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  1. <!-- A Reader’s Journey through God or Godless this May -->
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  111. <p>And I have the honour of having a copy signed by both authors on the same page on the same night!</p>
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  212. <p>One review indicates that John Loftus is very big on "the probabilities" in this book; this matches his emphasis in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Outsider-Test-Faith-Religion/dp/1616147377" rel="nofollow">The Outsider Test for Faith</a>. I am worried that John Loftus has a serious misunderstanding of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference" rel="nofollow">Bayesian inference</a>; specifically, that one must start out with a [universal] prior probability which is <i>not based on the evidence</i>. See:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/11/advice-on-politely-educating-ridiculous-religious-people/#comment-1699393267" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: Do you ever talk about how "the probabilities" get seeded? Technically: which universal Bayesian prior probabilities are correct, and which are wrong?</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/11/advice-on-politely-educating-ridiculous-religious-people/#comment-1699494758" rel="nofollow">JWL</a>: The page numbers I just mentioned refer to my book OTF. Yes, I do talk about priors in WIBA and GoG (I think). Here's a link though:<br><br><a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2014/06/victor-reppert-on-priors-biases-and.html" rel="nofollow">http://debunkingchristianity.b...</a></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/11/advice-on-politely-educating-ridiculous-religious-people/#comment-1701780533" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: You don't appear to understand what a universal prior <i>is</i>. I say this because you talk about weighing it against "the probability of the evidence", as if that concept is meaningful before one has a specific universal prior. To be clear, this is how Bayesian inference works:<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (1) start with a [universal] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability" rel="nofollow">prior probability</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (2) get a piece of evidence<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (3) compute a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterior_probability" rel="nofollow">posterior probability</a></blockquote><p></p><p>In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801015286/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0801015286&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=wwwrandalraus-20" rel="nofollow">God or Godless?</a>, does Loftus talk about (i) how he arrived at his universal prior; (ii) how he knows this is the best [available] universal prior? If he doesn't, I am inclined to believe that he engaged in what I call "manipulating the <a href="http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/14319/what-is-an-unarticulated-background" rel="nofollow">unarticulated background</a>", which is not a rational operation. Instead, it is the <i>pretending</i> of objectivity to get the other person to come around to your way of looking at things.</p>
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  315. <p>So far as I can see, Loftus invokes the language of "probabilities" as a form of rhetoric. </p>
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  415. <p>This wouldn't be different from anyone who presumes that he/she has access to "Objective Truth". Folks like Loftus merely hide their absolutes in science, as if it can support them. His reactions to challenging this are reminiscent of those who opposed Feyerabend's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method" rel="nofollow">Against Method</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method#Scholarly_reception" rel="nofollow">§ Scholarly reception</a>: The publication of <i>Against Method</i> led to Feyerabend's isolation from the community of philosophers of science, who objected to his view that there is no such thing as the scientific method.[11]</blockquote><p></p><p>How <i>dare</i> he challenge Scientific Orthodoxy! Heretic! Excommunicate him! It took some years, but he was vindicated, as can be seen by über-naturalist Penelope Maddy's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Philosophy-A-Naturalistic-Method/dp/0199566240" rel="nofollow">Second Philosophy: A Naturalistic Method</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A deeper difficulty springs from the lesson won through decades of study in the philosophy of science: there is no hard and fast specification of what 'science' must be, no determinate criterion of the form '<i>x</i> is science iff …'. It follows that there can be no straightforward definition of Second Philosophy along the lines 'trust only the methods of science'. Thus Second Philosophy, as I understand it, isn't a set of beliefs, a set of propositions to be affirmed; it has no theory. Since its contours can't be drawn by outright definition, I resort to the device of introducing a character, a particular sort of idealized inquirer called the Second Philosopher, and proceed by describing her thoughts and practices in a range of contexts; Second Philosophy is then to be understood as the product of her inquiries. (1)</blockquote><p></p><p>Maddy's use of "won" is an understatement. It would appear that John Loftus exists, philosophically, at a point in time before this recognition. Perhaps we can place him in Bertrand Russell's era, with all/many of Russell's errors.</p>
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  503.  
