If Smith is unjustifed then how can he have knowledge based on the JTB theory which explicitly requires justification? — TheMadFool

As per the comment of mine you quoted, he does not. If I believe when I roll a die the number will be 6 because I had a dream about it, and it turns out 6, that is not spooky knowledge. It is a mere accident.

I think Gettier's definition of justified belief was Plato's idea of "being able to give account". By that definition, Smith is justified and has knowledge. He then applies a different definition of knowledge (a more sensible one), and implicitly a different definition of justified belief, to say Smith does not have knowledge. He is inconsistent imo.

Reason allows to determine which outcome is best, but free will allows to choose between our voice of reason and other voices like the appetite. — Samuel Lacrampe

I think, in a choice, this is a false dichotomy. All means and ends can (but not necessarily will) form part of the choice. The fact that there are competing motives is part of a more difficult choice. If I steal, I will eat, but if I don't, I will be thought good.

E.g. sometimes my reason tells me not to drink too much because I will pay for it tomorrow, and yet I can and have decided in the past to continue drinking; which resulted in a painful yet unsurprising hangover. — Samuel Lacrampe

Ha! You lush! There's two factors here, both pertinent but I think only one of which you meant to touch on.

First is the disparity between language and mechanics. You might choose to get drunk, but I imagine that, more often, like me your decision to open the next bottle of wine has been largely impacted by the preceding bottle(s) of wine, i.e. you have compromised your reason. The choice is not made once but repeatedly. This is true of a lot of choices. My choosing to work is a daily occurrence.

The second is that I find philosophers wont to overestimate the role of reason in just about everything. Because reason is what they do, they see it as having a primacy it does not. Now we are talking about an endeavour that involves reasoning but it doesn't follow that every input has to be reasoned. You could choose between quite unreasonable options: shall I buy something for the sex dungeon or shall I tattoo my face?

As above, reasonable and unreasonable, selfless and selfish, good and bad options can be weighed up and selected. Which I choose will depend on my circumstances. If I am stressed, I am much more likely to choose selfish over selfless, for instance. The factors of the situation resolve the factors of the outcomes, and I am that resolver.

There are times when they do not, when we cannot resolve our options down to one, and then the result itself may be irrational, such as anger ir inaction.

Yes. Rights in principle cannot conflict; if they seem to, at least one claim of rights is incorrect. — Pfhorrest

Now there's the dogmatism of objectivity I was looking for!

That sounds, again, like a weird use of “objective” to me; maybe you mean it as a synonym for “absolute” again? — Pfhorrest

No, the opposite. Abortion may be right for Anna, wrong for Barbara. As I went on to say, though, in the bit after what you quoted, I find the compatibilism pointless myself.

Mathematical truths are of a different kind to claims about the world. They are logical truths, which depend only on the assigned meanings of the words used in them, the axioms of the logical system as you say, which are arbitrary; we could easily assign them differently. — Pfhorrest

Exactly. They depend on systems, and in that sense are relative. Morality also depends on systems (moral codes), and systemisation can crop up where it ought (language) and where it ought not: systemic Western bias in history, system sexism in medicine, etc. The truths espoused are relative to those systems.

I'm not a truth relativist btw, more a sceptical relativist. The method is useful for analysing structures of truth though (structuralism).

Although, I haven’t seen many police officers with face tattoos :lol: — Pinprick

Not a bad idea for the racist murderers among them though...

(I think there are some necessary moral truths, obligations, but they're rather vacuous without taking into account some contingencies: just like the only necessary descriptive truths are logical truths that only mean anything non-vacuous in terms of the contingent assignment of meaning to words, so too the only moral obligations regard rights, which I construe as all about property, and so depend entirely upon the contingent assignment of ownership). — Pfhorrest

Let me put this way, if a scenario has the rights of one group of people, say trans women, at odds with the rights of another, say cis women, do you believe there is an objective moral truth that can resolve or override the conflict? These are the sorts of situations where I can genuinely see the argument from both sides, recognise that the good of one is the bad of the other. Any objective moral truth that cannot decide or override the conflict at least in principle doesn't seem to have much business calling itself objective.

