The survey found 70% of dogs nice and 30% of an unknown temperament.

What do we assume for the 30% unknown? We have no evidence either way so the best assumption statistically is 50% of them are mean. IE we don’t know the distribution so we assume the statistically most likely distribution of 50%/50%

You have not read (or have misunderstood) the relevant parts of this thread.

I'd say that it depends on the domain under consideration, and so evidence is a part of such things. — Moliere

- It depends how you do the math, I am starting with a question like ‘is the dog nice?’ which has no evidence built into it, so I start 50% / 50%
- then as a separate step, I allow for any evidence I had about dogs:
- say I had a survey saying 70% of dogs are nice, 30% are unknown temperament
- then I have 50% + 50% x 70% = 85% dogs are nice
- the math works the other way round too. Starting with the survey we know 70% of dogs are nice, that just leaves the 30% unknown of which we assume half to be nice IE:
-70% + 30% x 50% = 85%

‘the desk is brown?’ - I know brown is one of (say) 50 colours so evidence of the distribution of the answer is in the question IE everyone would pick 1/50=2% as the answer.

Some questions that don’t have evidence baked in:

‘Is there a creator god?’
‘Is the dog nice?’
‘Is the frog fat?’

So questions can be about existence or boolean valued properties only. All of these types of questions are statistically best answered 50% / 50%.

I see your point but you are picking questions with evidence built into the question:

- so you ask the question ‘is the desk brown?’
- so we already know the probability distribution of brown / all the other colours is not normal
- so the question ‘is the desk brown?’ we already have evidence for
- so it is not in the set of questions for which we have no evidence for
- so we can’t assign 50% / 50% as an outcome

In contrast the question ‘is there a creator?’ has no in built evidence so the 50% / 50% is the statistically correct answer.

But we have omitted no evidence at all yet so we don’t know what the distribution is but we can still pick the statistically most likely distribution which is normal.

- Ok accepted we have limited evidence on answers to yes/no questions; but we can still pick ‘the best answer’ in a statistical sense:
- Do we go for the midpoint on a normal probability distribution or one of the end points?
- We will be more correct in a statistical sense if we pick the midpoint of normal distribution - 50%

f I know nothing about the proposition, then I cannot assign a probability value to it. — Moliere

- You can. A little bit of common sense and statistics tells us, on average, the answer to yes/no questions (for which nothing else is known) is 50% yes, 50% no.

Again, why? Where is this 60% number coming from? Why not 30%? Or 0%? Or 100%? Or 75%? — Moliere

- The actual % I’m using are rather arbitrary; just concentrating on the general method at this point, will refine the estimates as I learn more science and philosophy.

for some proposition 1 has a 0% probability of being true, and for some it has a 100% probability of being true. — Moliere

- Sure people can pick a number like 0% or 100% based on intuition or faith, but that’s not very scientific. Prefer a meta-analysis using probability and science.

But we know nothing about God, so we cannot assign a probability to his existence — Moliere

- By his work he shall be known to us.

What I did was a meta-analysis including fact/science and reason/logic (I included the prime mover as a theoretical argument) for a science question.

The question I asked was in the realm of science rather than faith: ‘was there a creator of the universe’- that is not a faith question - did I mention religion anywhere in my post?

God has not yet had time to clear up the confusion:

There are about 10^24 star systems in the universe but there have only been 4x10^20 milliseconds since the Big Bang.

That gives god the grand total of 0.0004 milliseconds to spend checking out each star system...

Statistics estimates nature very well; one example is the bell curve. Statistics I thought was also the essence of QM??

The question I posed, the answer is unknowable in a boolean sense would you not agree?

But I’d like an answer to the question: statistics and probability can at least give an approximate answer. There is no other approach.

Well, the universe was either created by a rabbit or it wasn't, so 50% chance rabbit, 50% not rabbit. — Hanover

You are not doing the math correct, I get:

96.25% chance of an abstract creator for universe
0.0009625% chance of a Rabbit creator for universe

The calculation is the same until the end when we allow for an extra peice of evidence against the Rabbit:

Rabbit lacking intelligence and capabilities to build universe 99.999%
Chance Rabbit built universe: 96.25% x 0.0001% = 0.0009625%
(Note same additional predicate cannot be applied to abstract creator as we know nothing about abstract creator’s intelligence and capabilities).