  504. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978012628" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Randal Rauser</a></span>
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  519. <p>My main problem with Loftus and probabilities is that on one hand most of what he says about them would make sense only if interpreted in terms of subjective probabilities, yet he keeps talking about things like "the" probability of this or that and refers to them as if they were objective features of the world around us. He is using a frequentist grammar to talk about subjective probabilities and thus comes across as hopelessly muddled.</p>
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  618. <p>Sounds about right. </p>
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  703. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978086105" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> tabula rasa</a></span>
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  718. <p>Your entire worldview is hopelessly muddled. We have enough liars-for-jezuz in cyberspace already. That's all we need, another armchair apologist.</p>
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  820. <p>Probable, means “likely,” comes from the Latin term probabilis, which itself stems from probare, meaning “to approve, prove, or test.”<br> Possible stems from the Latin term possibilis, which derives in turn from posse, which means “power” or “to be able.</p><p>God is possible to exist given enough indoctrination, but God is not probable to exists, no matter how much christian "scientists" are trying to prove it.</p>
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  907. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  922. <blockquote>You don't appear to understand what a universal prior is. I say <br>this because you talk about weighing it against "the probability of the <br>evidence", as if that concept is meaningful before one has a specific <br>universal prior. To be clear, this is how Bayesian inference works:<br><br>     (1) start with a [universal] prior probability<br>     (2) get a piece of evidence<br>     (3) compute a posterior probability</blockquote><p></p><p>And after that, there is:<br>(4) Use the posterior probability calculated in (3) as new prior probability, start over, and keep iterating until the posterior probability converges to a stable value. The key point here is that if you use bayesian inference in such an iterative fashion - the end result will be the same if you iterate long enough <i>no matter which values you used for the prior probabilities in the first iteration</i>.<br>That is in fact one of the biggest strengths of bayesian approaches - you can still use them even if you have zero prior empirical knowledge about the question at hand, by simply assigning <i>equal</i> probabilities to all possibilities for the first bayes round and calculating many iterations of Bayes theorem.</p>
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  1007. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  1022. <blockquote>[...] if you iterate long enough [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>How frequently, or infrequently, are we given "long enough"?</p><p></p><blockquote>[...] by simply assigning <i>equal</i> probabilities to all possibilities for the first bayes round [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>Nope, because this means not believing in Bayesian inference strongly enough to use it. An uninformative prior over all beliefs is equivalent to radical skepticism, and radical skepticism is widely accepted to be inescapable. If you start there, you end there. And so, the only way you can say what you say is that if you have a very non-neutral, <i>informative</i> subset of your universal prior. I'm pretty sure it is now acknowledged that the number of beliefs required to even get evidentialism <i>off the ground</i> is nontrivial.</p>
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  1124. <blockquote>How frequently, or infrequently, are we given "long enough"?</blockquote><p></p><p>That depends. In bayesian phylogenomics (the field I´m most familiar with) the software that is used for that and the criteria for deciding what counts as "long enough" are pretty mature and well thought out IMHO.</p><p></p><blockquote>Nope, because this means not believing in Bayesian inference strongly enough to use it.[1] An uninformative prior over all beliefs is equivalent to radical <br>skepticism, and radical skepticism is widely accepted to be inescapable.[2]</blockquote><p></p><p>1. You are conflating two completely different issues: a) the methodology for inference itself and b) the prior probabilities that are used for a specific application of said methology.<br>2. I´ll give you an example for such an uninformative prior: the prior probabilities for the occurence of A, T, G or C at a specific site in an alignment of genes are {0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25}. That I use such a prior does not mean that I subscribe to the position that knowledge is impossible (which is what "radical skepticism" means). Radical skepticism has literally (yes, literally) nothing whatsoever to do with this - and the very act of using a  method of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference" rel="nofollow"><i>inference</i> </a> is also an implicit denial of radical skepticism.</p>