Non-contingent moralities are generally called "absolute" rather than just "objective". — Pfhorrest

For sure, relativism is not the opposite of objectivity insofar as an anti-objectivist is not necessarily a relativist and a anti-relativist is not necessarily an objectivist. Even in moral relativism a thing can be considered objectively true for that person/culture and objectively false for others though, again, it seems to me you can do away with the objectivity altogether.

I think there's a myth, exacerbated by nihilists, that the baby is thrown out with the bathwater with moral relativism, which fails to observe that we have more in common than distinguishes us. My view is that we all have a self-rewarding drive toward altruism in our genetic inheritance, albeit competing with selfish drives. We all have the capacity for empathy, an empathy that is amenable to socialisation in what seems to be a staggeringly flexible manner. The application of these capacities beyond the environment they were selected for is the basis of moral philosophy: how to behave in a giant social group of mostly strangers. We had no need of objective morality when everyone we met was a relative or a neighbour. I feel we do have a duty of moral consideration now, and the illusion of an objective morality might have expediency. But that doesn't make it true.

For a descriptive analogy, relativism would hold that inside the headquarters of the Flat Earth Society, the entire world is flat, because that's what people there believe. — Pfhorrest

I expect that you know that isn't true. There is a truth relativism, but it doesn't concern facts like the shape of the Earth, rather how systems of truth can be constructed differently with different truth values for the same questions. It isn't nearly as controversial as absolutists make out. For instance, all mathematical truths are true with respect to a mathematical framework: choice of axioms. Different axioms yield different outcomes of truth values. Most of us are pretty comfortable with this.

There are some nutjob extremists though tbf.

Funny. The first thing I think of when I read this:

It seems obvious that certain fashion choices are strongly associated with gangs, or “thug” personality types; facial tattoos, bandannas, loud colored clothing, certain hairstyles, etc. — Pinprick

is not some guy whose trousers are falling down, more like ripped skinhead neo-Nazis, or Hell's Angels, or even punks. Oh, and American police officers.

For morally, it roughly means that everything is permissible until it can be shown to hurt someone, and the more and more such hedonic experiences we account for, the narrower and narrower the range of still-permissible options remaining, closing in on (but never reaching) the correct answer to the question of what we should do. — Pfhorrest

I think this answers my other question. In effect, your idea of objective moral truths are prohibitive and fundamental rather than extensive. (One need not, for instance, wonder if it is okay to sing Dennis Leary songs in church; it is sufficient to know that, since it harms no one, it is permissible.)

So far this is hedonistic and liberal, as you say, but consistent with the idea of contingent moral truths rather than traditional ideas of objective morality. For instance, I am not offended by being called a mzungu in East Africa, but I know other racial slurs against other people in other places is bad. That this is logical by your nominally objective morality and yet completely consistent with moral relativism makes me wonder what is so objective about your objective morality.

Is it the case that you believe that complex and seemingly contingent moral truths reduce to simpler truths, objective in themselves, but manifest differently in different contexts? "Do no harm" does seem to fit this bill, with "harm" being highly contingent. What about "Do no harm to animals?" or "Do no harm to the planet?" Morality is expanding beyond consequences for humans.

It's not direct evidence, no, but it is a +1 for astronomical estimates of masses, i.e. the gravitational lensing is not consistent with heavier-than-expected baryonic galaxies. It also suggests that dark matter is not a very light WIMP like a neutrino. — Kenosha Kid

Correction to above. I'm not doing good posting today.

I appreciate there was nothing in this to justify my earlier suggestion of caution.

The rotational velocities of galaxies suggest that the total mass at these distances is higher than the diminished luminosity would suggest, i.e. the distribution of density with increasing radius is not falling off correctly.

The bullet cluster and others appear to have centres of masses not coincident with the centre of luminous mass, again suggesting that the true mass is concentrated in a different way.

Fundamentally then dark matter is the difference between cosmological predictions and astronomical observations, both fields being ones where changes of knowledge are rapid. (It wasn't that long ago that we discovered that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate, and that black holes not only exist but are abundant.)

There are lots of candidate particles: it may be none, one or several of them, so long as they are gravitational and weakly electromagnetic (dark).

