> -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Cummings [mailto:robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 4:57 AM > To: Andrés Robinet > Cc: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: RE: Re: temporary error > > 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. You know nothing about God, I know nothing about God. But there's people who knows at least something about God (or they say so for that matter, it makes no difference since we can't prove it). You are only proving here that you can't apply the scientific method to study God, but that would be just ok for believers, as God is not a controllable object like an electron would be. And even so, you can't know for sure what the behavior of an electron is, you can't know what energy level it will have for sure. Even more, let's take chemistry, if I mix up substances A and B, you CAN'T know the EXACT properties of the mix, and if they will go through a chemical reaction or just get mixed and keep their individual properties. You can DEDUCT most of it, based on one hundred theories and one thousand experiments with similar substances, but it just takes a random or unknown factor that you have not taken into account to throw away all your scientific predictions (that's why I started hating chemistry). So, if you've never mixed A and B before, you don't know FOR SURE what can happen. However, I agree that we all have much more knowledge of electrons, substances, and the physics laws than God. And that is something we can prove or deny, because at some point we have the control on the object we are studying or the environment of it, or we have a million studies that are related to it. But even having a *solid* theory, doesn't mean it will be received with open arms by the human race. Take Relativity (special or general, choose your *flavor*) for example, who believed in it when it was proposed? Now we are all talking about the light speed and even *time traveling*. But yes, now we've already built particle accelerators, and we've conducted one million experiments. And now we don't believe in ether, do we? Now speaking about probability and how we assign it. Math DOES NOT tell you how you assign probability, it is just a blind science which supports other sciences. Philosophy, Semantics, Rational thinking, or whatever you want to call it, could tell you that, but there are almost as many philosophical trends and beliefs as *flavors of God*. And about the probability of aliens existing... we create artificial intelligence, if at some point it becomes so smart that start studying us, will you change your mind and say that *because there's already a creature studying its creator, there's a chance that we have a creator*? I don't think so. I agree that a FACT doesn't depend on the audience, but a belief does. If you've been blind all your life, you don't believe in sun, do you? Still sun exists and everyone talks about it. How can you possibly conceive a sun if you are blind? Because your hands get warm? Now, you can argue about or against God from many perspectives. You have history, you have physics and chemistry, you have philosophy and you have psychology. But doing it solely on the basis of logics is being partial. Logics is another blind science, it depends on the axioms someone is starting with to prove or deny whatever you want to prove or deny. Another human being can take other axioms and prove exactly the opposite. Even our nowadays science is based upon axioms *deducted* out of experiments. This is called *induction* (at least in Spanish) and it’s the process by which you derive some general laws out of the experiments/facts. The good for science is that you can repeat those experiments. Now, can you imaging telling Jesus *hey wait! Do that miracle again so I can take some stats of your miracle rate*? You can argue about God on a historical basis. You can prove or deny if there was a Jesus or a Muhammad to some extent based upon historical facts. But can you prove or deny the miracles they did? Even if you were there, you can just think it is a scam. You can argue about God on a psychological basis. You can evaluate the impact of God on the *psychological health* of a human being (yeah, this is a very interesting one). But then you'd have to explain how Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler were both believers. And you can't just argue Hitler *was not a true believer* because another one could say the same of Mother Theresa. Clearly, neither you, nor I can solve the dilemma. But I have a set of reasons (not explained here) on every field I've *studied the God thing* to conclude it's not enough for me to have a belief in it. And as it has no impact on my everyday life, and I don't feel pretty much exited about it, my preferred conclusion is *I don't know, and I don't care* (yeap, I'm very pragmatic). However, what I don't like and I'm against with all my heart is the God that knocks on your door from time to time trying to sell you the paradise, and the God that asks for your money, and the God that makes you discriminate, hate and kill other people. That's for sure something I can prove wrong from every single point of view. > > > *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. So... why are you wearing that shirt? Or those trousers... or whatever you are wearing? People that assigns probability to social trends have made those clothes, and it seems they were right since you're sold. What about elections? Do you think candidates to presidency think polls and surveys are bogus? Why do they care about those stats then? Notice that I was not trying to say that you can deduct God's existence out of a survey. But you can deduct out of a survey, that people believing in an *impersonal God* is not praising him or praying to him. Just ask two questions on a statistical representative sample: 1 - Do you believe in an impersonal God? 2 - Are you praising him or praying to him on a regular basis? ... and you'll get your results. Probably they are indeed praying to an impersonal God, I don't know. But you can draw some figures out of a survey, that's for sure. And those results will be more reliable than weather forecast. > > > 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. | > `------------------------------------------------------------' Nothing left to say, but I believe it's just a matter of choice. Interesting though, is why some people choose to believe and some others don't, what is exactly what they believe in, and what's the impact of those beliefs in their cosmovision and behavior. That's very juicy, but for a psychological study on the human kind :). 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