alter the selection of relevant or irrelevant data to consider. There are people who actually think it is relevant to the question that there is no evidence of people in Rome being aware of this man rising from the dead. (until they heard stories later)