probability of god

[blah No.2205758]

Something I have been thinking of lately is quantifying pascals wager. Intrinsically the existence of a diety(s) seems to be less than 50% so that saying, "god probably does'nt exist" seems to be an accurate statement.. but how would you go about a proof for this? I don't know much about probabilities but I was thinking that if we say there is no evidence for or against god then the probabilty of it existing is 50/50 but of course there are basically as many gods as people can imagine so as time goes on the individual probability of a religions version of a diety approaches zero while the probability of no god(s) existing stays at 50% so 50 is greater than any of the probabilities for the countless gods existing so god probably does'nt exist right?

sorry for wall of text and spelling errors I don't feel like spell checking or punctuating just throwing this out to hear peoples thoughts

[Anonymous No.2205807]

Impressive assertion there. If you define the probability of an event to be 50% it will be 50%.You obviously can't determine the odds of any god existing by empirical means, so logic's the other option. An omnipotent god produces approximately three and a half metric fucktons of paradoxes, while there is no reason to think that a god that would just have to be vastly superior to us is impossible.

Of course, there's no reason to believe in any god just because he can't be logically proven not to exist.

[sage No.2205817]

>>2205758
probability of god is 0%

\Thread

[blah No.2205836]

I'm saying 50% because something either exist or does'nt so 50/50 where I think i'm messing up is god is very ambiguous and when you start subdividing it into all the different versions of god who can't all exist you have to start dividing the 50% probability on the existence side up right? Thus making gods existence less probable then its non existance. of course this would'nt in any way be proof god does'nt exist as that is effectively impossible however I think it is a way of saying that god probably does'nt exist logically using probabilities I'm just not sure if the math would work the way I think it does but I think the concept is intrinsicly sound

[Anonymous No.2205843]

However you are starting to feel like a Troll who needs to learn the scientific perspective of God... but instead I will try my best to address you only philosophically.

I often play with a similar concept. I relate the probablity of God existing in a relative manner to the % of people with that belief system existing. Due to the unique manner of thought and personality you can see the likelyhood of God becomes extremely low from this perspective. The issue with your text is the different forms of "God" you are allowing, it seems even Pantheism is a possible concept. This causes your wager to loose the original purpose.

Pascal's wager was designed to argue only for Catholism (or equivocal nature) because it relies on some sort of benefit... But diesm and pantheism do not consist with any benefit...

Sorry for being critical. Overall the fact that I took time to comment like this should be seen as a compliment, as it is.

[Anonymous No.2205847]

Doesn't probability require knowledge of something that has happened at least once?

There is a probability of winning to lottery, we know this, cause many people have won the lottery.

[Anonymous No.2205854]

Winning the lottery is 50/50. You either win or you don't.

[blah No.2205858]

I understand that scientificly the null is that god does'nt exist until evidence is provided or that science only deals with material things so has no position on god

I suppose just narrow it to monotheistic religions does'nt really matter as there are still multiple conflicting versions of god making it 50/ diff. gods(allah, christian god whatever)

the main purpose of this whole thing is to try and show why the logical thing to do is not to believe and that the probability of any particular god existing is less than that of it not existing

[Anonymous No.2205866]

Although in many cases your correct, in this case we have to be more metaphysical.

There is a major crux in quantifying something like God or Pascals wager. You are attempting to visualize every possible thought in existance, and then selecting those with God... agaisnt those without. In this manner it only seems rational to either come to the conclusion that God is 50% possible, or that God is a concept that is equiventally related to You VS the Universe (Extremely Small Chance) but it's still there.

Another thing Percentages work on a basis of the Whole (As in my upper thought example) 5 people wear red out of ten. (5 people have a dietisic thought) .... 50% .... Then you must consider 5 people do not wear that color... 50% ... and so, when you say that the probability of no god(s) existing is increasing (or in our example the Red Shirt wearers decrease) that means 6,7,8, etc people are not wearing a red shirt. Or the probability of God not existing... increases in direct porportion to the decreasing of his existence...

The only way to quantify using a percent in this manner would be to add a 3 category such as Shirtless... So red can decrease, Not red can stay @ 50%, whereas Shirtless would increase as Red decreases...