Modified gravity theories note and encode the relationships between baryonic (visible) mass distributions and the purported dark matter distributions necessary to explain the former's velocities. (These theories are like the social psychologists of cosmology: their raison d'etre is sound, but their MO is to claim every DM victory for themselves.) These relationships aren't explicable in DM terms because DM is not that well defined. They are more explicable in modified gravity terms, though.

That's not to say particular modified gravity theories are any more believable, but they do allow for the possibility that cosmological models of the future may yield different results from today, something that can be expected in rapidly changing fields. A general class of modified gravity theories is scalar gravity theories that predict a new gravitational field that would impact lensing observations. Such a field is present in the leading modified gravity theory which was shown to be consistent with the bullet cluster observations when one takes into account the three distinct centres of mass of the binary cluster system. That is, it states that the very relationship between baryonic and purported dark matter in rotational velocity observations is what knocks off the centre of mass in a three-mass system (the third mass being the mass of gas ripped from one cluster by another).

Don’t we now have direct confirmation of dark matter as a stuff in the universe (WIMPs specifically) from the Bullet Cluster observation? — Pfhorrest

It's not direct evidence, no, but it is a +1 for astronomical estimates of masses, i.e. the gravitational lensing is not consistent with heavier-than-expected galaxies. It also suggests that dark matter is not a very light WIMP like a neutrino.

This line suggests you’re imagining a confirmationist epistemology, which is problematic, especially since the question at hand is about justification of belief. — Pfhorrest

It's within a falsification framework. If a theory A predicts that B must occur, and B occurs, belief in the efficacy of A is strengthened. It is not confirmed, but is presumed good pending later falsification.

Were the only field predicted the successful one, the theory would be hailed as a success. The bonus undetected field C is the worry. C itself is not falsifiable, so full attempts to falsify the theory are not possible. (Compare to a theory that predicts two detectable fields but only one is found.)

Thanks Andrew, I've obviously conflated Gettier with his critics. Also obviously, I agree with those critics. It is fundamentally a belief based on ignorance, and is unjustified on those grounds.

Our folk understanding of knowledge doesn’t track with the kind of “justification” Gettier claims JTB claims Smith has. I think on our folk understanding, Smith’s belief was not adequately justified, and that is why his belief does not conform to our folk concept of knowledge. JTB thus stands as a sound analysis of our folk concept of knowledge. — Pfhorrest

Yes, and perhaps a folk understanding of justification too, not obviously applicable to epistemology. His justification is of the moral sort: "Well, how did I know my colleague had fabricated all of the data?!?," i.e. treats beliefs based on ignorance or lies as equally justified as beliefs based on experience and facts. Justification is something I expect to be based on more, such as waiting for the facts to come in, getting a fuller picture, weighing and discounting other possibilities.

The question itself highlights the possibility that the employer might change their mind. Did Smith consider this and dismiss it? If so, was he justified? If not, does that make it any more justified?

An undetected field doesn't seem like a ghost in the water tank. We've detected plenty of other fields - this particular one just happens to be beyond our ability to test for. — Andrew M

Ahhhhh okay no, I don't mean it is undetectable insofar as it is beyond our current or future technological capabilities. I mean it's coupling to all other fields is zero even in theory. That would be something new.

:up:

It's clear that:

1. Smith is justified in believing the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket
2. It's true that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket is true
3. Smith believes that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket

In other words Smith has knowledge concerning the person who gets the job. — TheMadFool

My understanding of the problem is that Smith fails (1) on account of, in the original thought experiment, Smith deriving his knowledge that the man who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket from the untrue belief that Jones will get the job plus the true belief that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. His belief is unjustified, and yet true, and therefore not knowledge.

No easy answer. But it seems to me justifiable just as believing the sun will rise tomorrow (or in a thousand years) is justifiable even though it hasn't been experienced. — Andrew M

That is a falsifiable proposition. The Sun is not undetectable. "The Sun will come up tomorrow" is a good test of the predictive power of: "The Earth rotates on a fixed axis as it orbits a locally stationary star".

