Assuming the supernatural is possible

[Justin108]

Would assuming the supernatural is possible suddenly mean that the supernatural is probable? Or would supernatural occurrences still be highly unlikely events?

[Justin108]

You haven't responded in even a cursory manner to my brief comments (from a mere two or three hours' investigation) on the alleged Lourdes miracles, for example.

Yes because I fail to see what they have to do with the OP

As for the rest of your reply... can you point me to where you answer my question for debate?

[Mithrae]

You haven't responded in even a cursory manner to my brief comments (from a mere two or three hours' investigation) on the alleged Lourdes miracles, for example.

Yes because I fail to see what they have to do with the OP

As for the rest of your reply... can you point me to where you answer my question for debate?

I answered your question for debate in post #2 of the thread.

If you don't want to continue any discussions which arise from the views you express in your thread, that is fine; it originally wasn't even addressed to me after all (though perhaps Liam would be interested in your answer too ).

[dio9]

Would assuming the supernatural is possible suddenly mean that the supernatural is probable? Or would supernatural occurrences still be highly unlikely events?

our biosphere is highly unlikely. proof is in this pudding. In the vast universe of fire and ice our world (as far as we know ) is not normal . Life is supernatural.

[Justin108]

Would assuming the supernatural is possible suddenly mean that the supernatural is probable? Or would supernatural occurrences still be highly unlikely events?

our biosphere is highly unlikely. proof is in this pudding. In the vast universe of fire and ice our world (as far as we know ) is not normal . Life is supernatural.

I'm not seeing an answer to the question raised in my OP. Please reread my question and try again.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 15 by Mithrae]

Are you not even slightly sceptical of this?

Yes, I am. Not to the same point as miracles of course. Or are you attempting to portray guessing a sequence of numbers out of a sequence of about 50 or so, where there millions of people playing, in the same likelihood as say someone rising from the dead?

It's strange how you've reversed what you yourself seem to be skeptical about. You seem to be skeptical that people win lotteries, but not skeptical that people (or certain persons) rise from the dead.

The prior probability of someone having a winning lottery ticket is for all intents and purposes zero,

If we're talking a specific person, yes. I have never won a multi-million euro lottery, so my prior example with that is zero.
Thing is...has no-one won a multi-million euro/dollar lottery before? Nope. The fact that someone has, or several people have, is beyond dispute. Unless you'd like to claim that no-one has in fact won a lottery, that they've all been rigged or something...?

I showed you in another thread, and you haven't responded.

Link please? While unlikely, given how often I'm on the site, it is possible that I might have missed it.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 15 by Mithrae]

Are you not even slightly sceptical of this?

Yes, I am. Not to the same point as miracles of course. Or are you attempting to portray guessing a sequence of numbers out of a sequence of about 50 or so, where there millions of people playing, in the same likelihood as say someone rising from the dead?

It's strange how you've reversed what you yourself seem to be skeptical about. You seem to be skeptical that people win lotteries, but not skeptical that people (or certain persons) rise from the dead.

Please quote where I said that I'm not sceptical of people rising from the dead I can assure you that I did not, and have clearly stated the opposite more than once even in this very thread. I'm asserting a prior probability of essentially zero, for starters. I'd like to have a respectful discussion - and I apologize if my query regarding what you meant by lottery winners being "beyond dispute" touched a nerve with you - but this comment kind of looks like some attempt to score cheap points.

The prior probability of someone having a winning lottery ticket is for all intents and purposes zero,

If we're talking a specific person, yes. I have never won a multi-million euro lottery, so my prior example with that is zero.

I'm glad you agree with the correct answer, though the reasoning you suggest is fallacious. Someone who has never held dice before has never rolled a six, but obviously does not have zero probability of doing so. But yes, the prior probability of winning the lottery is essentially zero...

Thing is...has no-one won a multi-million euro/dollar lottery before? Nope. The fact that someone has, or several people have, is beyond dispute. Unless you'd like to claim that no-one has in fact won a lottery, that they've all been rigged or something...?

...and now you are assessing posterior probability regarding those winners.

I showed you in another thread, and you haven't responded.

Link please? While unlikely, given how often I'm on the site, it is possible that I might have missed it.

In post number 34 of the Bias toward bias thread I provided one example showing a high probability of genuine miracles, and in post number 40 provided a specific example whose validity is about as likely as not. Or you could take a look at post number 26 of this thread, a brief glance at the alleged Lourdes miracles.

[Mithrae]

As is my wont I edited and then re-edited my last post a few times, but figured I should do some quick Wiki-ing before trying to explain what I wanted to get at.

It seems that the position which Rikuoamero (and I believe Justin also) is advancing is similar to the theory of frequentist probability:

• Frequentist probability or frequentism is an interpretation of probability; it defines an event's probability as the limit of its relative frequency in a large number of trials. This interpretation supports the statistical needs of experimental scientists and pollsters; probabilities can be found (in principle) by a repeatable objective process (and are thus ideally devoid of opinion). It does not support all needs; gamblers typically require estimates of the odds without experiments.