Tough to explain while dealing with these concepts.... Hope you can read me

[Anonymous No.2205871]

The chance of a man with a top hat dancing naked with a chimp on a vineyard somewhere in Turkey in the middle of August, slapping the chimp's butt with a stick as the chimp is carrying a seashell in his left hand, is 50/50.

[blah No.2205879]

thats exactly the problem I was thinking of is I suppose for each iteration of god subdividing the existence side there would be a non-existance of that iteration subdividing the non-existance side? therefore it's still 50/50 till there is any evidence for or against any of the iterations?

[Anonymous No.2205886]

The possibility of "God", whatever you mean by that term, is not a matter of chance or statistics. It is solely and entirely a matter of how you conceive of reality and the relationship you have to it. This is not something that can be quantified. FFS.

[blah No.2205890]

actually I suppose for a proof that god or anything else without any evidence for or against it eg. unicorns existance is improbable I would need a proof for the null hypothesis being more probable than the alternate hypothesis in the absence of any evidence either way

[Naggarothian No.2205892]

>>2205871
>The chance of a man with a top hat dancing naked with a chimp on a vineyard somewhere in Turkey in the middle of August, slapping the chimp's butt with a stick as the chimp is carrying a seashell in his left hand, is 50/50.

Well.....if we already know for a fact that there's a man with a top hat dancing naked with a chimp on a vineyard somewhere in Turkey in the middle of August, slapping the chimp's butt with a stick as the chimp is carrying a seashell in his hand and the chimpanzee is ambidextrous.....that is a true statement.

But only under those exact circumstances.

[blah No.2205902]

>>2205886
I guess thats the problem i'm having is that your saying it's a subjective thing when it's a matter of fact.... and facts or true/false statements are quantifiable by nature right? So there should be a way to quantify it.... somehow then there would be a proof that non-belief is more probable to be correct than belief in something without evidence going back to the null vs. alternate hypothesis thing does anything like this exist already? That shows why the null should be assumed by default?

[Anonymous No.2205904]

Interesting Blah. Attempting to Philosophically throw Pascal back upon itself without Science... As with the odd case of Occams Razor and Berkley's Idealism.

It sounds like you are attempting to quantify the process of thinking. If you think of a concept of God, it is more likely that this doesn't exist. Yet, God is a complex unknown... Thereby your thoughts cannot be constant. You may be trapping yourself in an infinite unsolvable.

So, are you comparing these concepts of God as Black, and Not-God as White. Because if your not trying to develop a 3rd Category it becomes tricky.

(Think this why I make it relative to Humans, since we all must have a slightly different version of God... Our version becomes negligble to the other possibilities.)

Have another post... Slightly Deeper and More Crazy... Give me a minute.

[Anonymous No.2205912]

>>2205902
It is a subjective thing. The mistake you are making is thinking that people who are theists come to the theism conclusion in the same way that atheists come to the atheist conclusion. Whether you conclude that God exists or not is entirely dependent upon your starting premises, the way you look at the world, and so on. There is no chance in there.

[Anonymous No.2205914]

Another attempt would be to utilize (carefully) the fallacy of ignorance. If this 50/50 is correct, it would be quite constant. Since most say God is unknown and paranormal.... (sadly I can only argue most) ... ... Since God is can able to disconnect from material, he becomes unknown, it would be ignorant for us to make a claim either way (Schrodingers Cat) ... But with

God being able to disconnect.... and Us unable to say.... I have this faint notion that perhaps it is more 49/51 ...

As in if God cannot be known.... The farther one tampers with these thoughts (although still paradigmed) if one adopts CANNOT, it could be then rationally argued that he is more, then less, likely possible with an increased amount of Versions he becomes. Sadly this idea is so riddled with fallacies... based off of inductive thinking in complex situations... I often would not consider this.

[Anonymous No.2205916]

>>2205912

Well Put....

And before some laughs/gets incredibly confused... I meant *likely impossible* .... but as the text reveal to me, the way it is written is just about as satisfactory... Makes me sad.

[blah No.2205917]

>>2205904
I look foward to your post and a couple thoughts:

1.I suppose you could say anything we imagine probably does'nt exist(ignoring quantum theory parellel universe and all that jazz) till there is evidence(in the scientifically accepted sense) for it.

