On the Use and Abuse of Probability

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Dimmesdale
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On the Use and Abuse of Probability

Post #1

Post by Dimmesdale »

Imagine for a moment that we live in a completely deterministic universe. In that universe let us say you roll a dice on a nice green felt gambling table. Snake eyes is the result. The question is, in such a universe, does it make sense to say that the outcome of snake eyes was 1 in 36?

Of course not. The dice's destiny was fixed all along. All the laws and conditions antecedent to the outcome of its throw laid the causal groundwork for the end result to be, ineluctably, snake eyes, and not any other outcome. This was necessary, given the rules of this particular universe, in the same way that the sum of a triangle's interior angles amount to 180 degrees. Every time.

You might say that the "chance" of the snake eyes was in the eye of the beholder, and in that sense has validity. And so we are justified in saying the chances were 1 in 36. Again, though, had we known all the background of the throw, we would not need to guess. But because we do not know, we try to grasp at, well, something.

But did we even have to guess? What do any guesses here even tell us? What information of reality do they impart? This and only this: there is a cap of 36 possibilites, no more, no less. CERTAINLY we do not know which possibilities could be more frequent than any others (unless the dice are loaded, but let's assume they are not). Going farther, maybe we could, after a hundred years' worth of throws, do research to the effect that the sides which are whittled down with more spots affect the throw, but that is another consideration that is moot regarding us mere mortals, so I will bypass that.

In other words, guesswork OFFERS NOTHING in the way of describing REALITY to us. Absolutely nothing more than certain base conditions that actually are only conditions FROM OUR LIMITED VANTAGE POINT: in this case 36. In that sense all GUESSWORK does is showcase our IGNORANCE of the underlying laws that are operative. At least, in the realm of law. With law alone you have constants. In order to disturb that equilibrium, you need to import something "extra"; free will or some other form of "real" chance. Perhaps with free will, the thrower could have given a different, unpredictable spin to the dice, which would have resulted in a different outcome. But how do you measure free will?

In the same way, how can someone say that a RESURRECTION is "improbable" based on his or her own imperfect research of all the DEATHS recorded in hospital records?

It is absolutely absurd to even make that conjecture.

If a permanent death, and a resurrection, are both NECESSARY (perhaps decreed by God) in the same way the lawful throw of a dice is necessary, then that closes the case on any "probabilities" regarding them. This is for two reasons. We cannot know to begin with if either things could have been any different even with free will. And also, they may very well have been necessary all along according to more stringent causation. In both cases, we have NO KNOWLEDGE and cannot judge regarding (much less between) them. All we know is that deaths occur, going by the hospital records. This tells us NOTHING about any resurrections, only deaths. If those deaths were necessary, in other words, it necessarily follows that they could not have become resurrections.

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Re: On the Use and Abuse of Probability

Post #2

Post by Purple Knight »

Yes, this is the case. That's very astute. Probability is the quantification of just how little or how much we can quantify something we can't quantify.

"What is the probability this coin comes up heads?" Bill asks.

"1/2." Bob replies.

Bill flips the coin. It comes up heads. "It was actually 100%." he says.

Now that's true. It's true both because we now know the outcome, and because the coin had two heads faces and no tails.

If Bob had known the coin had two heads and no tails, he would have replied, 100%. But he didn't know that. And this is all just to illustrate that you can't bloody quantify what you don't know.

That said, probability and statistics are vital to understanding certain things, because by attempting to quantify what we don't know, and by doing it as best we possibly can, we get as close as possible with the information that can be obtained. If Bob had looked at the coin, he would have said 100%. Perhaps he couldn't have, perhaps Bill made him call it in the air, in which case, the most correct answer he could have given was 1/2, which he did give. But again, you see, it's all about what we don't know.

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