RE: Re: temporary error

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Cummings [mailto:robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 2:34 AM
> To: Andrés Robinet
> Cc: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE:  Re: temporary error
> 
> 
> On Sat, 2008-02-23 at 20:11 -0500, Andrés Robinet wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Greg Donald [mailto:gdonald@xxxxxxxxx]
> > > Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:33 PM
> > > To: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: Re:  Re: temporary error
> > >
> > > On 2/23/08, tedd <tedd.sperling@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > I love the book written by Carl Sagan the "The Dragons of Eden" -- he
> > > >  has an interesting perspective on the God thing and it contains more
> > > >  substance than a cute quote.
> > >
> > > Well as long as we're quoting famous old fence-sitting agnostics, lets
> > > not forget Sagan's best:
> > >
> > > 'If by "God" one means the set of physical laws that govern the
> > > universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally
> > > unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of
> > > gravity.'
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Greg Donald
> > > http://destiney.com/
> >
> > Why not? Many people believes in such a God, so he has a very high
> probability
> > of existence, and it has taken the worst part as nobody I know of is
> currently
> > praising and praying to him.
> 
> You sir have homework:
> 
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Thinking
> 
> Cheers,
> Rob.
> --
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> | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting  |
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LOL, I have to recognize that my previous email had some dirty tricks in it. I was mostly being ironic. I'm actually more of an agnostic person (with some atheism moments from time to time). So, let me clarify what I said and to whom I said it:

*Many people believe in such a God, so he has a very high probability of existence*:

To those who say that something exists because they believe in it. That can't be true, since anybody can argue the opposite (something does not exist, because they don't believe in it) and neither of them can be proved.
As both statements can't be true, we can assume there's no deterministic way in which existence can be derived from belief. So we can propose as an alternate hypothesis that existence is a probabilistic variable, proportional to the number of believers, ergo, the aforementioned God has pretty good chance of existence.
Furthermore, in order to simplify the problem we can compute the probability of existence, in a weighted average fashion, using the metric *believer contribution to the human race* (from now on called C), we get following formula:

P(G) = SUM [ C(i)*X(i) ] / SUM [ C(i) ]

Were, P(G) is the *probability of existence of god G*, C(i) is the aforementioned metric applied to person *i* and X is a binary variable, such that:

X(i) = [*i* is a person: 1 if person *i* is a believer of god G, 0 otherwise]

We can even find joint probabilities for gods G1 and G2 and calculate all sorts of statistic parameters. The only problem is determining C(i), that is, a measure of the contribution of person *i* to the human race, but our team has found a method for that. I can't get deeper into this, because I would be in violation the NDA I have signed with NSA.
Interesting though, is that we can find gods that have more probability of existence than an electron in the first level of energy of an hydrogen atom (and we don't have such a complicated formula! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation)
So this is more of a scientific reality (still being researched) than a bias in our brains. And we must believe in science, *EVERYONE DOES*, right? (lol)


*and it has taken the worst part as nobody I know of is currently praising and praying to him*

Just part of the (bogus) argument. I have not yet conducted a survey, but, why would you praise a God if he has no implications in your life (hey, perhaps that's how the *personal God* idea arose in human minds). And why would you pray to him, if he's not interested in your fate or life and has zero requirements to let you in his *private circle of trust*? (yes, I took that from *The Fuckers* movie).

So, there are scientific studies to support my argument (call 0800-THE-NSA and ask for Rob if you don't believe me). And at least a rational assumption also (*and it has taken the worst part as nobody...*).
What bias are you talking about?

Regards,

Rob

PS. Please excuse me, I'll get a cup of coffee to improve synapses (lol). Btw, do you think that the fact that most of us use footers in emails has something to do with the Bandwagon Effect?

Andrés Robinet | Lead Developer | BESTPLACE CORPORATION 
5100 Bayview Drive 206, Royal Lauderdale Landings, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308 | TEL 954-607-4207 | FAX 954-337-2695 | 
Email: info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  | MSN Chat: best@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  |  SKYPE: bestplace |  Web: bestplace.biz  | Web: seo-diy.com

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