On Sun, 2008-02-24 at 03:34 -0500, Andrés Robinet wrote: > > -----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 > > > 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) This is still invalid argument. I'm not sure if it falls under "illusory correlation", "proof by verbosity" or both. It makes no difference what the math says since we know nothing about the probability and we cannot ascertain any probability from any sample. The probability that God exists doesn't change depending on the audience, just like the probability of a fair dice doesn't change depending on the thrower (note I said fair dice ;). To declare some probability means we have some knowledge of God, but if we did then the whole issue would be moot. And so the probability is unknown. For instance, the question is not the same as trying to guess the probability of aliens existing in the universe. For the universe we know the approximate size, and we know that there are already creatures living in the universe (us). And so we can try to guess a probability based on this knowledge. But for God... we know nothing. > *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 Fockers* 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? There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Polls and surveys merely point out social trends. Nothing more. There are no scientific studies that can give you the probability that God exists and any probabilty based on social trends is bogus. > 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? Maybe. Just because you're within the bandwagon effect doesn't mean you chose based on the bandwagon. For footers it may just be a case of "Wow, I never knew you could do that!" versus "OMTG I gotta have me a footer cuz everyone else has one and I don't want to be left out!" :) Cheers, Rob. -- .------------------------------------------------------------. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :------------------------------------------------------------: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `------------------------------------------------------------' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