I agree, knowledge is deferred in both cases. It might be seen as qualitatively similar to presume a law holds until it doesn't and to presume a model is a good match with whatever it represents until disproven. Science favours direct empiricism, however. If the same model that says the Sun will come up tomorrow also said there's a ghost in your water tank, one would treat it more cautiously ("it" being either the model or the water tank :rofl: ).

Or merely Dutch bluntness combined with a low tolerance for vagueness or sloppiness. — Tomseltje

Bully for you, big boy! I'm happy to be called out where an error exists and will correct/clarify as necessary, although in this case if you didn't catch my actual meaning you're a bit thick. Your intolerances however are purely your problem. Presume me disinterested in them.

Ah, I see.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, I suppose by definition it isn't simple. Maybe a little bit pedantic..? :p

Unsure what "simply" you are referring to.

Sod it, I'm here now.

Throughout my life, I had experienced now and then times of intense positive emotion, feelings of inspiration, of enlightenment and empowerment, understanding and acceptance, awe, of a kind of oneness and connection to the universe, where it seemed to me that the whole world was eminently reasonable, that it was all so perfectly understandable even with its yet-unanswered questions and it was all beautiful and acceptable even with its many flaws. — Pfhorrest

I identify with this. I recall speaking to a Catholic friend of mine about how I felt wandering randomly into Durham cathedral when (and as far as I'm aware, this rarely happens in Durham cathedral) a choir happened to be performing. I recounted a similar profound experience at evensong at King's College, Cambridge.

My friend suggested that this was proof that God speaks to us all, even redeemable atheists such as myself, if I only listen by, for instance, entering a church.

I counter-suggested that, after millennia to practise, Christians have over time perfected some wonderful stimuli that, to them, best approximated what a divine feeling should feel like (in honour of Him, no doubt), and that these stimuli were as apt to excite me as any believer. I have certainly never felt the same profound feeling in a more modest or modern house of God where one presumes my ear is as bent toward God as it is in a magnificent 11th century cathedral or the candlelit 15th century chapel of a wealthy institution.

Same goes for music. People say the same of the visual arts too, although I don't recall being moved by religious art of that vein in the way I've been moved by, say, a Bacon (his Crucifixion notwithstanding) or a Goya.

In light of that, and of this:

I am of the opinion that ontophilia is the proper referent of the term "God" as used by theological noncognitivists, who are people that use religious terminology not for describing reality per se, but more for its emotional affect. — Pfhorrest

God is not the worshipped but is in the worshipping.

I think the thing that maybe interests you about this isn't the dark matter bit but the "before the Big Bang" bit, which this paper (I read the preprint as that article was awful) takes as a starting point.

The leading theory of the origin of the universe is the inflaton field. The idea is that this field is in a metastable state, i.e. in a state with a probability of spontaneously collapsing into a lower-energy state. The difference between the metastable energy and the "true vacuum" energy is the potential. Whatever this potential is must account for the energy of the universe, so is likely very high, higher perhaps than we can produce in particle accelerators.

Excitations of this field are the hypothesised inflaton particles responsible for the rapid expansion of the early universe before those unstable inflatons decayed to the sorts of matter we see today.

The author is deliberately not explicit about whether he thinks dark matter itself was created before the big bang (e.g. is itself an excitation of the inflaton field or another pre-bang field) or was "sourced" from such a thing. The latter seems the simplest and most sensible. The early universe is supposed to have been teeming with inflatons of energy outside or at the limits of our technologies, which then decayed to lighter particles, which may then have decayed to yet lighter particles, and so on.

In this instance, dark matter would be presumed to be extremely heavy and stable matter terminating a decay chain which is itself extremely high-energy. Dark matter as a direct product of inflaton decay would fit this picture. But to stress: inflaton creation was the Big Bang itself.

Dark matter is supposed to make up 80% of massive matter in order to explain the rotational velocity of galaxies. As accurate mass estimates for galaxies are on-going (e.g. only recently have we realised the abundance of supermassive black holes), it's worth treating with some scepticism. Dark matter is, sceptically, an error between current cosmological estimates of mass and current astronomical measurements of mass.

Oh how I wish I'd double-check that I'm on the last page before responding!

