Thankfully, as far as my commenting at all herein is concerned, Hume now stands alone. — Mww

I am not sure what you mean, but fine.

I believe in evolution though. That's in fact precisely why I believe in what they call 'free will'. — Olivier5

I accept the modern evolutionary synthesis as sound science. What have I said that would make you think otherwise?

I would like to read the reasoning that leads you from evolution to free will. The fact that you put "free will" in scare quotes makes me wonder what you mean by it.

As you are unwilling to engage in rational discourse or even point out anything I wrote that is factually wrong, there is no point in responding to you further. Maybe you could try other TU alumni.

Did you not read my refutation of the whole thing recently published in the Journal of Middle-Earth Studies? — Isaac

It is amazing how the conversation ceases to be rational when I challenge cherished beliefs. If you think I am in error, make a case -- otherwise you come off as a bigot.

Yeah, the analysis in that 1991 paper is an absolute gem. — Isaac

I am open to the possibility that I may have been misled in my research, but not by one-liners. If you have a concrete criticism, spell it out.

it's a religious propaganda thing. Obviously you're going to regurgitate creationist misrepresentations of evolution!!! :facepalm: — Kenosha Kid

Did you attend Trump University, or are your prejudices home-grown?

Damn! You couldn't make it one sentence in without regurgitating the patented creationist misrepresentation of evolution? — Kenosha Kid

Obviously you are continuing to criticize what you have not read. The paper affirms all the science in the contemporary evolutionary synthesis. If you want to criticize me, at least find out what I am saying first. As it is you come off as a Jr. Trump.

“....The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such causality that it can be efficient, independently of foreign causes determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity by the influence of foreign causes....” — Mww

I see none of the defining characteristics of Aristotle's essential causality in this quotation. Do you? Kant is only claiming the will causes differently than Humean causality, without explaining how or why. Agreement demands belief, not reasoned assent.

“...Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will....” — Mww

The same is true here. Recall the nature of the differences. (1) Accidental causality, Humean-Kantian time sequence by rule, always involves two events, not one as in essental causality. (2) Accidental causality starts a process that may be interrupted by intervening events. Essential causality does not. (3) Essential causality acts concurrently with the actualization of its effect. Accidental causality does not.

Neither quotation notes either of these differences. As presented in these two texts, Kant's argument is merely special pleading: The way we cause in willing is not subject to the determinism of Humean causality.

You know...”on the one hand” as opposed to “on the other hand”? — Mww

On the other hand is on the other hand, but it is used to argue that there is an "antimony" involving univocally predicated "causality," and not that there is an equivocal use of "causality." If you think otherwise, quote Kant defining essential causality under any name, or saying that it, and not Hume's two-event causality, is involved in moral agency.

We seem to be agreeing.

Another apriorist giving this dead horse yet another beating. — SophistiCat

Please do not be so hard on naturalists, they have to deal with so much evidence that conflicts with their faith. We need to be understanding.

So how do we go about actualising a potential? Talk me through the neurological process. — Isaac

You are assuming, quite irrationally, that Chalmers' Hard Problem is not a chimera, but has a solution. In other words, you have faith that intentional acts are reducible to physical acts. I have previously shown that, for a number of sound reasons, they are not. (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem). If you find my reasoning there flawed, feel free to explain why you believe so.

You are, however, quite right that for intentional acts to have physical effects they must modify the operation of neurons. How is this possible? In my paper "Mind or Randomness in Evolution" (Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 -- https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). I show that the laws of nature (as opposed to our approximate descriptions of them, the laws of physics) are intentional, not material. realities. (The analysis begins on p. 2 of the pdf with the subheading "Logical Propagators.") Again, if you have objections, to my analysis, please post them.

For elements to interact they must act in the same theater of operation. A three kg mass cannot win a logical argument. That is why the argumentum ad baculum is a fallacy. Similarly, a logical proposition cannot, by itself, move a three kg mass. So, for choices to be effective, they have to act in the intentional theater of operations and not by exerting physical forces. However, since the laws of nature are intentional, there is no reason why our committed intentions, our choices, may not modify them.

It is our everyday experience that our commitments have physical effects. We decide to go to the store, and perform the motions required to get us to the store. More irrefutably, we discuss our choices. We could not do this physical act if our choices could have no physical effect -- which is why epiphenomenalism is patently false.