The position which Liamconner is advancing seems to be more akin to propensity probability:

• The propensity theory of probability is one interpretation of the concept of probability. Theorists who adopt this interpretation think of probability as a physical propensity, or disposition, or tendency of a given type of physical situation to yield an outcome of a certain kind, or to yield a long run relative frequency of such an outcome.[1] Propensities are not relative frequencies, but purported causes of the observed stable relative frequencies. Propensities are invoked to explain why repeating a certain kind of experiment will generate a given outcome type at a persistent rate.

As I understand it (again, from only some brief reading) these both belong to the category dubbed 'physical' or 'objectivist' probabilities, in that they attempt to assess a real likelihood of a given event occurring. I think that usually I would be inclined towards viewing the latter, propensity probability, as being more appropriate even for most mundane purposes, because repeating large numbers of trials to establish a frequentist probability is so often impractical, impossible, unnecessary or if there aren't enough trials even misleading (though in cases where no valid information on propensities can be obtained, frequencies may serve an important purpose, not least in trying to discover the underlying causes).

In the case of exceptionally rare or singular events, frequentist probability seems to be all but useless or fundamentally fallacious. This has nothing to do with the 'supernatural': Frequentist probability presumably would have implied a zero probability of black holes before they were discovered for example, or a 100% probability of there being life on Earth-like planets until we find one without. So if we pretend to be discussing real likelihoods, propensity probability would be more appropriate. But that soon runs into the problem (as Liam has suggested) that we'd be trying to answer questions like "is there a God," "what would the creator of the universe do" or even "is it a deity responsible for 'supernatural' events at all" before considering the physical evidence for or against a miracle claim.

Far more reasonable in my view is an approach which explicitly quantifies our evaluation of likelihood, fully recognising that our evaluation may not perfectly match the real likelihood (which is obviously true of objectivist probabilities too), though we'll hopefully come close. This is what I have been (and generally do) talk about, and it seems that it is pretty much along the lines of Bayesian probability:

• Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation[1] representing a state of knowledge[2] or as quantification of a personal belief.[3] The Bayesian interpretation of probability can be seen as an extension of propositional logic that enables reasoning with hypotheses, i.e., the propositions whose truth or falsity is uncertain.

To my delight, Bayesian probability even incorporates those terms 'prior probability' and 'posterior probability' that I've been using: How we evaluate the likelihood of a result before we have access to some or all of the relevant data on it (ie, before an event has happened in our case), and how we evaluate the likelihood of it being the case after we have access to all the information that we can (the claim's plausibility in our case, since we would now be talking about past events).

Perhaps this will help clear up some confusion or miscommunication going forwards.



Edit: To further explain why frequentist probability is inappropriate here, I've been known to play the odd RPG game at times, and sometimes delve into the mechanics such as loot drop rates or critical hit proc rates. And in doing so, I have always held that to get a valid estimate on a low drop or proc chance, I'd need at least three and preferably five or more positive results (to allow some room for a +/-2 estimate). The reason is that any one or even two drops, or the absence of them, could easily be sheer coincidence rather than being statistically representative.

Suppose a given event had a real likelihood of 2 in 1000, or 0.002. That would mean that while you might expect 2 positive results in 1000 trials, you would still have a 13.5% chance of getting zero positives (0.998^1000). Even in 2000 trials, you'd still have a 1.8% chance of getting zero positives. So zero results is only different from two positive results at an 86.5% level of significance from a thousand trials (which really isn't significant) or at a 98.2% level of significance from two thousand.

Justin and Rikuo argue that there have been zero "confirmed" positive results for the supernatural; but depending both on the real likelihood of the supernatural and (given their qualification) the likelihood of such events being confirmed to their satisfaction, zero positive results may not be significantly different from two positive results - or even a dozen positive results, for that matter! Obviously if there were in fact some "confirmed" positive results they wouldn't be making that argument, so in making it - in suggesting that their zero figure is a significant one - they are unintentionally implying or presupposing those answers already.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 37 by Mithrae]

Thanks for the above mithrae. I honestly hadn't read either forms of probability before. I will have a more detailed write up later on today or possibly tomorrow (gonna get me a Ps4 pro today and will be stuck into that for the night), but what you have there looks fairly interesting.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 36 by Mithrae]

In post number 34 of the Bias toward bias thread I provided one example showing a high probability of genuine miracles,

I replied to post 34 of that thread. I pointed out that what you linked me to is a book by a guy who claims a high likelihood of miracles according to the Roman Catholic Church. Which is not what I asked for.

and in post number 40 provided a specific example whose validity is about as likely as not

Where? I'm re-reading post number 40 there and all you seem to be talking about is how human observation doesn't cover the total surface of the Earth, so in the unobserved areas what we deem to be scientific laws may or may not apply, so there could be miracles happening that we don't know about. My response to that is I need more than a "oh it could be happening in unobserved areas!" I need actual examples, not coulds. If you mean your mentioning of Daniel, then historia in her first post on that thread says enough.