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  1224. <blockquote>That depends. In bayesian phylogenomics (the field I´m most familiar with) the software that is used for that and the criteria for deciding what counts as "long enough" are pretty mature and well thought out IMHO.</blockquote><p></p><p>Another way of saying this is that nobody has figured out a [sufficiently] better approach, which is fine. My wife is an experimentalist working on chromatin remodeling complexes and I'm aware of <i>how little</i> we know about this stuff. I'm not surprised that a very generic pattern-finding system can make progress in such a setting.</p><p>There is a setting where I have expertise where your <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"if you iterate long enough"</a> fails miserably: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadcopter" rel="nofollow">quadcopters</a>. If you cannot figure out your attitude and position quickly enough, you crash and perhaps burn. I wonder how much of life is made up of such cases, where one has to actually presuppose quite a lot in order to get off the ground and stay off the ground.</p><p>By the way, the most generalized form of what you discuss is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff's_theory_of_inductive_inference" rel="nofollow">Solomonoff induction</a> (<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/dhg/an_intuitive_explanation_of_solomonoff_induction/" rel="nofollow">LW intro</a>). It simply doesn't work in anywhere <i>close</i> to the domains of life required to live life. Were this false, we'd have AIs which are extremely powerful. We don't. And I'm interested in more domains of life than just bayesian phylogenomics.</p><p></p><blockquote>1. You are conflating two completely different issues: a) the methodology for inference itself and b) the prior probabilities that are used for a specific application of said methology.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, I'm intentionally saying that we need to talk about <i>all beliefs</i>, and among those beliefs are beliefs in how to reason, how to evaluate evidence, etc. My very point in talking about universal priors is to ferret out <i>all</i> presuppositions. Otherwise, many conclusions can be baked into the presuppositions. Just consider looking at all the evidence and finding presuppositions which (i) accomplish scientific goals, and (ii) accomplish ideological goals. As long as (i) is convincing enough, (ii) can be slipped past many, many people.</p><p>Radical skepticism is relevant if one attempts to say that there are no privileged beliefs. And yet, if there are privileged beliefs, we need to start asking why <i>those</i> beliefs are privileged, and not others. My focus on universal priors is an attempt to use John Loftus' own language to examine his privileged beliefs.</p>
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  1326. <blockquote>There is a setting where I have expertise where your "if you iterate long enough" fails miserably: quadcopters. If you cannot figure out your attitude and position quickly enough, you crash and perhaps burn.</blockquote><p></p><p>And how exactly is bayesian inference being used for quadcopters and how much more computational power compared to what is currently available is required to run a sufficient number of iterations "quickly enough"?</p><p></p><blockquote>By the way, the most generalized form of what you discuss is Solomonoff induction (LW intro). It simply doesn't work in anywhere close to the domains of life required to live life.</blockquote><p></p><p>And this is relevant for what you originally wrote and / or my reply to it because....?</p><p></p><blockquote>No, I'm intentionally saying that we need to talk about all beliefs,<br> and among those beliefs are beliefs in how to reason, how to evaluate <br>evidence, etc. My very point in talking about universal priors is to <br>ferret out all presuppositions</blockquote><p></p><p>Then it was positively misleading to raise the issue of bayesian inference at all here and with Loftus. You said:</p><p></p><blockquote>You don't appear to understand what a universal prior is. I say <br>this because you talk about weighing it against "the probability of the <br>evidence", as if that concept is meaningful before one has a specific <br>universal prior. To be clear, this is how Bayesian inference works:<br><br>     (1) start with a [universal] prior probability<br>     (2) get a piece of evidence<br>     (3) compute a posterior probability</blockquote><p></p><p>- and your "to be clear..." doesn´t clarify anything at all, it is rather positively misleading because your "universal priors" and bayesian "prior probabilities" are completely different issues.</p>