Still, many naturalists are not content with everyday experience, but say they demand controlled experiments. There are so-many experiments showing that intentions can control physical processes that meta-analyses of them calculate Z's of 18.2 (Radin and Ferrari, 1991 -- odds of 1.94 x 10^73 to 1) and 16.1 (Radin and Nelson, 2003 -- odds of 3.92 x 10^57 to 1). A single 12 year experiment (Jahn et al., 2007) produced a Z > 7.

Sill, even though many of these studies conformed to criteria laid down my skeptics in advance, naturalists, like climate change deniers, are unwilling to accept the science. How could they when it contradicts their sacred faith?

So, we have a confluence of theoretical analysis, everyday experience, and controlled experiments that show that human choices have physical effects.

Still, I'm unable to say precisely how intentionally modified laws of nature change the intersynaptic discharge of neurotransmitters. Of course, neuroscientists can't say how each of the 50 or so neurotransmitters does either. So, I can't consider this a serious objection.

Wavefunctions evolve deterministically, but which classical state of that superposition we become entangled with is random from our perspectives. You only save determinism in quantum theory if you look at the superposition of all timelines of the universe: within any given timeline, inherently unpredictable things happen every time anything interacts with anything else. — Pfhorrest

There are no classical states in quantum superposition, only the sum of eigenfunctions correlative to eigenvalues, and the set of eigenfunctions superimposed is not a physical property, but the result of our choice of a complete mathematical basis.

The equations of quantum theory are fully deterministic. It is only measurements, which involve the system to be measured interacting with a measuring system whose initial state is unknowable, that are probabilistic.

Unpredictable is not indeterminate. Determinism is a consequence of the laws of nature. Predictions require a knowledge not only of the laws of nature, but of the boundary conditions to be applied, aka, the initial state. And, any attempt to determine the initial conditions requires an interaction with a measuring device whose initial state is, again, unknown.

Superpositions, whether coherent or not, do not cause indeterminacy. This is because superpositions are the sum of deterministic wave functions, and so fully deterministic.

Finally, interaction terms in quantum theory are nonlinear and so incompatible with superposition.

f free will is just not being determined, then every electron has free will. Are electrons morally responsible? — Pfhorrest

This is a common confusion with regard to quantum theory. Quantum theory sees all unobserved processes as fully deterministic. It's only when we stick our finger into a quantum system and perturb it in some unknown way that probability is invoked.

Still, I agree that freedom is not indeterminism. It is rather that the acts we, as moral agents determine, are not determined prior to our choices. That is what it is to be a moral agent.

It's something about the particular way that our choices are determined that makes us morally responsible for them or not. — Pfhorrest

I agree. As I said, to be responsible, we need to be the ones determining our choices.

We must be very careful to note that the kind of "causality" which compatibilists are discussing is not the kind that makes moral agents responsible.

The Kantian sense of causality, which is actually rules sequenced in time, is the empirical sense of it, and does not apply to his moral philosophy — Mww

I was speaking of how Hume and Kant contributed to the contemporary use of "cause," not of Kant's moral philosophy.

Also, it is not rules that are sequenced, but events that are sequenced by rules. There is a rule sequencing the kind of seed planted and the kind of plant sprouting.

on the one hand he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms that his causality is subject to external determination according to laws of nature....” — Mww

There is not a hint here that he is using "causality" equivocally -- which he is. Rather he leaves the reader with the impression that our moral causality is univocally a causality "subject to external determination." Kant used this confusion to support his thesis that reason is faced with irreconcilable antimonies. It is not. The whole basis of his Critique is a tissue of confusion.

So, within the last 1800 years, there is a third causality, which is called freedom. — Mww

There is no reason to think that freedom involves anything other than the actualization of our human potential, and so a species of essential causality.

No, I am not a compatibilist in the standard sense.

I would rather say that there are three concepts here:
1. Representation of sense data -- ie: the interpreted form of the apple, as a neural state.
2. Interpretation of that representation -- ie: our modified overall mental state, or the "content" of conscious awareness.
3. The hard problem of consciousness -- ie: why the neural state "content" is accompanied by the "existence" of conscious awareness. — Malcolm Lett

I would not call these "concepts." Rather, interpretations always involve judgements, i.e. thinking this is that. A concept is more fundamental, it is simply the awareness of some aspect of reality. In my comment, the (1) the awareness of an objective aspect of the world, i.e. an apple and (2) an awareness of a subjective aspect of reality, i.e. my state. Neither of these awarenesses is a judgement or an interpretation, because their expression is not propositional. We are not saying "the apple is x" or "my state is y." We are just aware of some information.