But I think the argument that undercuts all such accounts is that those models themselves rely on the very logical faculties which the theories seek to explain — Wayfarer

This seems incorrect to me. It is essentially restating the irreducible complexity assumption as an argument against counterarguments to irreducible complexity. Our (overstated) logical capabilities need not be irreducible, and thus could be (i.e. were) evolved iteratively.

Understood, but I would like to know why it was moved (btw I'm not like demanding a reason for any thread being moved or anything). I don't have to know, I would just like to, in this case. But I'm aware of making extra work for you mods, which I don't want to do. It's water under the bridge, as far as I'm concerned. — Noble Dust

This was a thread that was going nowhere of the OP's own volition. The point of forwarding a proof of anything is surely to invite exploration of its potential shortcomings if only to satisfy yourself of its robustness. Merely reasserting the conclusion as a defense and inventing one's own mathematics has morbid curiosity value and nothing else. Given the rules, it seems a solid mod call to me.

If you're interested in a subject and the existing thread fails to meet community standards, surely you can start a better thread on the same subject?

But given that it is a physical theory, shouldn't we expect the field to be coupled to other things in some way? Otherwise what would it be contributing to the theory? — Andrew M

I was thinking of something that is a consequence of, rather than by-hand contributes to, the theory. This is the case with the radion field. It contributes nothing at all to the theory, but if the theory is correct, it must exist.

That the field is undetectable doesn't imply it's not there, so the theory could nonetheless be true. — Andrew M

The nub of the matter, really. Anything that is permanently or even wilfully outside the realm of the phenomonological cannot be proved to not exist. We usually talk about such things in terms of justifiability. I'm particularly a hardliner on this, so I was wondering what it would take for me to believe in something that cannot be even indirectly experienced.

Let’s say that this effort goes on for a hundred years and nothing like ‘dark matter’ is ever found. Would it then be considered that the gravitational effects that are now attributed to dark matter, might actually be a consequence of a non-material source? Would this be the kind of idea you had in mind in your OP? — Wayfarer

Not quite, that's something that would definitely have an empirical effect on matter but is beyond our theory. I was thinking more of something truly undetectable, belief in which can only be justified via otjerwise verified theory.

A implies B and C. B strongly suggests A and is true. C cannot be evaluated on its own.

Ahh phew, not Ayn Rand Objectivism, but Objectivity. This is still an extreme end of a scale for me. For instance, if we take a human moral question, this presumably has an exact and true answer. One would expect, probably rightly, that, all other things being amenable, the consensus-driven progress of actual human answers to that question, as implemented by legislature say, would approach that correct answer, but not necessarily expect them to ever reach it. It would seem odd to me for some alien anthropologists to take a view that, whatever it is, there was a right answer to a human question that did not exist at any time during the lifetime of humanity.

I come from a more relativist, structuralist, pragmatist, and ontologically minimalist angle which, to me anyway, also seems consistent with empiricism and phenomonology. It is not that I disbelieve that some phenomonological thing has an underlying objective reality necessarily, more that it's easier to dismiss false beliefs about that reality than it is to justify good ones. Unlike moral questions, physical questions may have an objective answer but, like moral questions, the meaning is always deferred. And even well-founded moral beliefs such as the golden rule are difficult to justify on a cosmological scale, an example of relativism.

The "errors" I see are in phrasing questions that at best can only have contingent answers and at worst are effectively meaningless, particularly ones in which actual experience and empirical facts are deemed unimportant to the question. Anthropocentricism I think is one of the most the most pernicious errors, underpinning much of the three errors mentioned in my last post, as making a virtue of a human bias is wont. I think these would be alleviated by a healthy dose of relativism, phenomonology, scepticism and pragmatism.

Most of my position comes from my background in science, that great human decenterer and natural relativist and pragmatist. I think the only thing that doesn't, my structuralism, comes from my interests in other sciences such as anthropology, and from my enjoyment of postmodern art, particularly literature and, weirdly in my partner's view, ceramics.