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  1426. <blockquote>And how exactly is bayesian inference being used for quadcopters and how much more computational power compared to what is currently available is required to run a sufficient number of iterations "quickly enough"?</blockquote><p></p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter" rel="nofollow">Kalman filter</a>s are a form of "state estimation" which lets you perform what is called "sensor fusion", to combine the results of various sensors, with various noise characteristics, into a unified estimate of e.g. attitude and position. The Kalman filter equations can be derived using Bayesian mathematics.</p><p>Whether there is a "good enough" way to employ something close enough to a Kalman filter is unknown to me; I no longer work at the quadcopter startup. If there is no "good enough" way with extant computing power, a faster, more power-hungry setup could probably have been used. And perhaps one could offload enough computation to perform some locally, some remotely.</p><p>I don't really see what this has to do with the discussion though, unless you want to insist that there is always a "good enough" way to employ Bayesian inference.</p><p></p><blockquote>And this is relevant for what you originally wrote and / or my reply to it because....?</blockquote><p></p><p>It takes Bayesian inference to the max. What I suspect is that you're using Bayesian inference where it's one of the best available tools, and presuming that it works sufficiently well, <i>with an uninformative prior</i>, in enough places to render my argument moot. I am not at all convinced that this is true.</p><p></p><blockquote>Then it was positively misleading to raise the issue of bayesian inference at all here and with Loftus.</blockquote><p></p><p>Why? He is absolutely obsessed with "the probabilities". It makes perfect sense to ask how those got seeded. If he cannot give a good enough account, then he probably isn't doing what he says he's doing.</p>
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  1528. <blockquote>It takes Bayesian inference to the max. What I suspect is that you're <br>using Bayesian inference where it's one of the best available tools, and<br> presuming that it works sufficiently well, with an uninformative prior, in enough places to render my argument moot.</blockquote><p></p><p>I do not know what you are arguing <i>for</i> - all I could figure out so far is that you meant very different things when you referred to a) "universal priors" and b) bayesian "prior probabilities", but still said that the latter  clarifies the former (which, again, I find to be positively misleading). <br>With regards to bayesian inference being "one of the best available tools" where I use it - that is indeed correct. But I also think that it should be used more widely in the humanities, there are surely fields where it is not applicable or practical, but where it is practical - it seems to be the best approach we have to avoid subjective biases in evaluating evidence.</p><p></p><blockquote>Why? He is absolutely obsessed with "the probabilities". It makes perfect sense to ask how those got seeded.</blockquote><p></p><p>I don´t know what exactly you have been asking for. It would help if you could sketch an example of how someone could potentially "seed a probability" - an example that you would accept as an answer to your question.</p>
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  1628. <blockquote>I do not know what you are arguing <i>for</i> [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>It's simple: one's pre-evidential [universal] prior probability matters if there is insufficient time to <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"iterate long enough"</a>. And I suspect that there are plenty of instances where one cannot <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"iterate long enough"</a>. This is merely a way of saying that one's presuppositions—one's prejudices and biases, even—really do matter, and we cannot transcend them with Bayesian inference.</p><p></p><blockquote>[...] all I could figure out so far is that you meant very different things when you referred to a) "universal priors" and b) bayesian "prior probabilities" [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>Seriously? All unviersal priors are prior probabilities, but not all prior probabilities are universal priors.</p><p></p><blockquote>[...] where it is practical - it seems to be the best approach we have to avoid subjective biases in evaluating evidence.</blockquote><p></p><p>Yes, as long as everyone agrees that the inference setup is the best way to look at the situation. However, history shows us that science goes through paradigm shifts where <i>what even counts as 'evidence'</i> can change. So while your proposal is indeed a way to achieve increasing consensus, there is zero guarantee of convergence upon what is true.