Your (3) is not a concept, but a question, which is a desire that requires judgements to satisfy it.

To return to my point, physicalism fails because one neural state founds two concepts <an apple> and <the modification to me caused by the apple>. To have two distinct concepts, we need a differentiating factor, and one physical state can not provide it.

There is plenty of evidence for our brain processing and even acting on sense inputs without the need for us to be consciously aware of it at the time. — Malcolm Lett

Agreed. Thus, consciousness is not simply a concomitant of neural data processing. We need an additional causal factor. Physicalists believe that this is some special form of processing, but have neither a rational basis for thinking this nor a coherent hypothesis of what kind of processing this might be.

In fact, in Consciousness Explained Dennett provides cogent arguments that no naturalist theory can produce the experience of consciousness. His response is to discard the data of experience. Mine is to see the naturalistic hypothesis as falsified.

I posted a suite of arguments on this Forum showing that intentionality cannot be reduced to physicality. (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem). None of the many responding comments found a fatal flaw in my case -- the conclusion of which is that Chalmers's "Hard Problem," is not a problem, but a chimera.

Those low level representations are slowly merged and built on as multiple layers of hierarchies are built upwards, until finally they form together into a single coherent and very high-level representation. — Malcolm Lett

This was Aristotle's conclusion in De Anima, where he named the integrated sensory representation a "phantasm." Still, he was smart enough to realize that a representation is not a concept. Representations are intelligible, (they contain information that can be known), but they are incapable of making themselves known. (How could they possibly do so?)

Instead, he argues in iii, 7, that we need an aspect of mind already operational in the intentional sphere to make what is potentially known, actually know. He called this aspect the "agent intellect," but phenomenologically, it is what we now call awareness -- for it is by turning our awareness to contents that they become actually known.

I've found apokrisis's mention of semiotics particularly helpful. — Malcolm Lett

Semiotic reflection confirms Aristotle's case. I will discuss an important semiotic distinction later, but for now consider what are called "instrumental signs" such as smoke, written and spoken language, and symbols. Some of these, such as smoke, signify naturally, and others signify conventionally, but what ever the origin of their meaningfulness, they cannot actually signify until we first recognize what they are in themselves and then form the concept they properly evoke.

For example, until we recognize that the smudge on the horizon is smoke, and not dust or a cloud, it cannot signify fire. In the same way, we cannot grasp the meaning of a written term until we can discern the form of its letters. In all cases, a thinking mind, one capable of semiotic interpretation, is absolutely essential to actualizing the meaning latent in the sign. So, invoking semiotics does not dispense with the need of an Aristotelian agent intellect to make what is only intelligible actually known.

But, as John of St. Thomas points out in his Ars Logica, the instruments of thought (concepts, judgements, and chains of reasoning) are not instrumental signs, but a wholly different kind of sign, formal signs. We can see this difference by reflecting on how ideas signify. Unlike natural signs, language and other symbols, when we think <apple> we do not first have to realize that we are dealing with an idea, and only then understand that the <apple> concept refers to actual apples. Rather, the concept <apple> signifies apples immediately and transparently, without us first recognizing that it is an idea which signifies. Instead, we first think <apple> and then realize that we must have employed some instrument of thought and name the instrument "the concept apple."

What has this to do with our problem? Simple this, while we might conceivably observe neural states and work out what they represent, if we did so, the neural states would not act as formal signs, would not act as concepts. Rather, they would be instrumental signs -- things whose nature must be understood in itself before we can extract any meaning they represent.

The whole being of formal signs -- all that they ever do -- is to signify. On the other hand, neurons do many things: growing and trimming dendritic connections, transporting ions and firing at various rates, and consuming nutrients. Among all these functions they may also signify information. But, in signifying they act as instrument, not formal signs.

Further, when we form concepts in the normal way, neurons do not act as any kind of sign. I can think <apple> without the slightest idea that my thought is supported by neural processing -- which it is. So, the final point is that when we say that neural states "represent" information, we must be careful not to confuse the way they normally represent information with the way any kind of sign represents information. Neurons do not represent as instrumental signs do, because we do not need to know them before we grasp their contents. Nor do they represent as formal signs do, because their whole being, all that they ever do, is not to signify, as they have physiological activities as well as representational activities.