The problem with this complex math equation you've devised is that the chance of it being random chance is also 75% — Hanover

You have not read all my math; I do both calculations; you must of just read the start. The chance of the universe being random was calculated as 3.75%

Here is a simpler example so you get the math:

It helps if you think about the probability space as a box. Let’s start with the proposition ‘the dog is nice’. Let’s assume you know nothing about this or any dog then the chance of the dog being nice is 50%. So imagine the probability space cut 50% / 50% ‘dog is nice’ / ‘dog is nasty’.

Now we can add a peice of evidence FOR the proposition. The owner says the dog is nice and we trust him 75%. So we already know that 50% of dogs are nice what about the 50% of dogs unknown? Well we can multiply that 50% by 75% and add it to the 50% we already had for dog is nice: 50% + 50% x 75% = 87.5%. Think of the original 50/50 probability space growing to 87.5/12.5 ‘dog is nice’ / ‘dog is nasty’.

So above is how you compute ‘evidence FOR’. ‘Evidence AGAINST’ is a different calculation:

Starting with dog is nice 50%
Now add a piece of evidence AGAINST: ‘the dog bit me’. 90% chance dog is nasty so that’s a 10% chance the dog is nice. So we take 50% x 10% = 5% chance dog is nice.

NOTICE THE CACULATION IS DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON WHETHER THE EVIDENCE IS FOR OR AGAINST THE PROPOSITION.

Dude you can’t add...

Yes sorry I’ve tried to explain the math better below (I’ve used different % numbers so the derivation is hopefully clearer).

Proposition 1 - There was a creator god

Assume 50% probability true to start with

Big Bang is evidence for creator at 60% probability so combining probabilities:

50% + 50% x 60% = 80%

Fine tuning is evidence for the creator 75% probability so:

80% + 20% x 75% = 95%

Prime mover is evidence for the creator 25% probability so:

95% + 5% x 25% = 96.25% chance of a creator god is

To double check, I’ve done the inverse proposition below:

Proposition 2 - there was not a creator god

Assume 50% probability true to start with

Big Bang is evidence against no creator 40% probability so combining probabilities:

50% x 40% = 20%


Fine tuning is evidence against no creator 25% probability so:

20% x 25% = 5%

Prime mover is evidence against no creator 75% probability so:

5% x 75% = 3.75% chance of no creator god

I need an answer to this question so I use the only tools at my disposal. I know these tools are not entirely satisfactory: science gives provisional answers, probability even more so but the pure logic tool failed to give an answer for 1000s of years and there are no other tools to use.

I fail to appreciate your objections. We can have absolute knowledge of abstract concepts only (eg logic and maths); we can never have absolute knowledge of the physical world.

So we can discuss the physical world as much as we like but we will never reach any conclusions without employing probability.

Thats rather defeatist attitude. Do you not keep abreast of science?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

“An explanation that posits the existence of objects without explaining where the objects came from is not complete.”
“Does there need to be an explanation? That's what needs to be justified isn't it?”

So your argument for the creation of the universe was a random arrangement of particles formed into the critical mass needed to trigger the Big Bang? The observable universe is 10^53 kg of particles that’s awful lot. If random formation was the cause we should expect to be living in a much smaller universe.

Then the fact that the universe appears fine tuned for life requires, under your explanation, not only a statistically unlikely random arrangement of matter but also a fortuitous set of physical laws and constants; which all of science tell us are time and space invariant.

An explanation that posits the existence of objects without explaining where the objects came from is not complete.

I’d also argue if we give any of these objects a mind then it has an infinite personal history which is impossible.

In addition, those objects require motion to achieve anything useful. What imparted the first motion to be one of these objects?

You are still invoking infinity in the time dimension when talking about the physical universe; it leads to paradoxical problems like everything that can exist must of existed and we should all be Bolzman brains...

“Things could’ve always been” - what created the things then? How can they exist at all? Way back in time, each thing must of had a cause or are you implying an infinitely long history of cause and effect? Infinity is a mathematical not physical concept so invoking it when discussing the universe is questionable.

the act of creation of TIME does not require TIME.

Why is there anything at all instead of just nothingness? For anything to exist at all, causality must of been violated (unmoved mover) and causality is a feature of time.

So assuming time was created, whilst giving another paradox, it does move the discussion forward and it has the advantage that this view is compatibile with Big Bang cosmology.

But God existing within time and space gives us the old regression problem of who created time and space (if it were not god)?

Yes sorry, my original question would of been better expressed as: Is god Everlasting (within time) or Timeless (outside of time)

I can’t make sense of the mainstream view that god is everlasting - For god to be within time makes no sense - who then created time? Or alternatively a god that extends forever in both time directions seems an impossibility...