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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Anything Goes! > Math Proves Christ's Resurrection? | Forum Quick Jump
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nathan
Sage
      
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2113
| Posted 3/28/2008 5:54 PM (GMT -4) |   | Mystic encouraged me to look at this in a different way. (thanks).
The distillation of my argument came down to the fact that I thought Steve and Tony didn’t really have the academic chops to be proof-reading an Oxford don’s work and that based on those lack of chops it was bit high handed to assume *they* were going to find (and so easily) a “carry the one” kind of problem with the equation construction.
That was a little overly assertive on my part, I apologize. I didn’t mean it quite so pointed, rather I meant it more in an “oh, come on” way. However, pointing out a lack of credentials or recognition in such a competition isn’t really much fun--or very nice when you scratch the surface.
So as Steve said “I’ll jump in with both feet.”
Instead of Beowulf in my example I’d like to use a pussy cat however. Not just any cat mind you, but Schrodingers Cat. I pretty sure everyone here knows Schrodinger’s Cat--I’d eat my hat if Steve didn’t--but here’s the wiki link just to be thorough so you know I’m not just making this cat up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodingers_Cat
Now at the end of that hypothetical hour the cat has a 50/50 chance of being alive or dead. If you don’t open the box (maybe because we can’t) then we can use induction to go down two equal paths. Path A] is an extrapolation about the cat if it were alive (that is the .50 chance that god IS is) or Path B] which stops the extrapolation because the cat’s freaking toast (this is the .50 chance that god is NOT).
Without being able to open the box we can’t *know*, know--we can only induce that there is one of two possibilities--equally valid, of the cat being alive and then build a theorum based on that. Now that means in the logic equation that god being NOT is equally valid as god being IS but…
…it also means that it’s equally valid that god IS.
I prefer the use of Schrodingers Cat to Beowulf because though Beowulf is an intangible like god, the use of a literary character seems backhanded vs. the use of the equal intangible of a hypothetical construct (the cat) that serves a specific role in a logic problem.
Is that little nicer than gratuitously pointing out that people don’t hold advanced degrees from prestigious universities?
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Jordan Lapp
ppaL nadroJ
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2585
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:07 PM (GMT -4) | |
Anthony G Williams said...
1. The probably of God's existence is one in two. That is, God either exists or doesn't.
This RIGHT HERE is WRONG. That's like saying "The odds that I have a two-headed chicken in my hand is 1 in 2. Either I do or I don't."
R-O-N-G.
The odds that I actually have a two-headed chicken in my hand is infantessimally small (unless I'm in KFC's secret chicken mutating factory).
Jordan Lapp Managing Editor
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Jordan Lapp
ppaL nadroJ
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2585
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:10 PM (GMT -4) | |
Swashbuckler said...I'd also point out that having two possibilities doesn't make them equally probable. Either I have the power to turm myself into a vampire bat, or I do not. It's logically true, but the two possibilities are in no way equally probable. Without corroborating evidence, my vampire bat premise can be dismissed.
Looks like Steve beat me to the argument. I should have read the entire thread.
Just because one occupies a powerful or prestigious position doesn't make one's every utterance irrefutable. I'm given to understand that certain ex-candidates for the Republican nomination believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Jordan Lapp Managing Editor
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2113
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:16 PM (GMT -4) | |
Swashbuckler said...
Oh, but thanks for assuming the worst and tossing out the ad hominem attack ... Didn't I pull back, realize what I had done, own up to it and then apologize?
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Anthony G Williams
Greybeard
Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 404
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:17 PM (GMT -4) | | | My, there's a lot been going on since I last dropped in!
Nathan, the item from Professor Swinburne was posted by someone on another forum, and knowing the enthusiasm for religious debates on this one, I thought members might enjoy it  . As I've posted before, I have no argument with people who believe in God, which is entirely a matter of faith. I only get involved when religious people try to recruit science or maths to prove their faith. This one is a classic example.
You asked about my qualifications: well, if it matters, I have two degrees, one at master's level with distinction. Neither is in maths, but as far as I'm concerned the problem with the prof's argument is not primarily a mathematical one, simply one of logical thinking: structured common sense, if you like.
If there is a one in two chance that God exists (a proposition with which I have no argument), then it is logically impossible for anything about God (including reincarnation) to have a higher overall probability than that.
Let me put it in non-controversial terms to illustrate the point. A man goes to a restaurant with four dishes on the menu, two of them vegetarian. Of the meat dishes, one is beef, one lamb. There is a one in two probability that the man will choose to eat meat. If he chooses to eat meat, there is a one in two probability that he will eat beef. But the overall probability that he will choose beef is only one in four. What Swinburne seems to have lost sight of is that it is the overall probability that matters; and that includes the assumption that there is only a one in two chance that God exists at all.
I am reminded of a saying attributed to George Orwell: "Some things are so stupid that only an intellectual can believe them."
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2113
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:18 PM (GMT -4) | |
Swashbuckler said...
Straw man, Nathan. Please see your logical fallacies web site, and read it this time. Which? What? I said you said something you didn't say then proceeded to argue that? Which, where?
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Jordan Lapp
ppaL nadroJ
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2585
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:21 PM (GMT -4) | |
nathan said...Being a political canidate is equal to being an Oxford don? The bar is the same? That doesn't even make sense.
I was being funny.
The point is that even smart people make silly mistakes. Einstein, I'm given to understand, got a "D" in Math (which is why he had to go through that whole patent clerk rigamarole).
Jordan Lapp Managing Editor
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