2.again to prove god as defined by the claim in question should be rejected as improbable outright if there is no evidence I would have to show that the null hypothesis is always more probably true

[Anonymous No.2205919]

Think of it with expected values. If the existence of god has a probability greater than zero, it's a fixed value. Now what is the reward for worshiping a god that exists? According to Pascal, it's eternal bliss. So we'll quantify that as infinity, as heaven embodies perfection, which is the concept of "No matter how good of a thing you can imagine, perfection is better." This is the same idea as infinity: "No matter how large of a number you can imagine, infinity is larger." To find the expected value of an event, you multiply its probability of occurring with its outcome (or reward). So this is how we determine its expected value:

Let <span class="math">A=(God\; Exists)\cap (Worship\; God)[/spoiler] and <span class="math">f(A)[/spoiler] be the function denoting the reward of <span class="math">A[/spoiler].
Then <span class="math">EV(A)=P(A)\ast f(A)=P(A)*\infty =\infty [/spoiler], as <span class="math">P(A)[/spoiler] is a fixed value greater than zero.

So, according to probability theory, believing in god is the best option. Assuming that god's an idiot who can't tell true believers from lip servicers.

[blah No.2205928]

>>2205914
It seems it would be riddle with fallacies when you look at it that way I did'nt think about the whole paranormal angle........ but anything paranormal would probably not exist again because there is no evidence for anything paranormal and you would not be able to reject the null so anything paranormal probably does'nt exist right? lol sorry going in circles now

going back to fallacies what exact fallacies are there? I know next to nothing about pure logic thats where most my prob;ems are coming from I assume

[Anonymous No.2205943]

>>2205919
>reward for worshiping a god.....it's eternal bliss

LMAO, but that fucking wrong you retard. Why do you assume that a God would reward you?

[Anonymous No.2205946]

I presume you are fairly concerned with Deism. If you were right a paper, it be necessary to Crush various Pantheistic tendencies. Deism=Immaterial whereas other forms such as Pantheism does not. My issue with continuing is just how broad the conclusion your tackling is... For a hypothesis like that, you'd need more then the universe of sampling. Scientifically it's insane.

The only weak claim I might also tangentially claim agaisnt of counter would be reductionism agaisnt the increasing complexity and amount of Gods. More Gods to the total level of thought should grow multiple inconsistencies, thereby you can push for a more diestic sense.

Panentheism? ... Good Luck and Study for those Exams.

[Anonymous No.2205955]

>>2205946
>For a hypothesis like that, you'd need more then the universe of sampling. Scientifically it's insane.
>mfw Einstein was scientifically insane.

[blah No.2205959]

>>2205919
but of course there are other infinite rewards that can not co-exist with the infinite reward in that situation so it's a false di-chotomy right? is'nt that how it's normally defeated?

I suppose i'm thinking of just the existence of god or anything a person can imagine in general as being improbable without evidence which most logical thinkers would agree with and trying to find a way to prove that?

[Anonymous No.2205966]

>>2205928

Another tough Question. Although I feel like we should share a Beer sometime... We're covering a lot, and quicker then I usually would.

Fallacies are easily visible forms of illogical expression. Not exactly to do with formal Logician Thinking (or as you put it pure logic) Pure Logic begins with various ontological arguments. (As the one you are attempting to create) They are metaphysical, and wholesomely reliant on the careful choosing of appropraite words. I would say, toughest arguments to design.

There are Multiple Fallacies (Such as Begging the Question) some of which I likely have never heard of yet. The Begging one has to do with how closely related the Premise (the evidence) is to the Conclusion.... For example.

Premise: A duck has 2 legs
Conclusion: A duck is bi-pedal

or

Conclusion: The God of the Bible Exists
Premise: Why else would Noah build the Ark?

As I said there are Multiple. This is just an example of 1.

[Anonymous No.2205995]

>>2205959

What you may wish to research is the concept of Occam's Razor ... The Fallacy your looking for Appeal to Ignorance is suitable.

And yes, suggesting that Pascal is a false dichotomy is fairly quick and strong agaisnt his claim.