We agree -- in reference to your first response on consciousness.

On your second, I need more time to understand what you are saying and formulate a response.

Q1. If epiphenomenalism is true, how come 100% the brain states that produce qualia also produce reporting, while 0% of the brain states who don't produce qualia produce reporting? E.g. Why can I report when I have a quale, but I never say ''I feel X'' unless that X is a quale? — Eugen

Let me suggest this is the wrong question, because it assumes, on pure faith, that brain cells produce qualia, as opposed to qualia signifying the contents of neural states. Signs relate to what they signify, but they are not produced by what they signify. Dogs do not produce the sound or spelling "dog," nor do they produce the concept <dog>, for if they did, ideas would not require thinkers.

A more pointed question, and one that I can see no epiphenomenal response to, is "how we can discuss qualia if they can have no physical effect?" Physicalists assume that concepts are at physical states or, perhaps, operations. So the existence of the concept of qualia shows that qualia can produce either physical states or operations -- and surely expressing the existence of qualia is a physical effect.

Q2. Why do we go to the cinema to watch comedy movies if not driven by pleasure? It is not productive in the sense of reproduction or survival. Not to mention drugs. — Eugen

I think this could have an epiphenomenal answer if we forget the problem I just outlined. We could say that watching comedies produce endorphins and the behavior occurs to secure this effect -- with pleasure being epiphenomenal.

As you mention survival, if qualia could produce no physical effects, their emergence can't be explained by evolution. Natural selection can only select on the basis of the physical effects of an inheritable variation. Epiphenomenalism allows for no physical effects.

So why? — Eugen

Because Harris is not driven by rationality. If he were, he would provide the best case for both sides. As he does not, his works are polemic and so must have an irrational motivation.

A worthy challenge for an educator worth his salt, don't you think? — TheMadFool

No one can put knowledge in a closed mind.

I am sorry you are uneducateable.

But for me it doesn't have to be an all or nothing, as I believe that compatibilism is possible. — A Ree Zen

Compatibilism is bait and switch applied to moral philosophy. The bait is that you can have your moral cake (responsibility stemming from free-will) and Humean-Kantian causality (time sequence by rule) too. The switch is that the kind of "free will" that is compatible with time sequence by rule does not support human responsibility.

To be responsible for an act, one must be the origin of that act. If the act was already predetermined before we were born, clearly it does not originate in anything we did. So, compatibilism is fraud.

But, you may ask, if free will is incompatible with strict determinism, and determinism is a consequence of causality, then surely we cannot be the cause of our acts. Hence, either way, we cannot be responsible for our acts and there is no free will in a sense that would make us responsible.

This argument is fallacious, resting on an equivocal use of "cause." Clearly, if we are the cause of, and so responsible for, our free acts, we cannot be using "cause" in the sense of time-sequence by rule. What other sense is there?

The problem is that most moderns are too lazy to study the history to philosophy. When you do, you find that for over a thousand years, philosophers distinguished two kinds of efficient causality: accidental (Humean-Kantian time sequence by rule) and essential (the actualization of potency).

We all know that if you plant tomato seeds, you are the cause of the tomato plants that subsequently sprout and that there is a rule linking the first event (planting of a certain type of seed) to the second event (the subsequent sprouting of the corresponding plant). This is an example of accidental causality. If you think about it, or if you have read Hume, you also know that there is no necessity linking the first event to the second. Since we have two separate events, there is always the possibility that something may intervene between them to disrupt the expected sequence.

Because accidental causality has no intrinsic necessity, it is a strange basis for arguing that whatever we choose, we choose of necessity, i.e. that we have no free will that would be the basis for moral responsibility.

Those who have done their homework/due diligence know that in his Metaphysics Aristotle distinguished a second kind of causality, which is the kind that makes us responsible for our considered acts. This is essential causality. Aristotle's paradigm case is a builder building a house. Of course, the cause of the building is the builder, and the effect is the house being built. He notes that the builder building the house is identically the house being build by the builder. (These are identical because they are merely different ways of describing the same event.)

Since there is only one event, and not two as in time sequence by rule, there is no possibility of disruption by an intervening event. Since the cause and effect are linked by the identity of the event, this kind of causality acts by its own (and not a prior) necessity. -- The prior physical state of (a pile of building materials) does not necessitate the form of the finished house.

