flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul Torek) (12/29/84)
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) > >If there are N such claims, all inconsistent, this sets an upper limit on > >the probability of any one of them at 1/N. > Well, you can assign such probability, but it means nothing. At most one > of them is already true. I think it still means plenty. An event needn't be a future event for it to make sense to estimate its probability. If you roll a die and it falls out of view, and we both hear it come to rest, are you going to tell me it means nothing to say that the probability you got a 6 is one-sixth? >>>...[part of the chain of replies omitted] > Because part of the claim is that one of the assumptions of science is > invalidated. One can't show that an assumption of science is true using > science. Hold it. The assumption of the uniformity of nature is (allegedly) invalidated in *a few* instances; this does not affect the validity of using scientific procedures to investigate events *not* allegedly affected by direct divine intervention. Therefore, using science to investigate the trustworthiness of the eyewitnesses, their conditions of observation, and so on is perfectly legit. > >But why do you insist on non-patternedness? Must there be no method > >to divine madness? ... > O.k., let me explain why I might expect apparent patternlessness. If God is > sufficently powerful to grasp what is happening with every thought of every > human being throughout time (and we do seem to be claiming this), then we > would tend to expect that his actions would reflect a pattern which would > be too complex to be understood, and therefore would not be recognized as > pattern at all. Just because something's extremely complex doesn't mean it's completely unpredictable. Suppose God doesn't care about every single thought of every human being; after all, I would think that a lot of our thoughts are insignificant. It might be that most facts one (or One) knows are useless and irrelevant to one's actions, or have only a minor bearing on them. Anyway, Christians seem to believe that God's actions are at least partially predictable; e.g. do xyz --> go to heaven, right? --Paul V. Torek, umcp-cs!flink (until 1/11, then back to) wucs!wucec1!pvt1047