[blah No.2206000]

>>2205966

hmmmm I am familiar with begging the question and a few fallacies I suppose. This has definantly helped me understand the problems with using a qualifier like probably and trying to logically show why, in this situation god, "probably" does'nt exist

Is there a rule of logic which the defaulting to a null hypothesis in science is based on? I think if I could find something like that I could roll with it read a few books on logic and formulate an argument that god probably does'nt exist the harderst part really is trying to define god lol it's all dependant on the person you talking to so the argument would have to be adjusted for each individual definition for "god"

I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion and would definantly grab a beer your obviously more knowledgable than me on this subject

[Anonymous No.2206004]

>>2206000
Not that guy, but on defaulting to a null hypothesis:

A null hypothesis is best because it aims to discover something i.e. is there a change within the system.

If you hypothesized that something changed towards i or +, or better or worse, there would be need to be a reason. For a null hypothesis, you don't need a good reason, other than "they might interact". It's basically an extension of the Newtonian observation "Everything at rest tends to stay at rest unless subjected to a force" (or however it's worded)

[Anonymous No.2206006]

>>2205943
Do you mean the part where I said:

>According to Pascal, it's eternal bliss.
>According to Pascal

[blah No.2206007]

>>2205995

see thats a problem i'm having with the null hypothesis thing.... is'nt the defaulting to a null hypothesis fallacious due to the appeal to ignorance? no evidence for god therefore we reject the god hypothesis in favor of the null that god does not exist....

[Anonymous No.2206009]

>>2206000

Some of the ones Suggested. For example Occam's Razor.... If the World was created by only Natural means, or If the World was created by Natural and Supernatural Means.... The latter is more complex, in Science we determine that often the simplist answer is the most correct.

The Appeal to ignorance is similar to most of this thread. Becoming Science's quick argument, from things like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I would suggest if you want to learn the ways of Logic (not Science) you can take multiple pages from Bertrand Russel (A Philosophical/Mathematical Formal Logician) So in otherwords he was an individual who believed everything in the world was finite and defineable... Through math and thought.

In his eyes, 1. "There is a teacup orbiting within the universe." 2. "We cannot prove, nor disprove this teacup." 3. "We must have faith that there is a teacup near venus" A statement like this shows the logic behind disregarding an argument for God based off faith.

If you want to get into the Science agaisnt God... It would be best to look into the Philosophical Creation of the Scientific Method, which began with Renee DeCartes and other famous names like Nietzche (SP BAD!)

Science is based off of the 5 senses, which means it is based off of material and realty. Sadly it's arguments will not be as strong as they should be in Religious debates.

Sorry that this sounds like a summary of things, But I've g2g fairly soon. Big day today.

[blah No.2206014]

>>2206004

so than rejecting it would'nt apply to the hypothesis "god exist" where we reject that claim in favor of the null that "god does not exist"

but then my problem with that is how do we determine the existance of something where there is no evidence either way? unicorns, zues, thor, reptilians etc......

[Anonymous No.2206031]

>>2206014
>>2206014

The Evidence for something New Conceptually is an extremely arguous process for science... The example that comes to mind is the introduction of Genetics. When the idea was first produced it was turned down by the entire community.... Because others were able to reproduce and test the same experiment as the discoverer, slowly it became accepted....

In order words Reproducabillity. If God appeared only to one individual, at one moment in time... Because there is no evidence of this moment and because we cannot recreate it... Often science has to turn it down as a possible truth (Although as intelligent beings we are quite open in this regard as well) .... Modesty.... another principle of Science.

Best I can do for ya given time constraints.... Sorry...

[blah No.2206034]

>>2206009

that is exactly what I am thinking of thank you! So does Bertrand Russel have any proofs for this in his writings? because the tea cup analogy is exactly what I was looking for but then what proofs are there besides just the obvious crazyness of believing the teacup is out there! lol does he quantify it in anyway? Have an sound argument for why it's a ridiculous example? because this is exactly what I am looking for......

[Anonymous No.2206045]

>>2206007
Actually in statistics we say we have failed to reject the null hypothesis. We never truly accept the null hypothesis.

[blah No.2206054]

>>2206045

ah true thanks for pointing that out I should know that lol
so in this situation the null vs alternate hypothesis does'nt help