If we think about Aristotle's example, we see that it is simply an instance of a potential (of the materials to become a house) being actualized by an agent (the builder). So, any actualization of a potency by an agent is an instance of essential causality.

We can now see that free choices are not uncaused choices. They are the actualization of one of several possible courses of action by the moral agent. So, causality and free will are compatible, just not the kind of causality modern philosophers think of.

That would be the wrong thing to do. Landing on a side is more likely. — TheMadFool

Ta-da! At long last! That is why your whole line of thinking is wrong.

Like you, I divided the number of possibilities into 100%

There are two sides and one edge. — TheMadFool

So you're saying there is a 33-1/3% chance of landing on edge?

A coin can land on edge or on a side. That is 2 possible outcomes.

That is not the point. I can take your experience and state multiple possibilities: (1) The observation was properly reported, (2) There was interference from an unknown source, (3) you have sensory problems, (4) you have mental problems,.etc. So, if I come up with 4 possibilities, does that make each one have P=25%? And does that change when I think of a 5th possibly, so it suddenly changes to 20%? Of course not.

You chose to state your problem so that there were only 2 possibilities. I did the same. By stating only 2 possibilities (on edge or not), I did exactly what you did and applied the same principle you applied. Doing so shows the absurdity of your principle.

As far as I can tell there's no edge (third option) between real and not real. — TheMadFool

That is irrelevant to the way you assign probability numbers. Is your principle that "the truth of (A or not A) => P(A)=50% and P(not A)=50%", or not? If it is, then according to you, there is a 50% chance of a coin landing on edge. If not, all your claims about reality are baseless.

There is no point in discussing this further.

What are the odds of the flipped coin landing on edge? — Dfpolis

This is a good question, you know, because I think it's happened for real but we should discuss this some other time as it's not relevant to my thesis as there are clearly only two options regarding any observation viz. is it real or is it not. — TheMadFool

It is highly relevant as it relies on the same principle you use to assign a 50% probability to your alternatives. If we can have either A or not A, you say each has a 50% probability. So, since a flipped coin will either end balanced on edge or not, then the probability of its ending on edge is 50%.

As I said, I do not use numbers that aren't counts or measurements to describe reality. So, I would not use subjective "probability." It is only a mathematical disguise for prejudice.

What are the odds of the flipped coin landing on edge?

Are you disputing the precept "Do good and avoid evil"?

What is hateful to a person need not be evil. The Nazis found the just treatment of Jews hateful. Does that make their unjust treatment moral? Of course not. I am not disputing Hillel's maxim as a rule of thumb, only as a fundamental moral axiom.

There are two layers to observational data. First concerns its reality and the second concerns its correctness. For both, we need multiple observers — TheMadFool

We will have to agree to disagree on. I see neither reality nor correctness as being in question, only the adequacy of characterization and interpretation.

The probability calculations are the same for both and the error commited is identical in both cases. — TheMadFool

There are no justified calculations when the "data" used is not the result of counting or measurement. You still have not told me what your position is on the thesis that the probability of a flipped coin ending on edge is 50%. Your failure to respond shows that you are unwilling to fully consider my case.

So, if I'm hallucinating myself conducting a high-precision experiment with hallucinated equipment and hallucinated colleagues, I can publish my findings in a scientific journal? — TheMadFool

It is not a question worthy of the time taken to consider it. Rational people do not waste time on irrelevant issues. If you really think that 50% of your experience is hallucination, please cease posting and seek medical help.

There are two possibilities (real/not real) and either one is as likely as the other. 50% chance of being real and 50% chance being not real. — TheMadFool

And so a 50% chance that flipped coins will wind up on their edge.

Does that single measurement suffice in, say, writing a paper that's to be submitted in a peer-reviewed journal? I don't think so. — TheMadFool

That is a totally different question than asking if the meter reading was real. The question of reality is ontological, that of what suffices for publication is methodological.

I'm mainly interested in the distinction between real and hallucination - this has priority over whatever may follow, right? — TheMadFool

No, it does not have priority. The presumption is that unless you have a medical history of hallucinations, what you see is really there. Priority goes to relevant questions, not to vague and unsupported possibilities. In the first quotation above, you posed the standard of publication in a peer reviewed journal. No such journal has ever asked me to submit medical records showing I have no history of hallucination or mental illness.

How confident are we that a certain observation is real or not? By the way, do you mean that you would assign a value other than 50% to the probability that a single observation is real? What are your reasons for that? — TheMadFool

We are morally certain that our careful observations are correct. Moral certitude means that we can rely on a proposition in good conscience. It does not mean that our belief in it is infallible.