Considering the substantially greater time we spend in close contact to domestic dogs and cats than to pigs one would imagine the incidences of transmission are relatively high. — Benj96

The issue is not our proximity to pigs, but the commonality between human and porcine digestive systems and diets and our proximity to humans. The pig thing is just a byproduct of the fact that we're overwhelmingly more likely to catch disease from human faeces than from that of dogs and cats: that's why wr have sanitation.

And likewise overwhelmingly more likely to catch disease from dogs and cats than, e.g. farmyard animals, including pigs, unless we happen to be farmers.

I will say it again.

Faeces.

The first head-scratcher for me is the compatibility of objectivism with phenomonalism. Isn't the acceptance of the phenomological limit rather at odds with the idea that I have direct sensation of reality? And why do I need to even appeal to shared phenomena if my knowledge is objective? And is a philosophy of what's-right-for-me truly compatible with liberalism? For instance, can:

the initial state of inquiry is one of several opinions competing as equal candidates, none either winning or losing out by default, but each remaining a live possibility until it is shown to be worse than the others — Pfhorrest

be said to be compatible with objectivism? So as for the second "error", I'm sympathetic.

Other than that, I share the same core principles, and notice similar patterns. It strikes me that the first set of converse positions also often share a view that my principles somehow undermine something precious: absolutism, idealism, mysticism. It's always a sense of tearing something down rather than building something up: in a word, conservativism. So I wonder if the seeming error is a symptom rather than a cause.

I don't agree. If you found a watch on the beech that told the time, would you conclude:

A) By some random co-incidence, particles have arranged themselves into a functioning watch?
Or
B) Someone made that watch? — Devans99

This appears to be the irreducible complexity argument borrowed from anti-Darwinist creationists. It a) is no less ridiculous than the prior arguments and b) has no bearing here since there's no sense in which the particular universal constants we have can be said to be complex in themselves.

But there is no option with the fine tuning argument - the BB happened once and will not be repeated for our edification. And the 20 or so fine tuned parameters - sort of count as 20 separate events / instances of fine tuning. Both the WAP and SAP are rubbish. Fine tuning for life is a strong argument.

But its fundamentally a probabilistical argument, so no-one has any option but to be a betting man on fine tuning for life. — Devans99

That's not a betting man's argument, that's a missionary's argument, based on ignorance and bad logic. Even with only one universe, the parameters of that universe only need an explanation at all if life is some kind of desired outcome from the start. That's why creationists can't get their heads around it. It has to be about me...

What is a betting man meant to conclude? — Devans99

Not to make silly generalisations from one event.

It does not explain fine tuning - the multiverse (if it exists) MUST BE FINE-TUNED for life - many of the fine tuned parameters are multiverses level parameters. — Devans99

It doesn't need to. It ceases to be a meaningful question.

eternal inflation was caused by something — Devans99

Nope, by definition it is eternal.

If you were God, would not you consider it a mighty deed to create a whole multiverse of life supporting universes? — Devans99

Especially if I didn't exist. Creating a universe while not existing is hugely impressive.

Well, give me your explanation for how a random event caused the start of time, the BB and the fine tuning of the universe please. — Devans99

I have no explanation that includes fine-tuning, because that's a creationist myth. That aside, the constants of the universe being as they are only demand an explanation if a) they are seemingly at odds with other evidence; b) it happens with some regularity. The fact that the universe only started once relieves us of the requirement to explain its improbability: the constants are as likely as any other particular set.

To illustrate, role a die. Whatever value you get had a low probability of occurring compared with it not occurring. This is not evidence that the die is loaded. It's just that you only rolled the die once. Refer to the anthropic principle for the rest.

The best theory imo is the inflaton field, which solves not just your mystery but a great deal many other mysteries in cosmology. "God" doesn't have the power to explain anything without just making stuff up, and even then fails as an explanation.

Recurring eternal inflation explains not only that our current physical laws are as likely as any other, but also that, if our current set of laws is possible (an empirical fact), they are inevitable. It explains how a hot Big Bang could occur, why there was an initial period of massive expansion, and it does so with an "agent" that meets the criteria of being outside of time.

But is it likely?