I assign no numerical values to what cannot be counted or measured, because, strictly speaking, it is meaningless to do so. Of course, people do assign probability numbers to their beliefs. One might interpret such probabilities in terms of the odds of a fair bet, but such numbers are not a measure of the probability of a proposition being true, because there is no such probability. If the proposition is meaningful, by which I mean that it asserts some determinable fact, then it is either true or false relative to a determined context.

So the odds of a coin landing on edge is 50%. — Dfpolis

There is no third option between being real and not being real. — TheMadFool

It depends on what you mean by "being real." Still, the existence of a third option is irrelevant to what I said.

Your claim is that "X is either y or not y" justifies assigning equal probabilities to y and not y. Since a flipped coin will either land balanced on its edge or not, then (by your logic) there is a 50% chance that it will end on edge. I do not see how you can escape this conclusion.

All what you said boils down to the issue of whether a single individual's observation is real or not. — TheMadFool

Not by my definition of "real." If your meter read 17, for whatever reason, you really observed 17.

I have no clue whether it's likely to be real or unlikely to be real — TheMadFool

Of course you do. Unless you have a sensory, neural or cognitive disorder, all the clues point to the fact that what you observed what was really there. As I said earlier, your use of "real" is non-standard.

If I assign a value greater than 50% to the probability that means I think it's likely but this contradicts my assertion that I'm uncertain — TheMadFool

Your subjective certainty is more likely to reflect your childhood experience than your observation. If you are only 50% sure that what you saw is real, that says your self-confidence has been harmed -- not that there is any question involving reality.

The only probability value that fits my epistemic state - uncertainty (not knowing whether likely/unlikely) - is 50%. — TheMadFool

So the odds of a coin landing on edge is 50%.

We're not on the same page on this. The very idea of repeatability is to either confirm or disconfirm an observation. — TheMadFool

And its interpretation. Perhaps you observed x because your electronics failed, not because of what you believed was the experimental arrangement. Perhaps your sample was contaminated or unrepresentative. I can think of many possible scenarios, none of which call your experience or veracity into question, only the adequacy of its description.

There's no need to bring up the issue of causality because at the end of the day it's about an observation - whether it can be observed by different people in different settings. — TheMadFool

Every observation of the same supposed type is a different token. None is exactly the same. You report, "I did x, and observed y." Someone else does x, but does not observe y. Does that mean that you lied? Or that y was a miracle? Or does it mean that factors not included in x lead to the observation of y? All are possible, but statistically, the last is most common.

What concerns us is whether a given observation is real or not. Either it's real or it's not. If one person makes an observation then the odds of that being real are 50:50. — TheMadFool

You will have to define "real" in some non-standard way to make sense of this. You agreed with my first point, which means we have a presumption of reality.

On what basis are you calculating the probabilities? The existence of two possibilities does not justify the assumption that they are equal. By your logic, if I flip a coin it may either land balanced on an edge or not, so the probability of a flipped coin ending on an edge is 50%. Care to place a bet?

First, if I observe x, that is presumptive evidence that x happened. There is no a priori reason to suppose that x did not happen.

Second, the purpose of repeatability in science is not to confirm or dispute what you observed, but to see if you have correctly identified the factors causing x. Perhaps x was caused by some extraneous factor you have not identified. If I can set up my experiment using all the factors you identified, and observe x, that is good evidence that you have correctly identified the relevant factors.

Third, there is no rational basis for assigning numbers to things we cannot count or measure. Among these innumerables is the "probability" subjectively assigned to beliefs, and the "utility" of acts and decisions. Bayesian probability is simply transvestite prejudice -- prejudice in mathematical garb. Putting lipstick on it does not make it rational.

In the Sophist, Plato suggests that anything that can act or be acted upon has being. I do not think that "can be acted upon" increases the extension of "being" because if we try to act on something, and it does not react, then however much we are exerting ourselves, we are not acting on it at all -- and if we are not acting upon it, it is not being acted upon.

So, we may say that whatever can act in any way has being. If so, then to be able to do more is to have more being. A being that can act only physically has less being than one that can act physically and intentionally. So, we start to ascend a hierarchy of being terminating in omnipotent being, God.

About abstractions as actualizizing the potential to be known.

It would be unresponsive to what I said.