Well, we start with a 50% probability in the absence of evidence.
Can create universes, consistent with the existence of a universe: increase to 75% probability.
Can create all possible universes, consistent with the existence of our universe: increase to 87.5% probability.
Can create initial conditions hot enough to polarise fermionic fields and create matter like the matter in our universe: increase to 97.3% probability.
Creates inflaton excitations that will yield massive inflation before they decay, yielding a homogeneous universe: increase to 98.65% probability.

Pretty likely, I guess.

There's two factors to consider:
1. Genetic propensity to overemphasise smells of dangerous smells;
2. Familiarity with abundant smells.

As an example of [1], humans have a considerable overreaction to the smells of human and pig faeces, a mild reaction to dog and cat faeces, and very little reaction to the faeces of other animals. This correlates to the fact that we are much more likely to catch diseases from human and pig faeces than dog and cat faeces, and somewhat more likely to catch diseases from dog and cat faeces than other mammals. Much of this increased likelihood is down to increased exposure (and the similarity of pigs to humans), but the trend is the exact opposite of the one you describe.

I just want to say faeces one more time before I finish up here.

Look at it this way - spacetime is either a deliberate or random creation. If its random, then it resulted in the start of time, the Big Bang and the fine tuning of the universe. I just don't buy that. No quantum fluctuation does that kind of thing. — Devans99

I admire the alacrity with which you adopt overwhelming authority on subjects you're clearly not remotely informed on, but there's a whole bunch of actual quantum theorists out there who know you're wrong. Now maybe to you this seems very biased, but in evaluating the likelihood of a scientific theory of genesis, I'm going to err on the side of the physcists, not the creationist.

Anyway, where are we up to with this proof?

The universe must have had a beginning.
I just don't buy that it could be anything other than God who started it.
Therefore God exists.

I don't believe in random so that just leaves the creation of spacetime as a deliberate act. — Devans99

Then if that were true, the only possibility would be intelligent creation which would be 100%, not 50%. And your argument reduces to:

Given that the universe had a beginning
And I don't believe anything other than an intelligent creator could've done it
God exists

Not very compelling.

Thats just bonkers - spacetime cannot have existed forever - so how exactly do you have it a 'not a creation'? — Devans99

I didn't say it doesn't have a creation, I said it wasn't created by an intelligent deity.

I assigned an initial probability estimate of 50% / 50% to the question 'is the universe a creation?'. — Devans99

Yes, I know, that's what I and a bunch of other people are telling you is wrong. It is an invalid starting point for Bayesian inference.

Let me ask you, what initial probability estimate would you yourself assign to this question? — Devans99

Me personally? Zero, since only possible causes should be included and God has not been shown to be even possible. But if I were to attempt Bayesian inference and include the God hypothesis as one, I would need to know all of the possible options, not just those known today, but those known in the future and those never figured out. These would need to be cast into mutually exclusive categories. Then whatever number of categories N I ended up with, the probability of intelligence creation would be generously assigned the value 1/N.

The extent to which this cannot be done is the extend to which your methodology is invalid. It doesn't become valid just because one of the options you do know about happens to be the one you want.

Its a binary question — Devans99

It's the same binary question as "Is the die showing a 1" The answer then is not 50/50.

Saying "the probability of God creating the universe is 50/50" is identical to saying: "there are precisely two ways the universe can have been created and we know not which". Not knowing the possible means of the universe being created is not leave to invent the non-fact that there were precisely two. It sounds like this has been explained to you before.

The rest of your "calculation" proceeds from this error and introduces myriad more. There is no point treating it, since the root of your problem is right at the start.

We have no data on the distribution of the answer space for 'was the universe a creation?' - so assuming it is normally distributed (50%/50%) is correct. — Devans99

So that is inventing the "fact" that it is binary. That is mathematically invalid.

He is essentially intellectually dishonest, which means just plain dishonest. — tim wood

Harsh. This is what religious indoctrination does to most people. It puts up mental barriers to true things that don't fit the pedagogically-derived rules while maintaining an open-door policy to doctrine that is clearly unjustifiable or incompatible with evidence. Abusing or inventing mathematics to make it fit the desired answer is probably a perfectly understandable thing to do if you start from the idea that any mathematics that yields the wrong answer is necessarily incorrect. Every creationist I've met thinks this way; I don't think it's a choice.