</p><p></p><blockquote>I don´t know what exactly you have been asking for. It would help if you could sketch an example of how someone could potentially "seed a probability" - an example that you would accept as an answer to your question.</blockquote><p></p><p>One's conception of human nature is an excellent example of a seed. One option is Thomas Hobbes' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature" rel="nofollow">state of nature</a>, where "life is nasty, brutish, and short". From this foundation, one requires the State to be the sole legitimate purveyor of <i>force</i>, and it is <i>force</i> which holds societies together. Contrast this to Aristotle's conception of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polis" rel="nofollow"><i>polis</i></a>, where a common <i>telos</i> could be the "tie that binds". What you assume here matters quite a lot in how you think humans ought to be governed, how to maximally ensure their flourishing, etc.</p><p>Another way to get at this is whether <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory" rel="nofollow">rational choice theory</a> is a good model of humans as they behave in economies. Michael Taylor used to think it is a good model, but increasingly came to reject it as bad; see for example his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rationality-Ideology-Disconnection-Contemporary-Political/dp/0521687047" rel="nofollow">Rationality and the Ideology of Disconnection</a>. Indeed, it is increasingly looking to me that rational choice theory is an <i>ideological legitimation</i> of so-called "enlightened self-interest", over and above a concept of the 'common good', where my 'private good' does not necessarily conflict with your 'private good'.</p><p>Alasdair MacIntyre argues convincingly in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue" rel="nofollow">After Virtue</a> that Enlightenment thought removed from metaethics the idea of teleologicaly bound communities, in favor of force-bound communities. People are individuals first <i>outside</i> relationship, says Enlightenment thought. They then <i>choose</i> to associate with other humans. First and foremost they are autonomous individuals with ultimited dominion over their little private domains. They can then <i>choose</i> how they associate with others, or do not associate with others. But is this actually a good model? It certainly is a belief which leads to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Construction_of_Reality" rel="nofollow">the construction of a whole lot of reality</a>. But is there a different universal prior, a different foundation upon which we can build?</p>
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  1730. <blockquote>This is merely a way of saying that one's presuppositions—one's prejudices and biases, even—really do matter, and we cannot transcend <br>them with Bayesian inference.</blockquote><p></p><p>Yes, your "prejudices and biases [] really do matter". Of course they do. But that is one of the strongest arguments, if not the strongest, <i>for</i> using bayesian inference, because it forces you to make those prejudices and biases <i>explicit</i>. If you want to use a bayesian approach, you have to come up with explicit parameters for it and you either justify them, all of them, and thus make your prejudices and biases explicit, or you do it in an arbitrary fashion - which is also explicit, <i>explicitly arbitrary</i>.</p><p></p><blockquote>Seriously? All unviersal priors are prior probabilities, but not all prior probabilities are universal priors.</blockquote><p></p><p>The universal priors that you did mention in your comment here (MacIntyre, Taylor, Hobbes etc.) seem to have little to do with prior probabilities - that is evident by the fact that you presented plenty of examples but not a single number (or something else that could indicate a degree of confidence in this context).</p><p>Also, I have to note that the question you refer to here:<br>"Why? He is absolutely obsessed with "the probabilities". It makes perfect sense to ask how those got seeded."<br>- is unanswerable. Because it seems that you wanted to know literally <i>everything</i> that Loftus believes + the degree of confidence with which he believes it and thus essentially asked him to write a comment that would be many hundreds of pages long (humans believe quite a lot of things, and our justifications for the degree of confidence with which we believe something can be quite complex). So I´m not surprised that he didn´t give you an answer. If you wanted an answer, you should have referred to a <i>specific probability for a specific example</i>.</p>
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  1830. <blockquote>If you want to use a bayesian approach, you have to come up with explicit parameters for it and you either justify them, all of them, and thus make your prejudices and biases explicit, or you do it in an arbitrary fashion - which is also explicit, <i>explicitly arbitrary</i>.</blockquote><p></p><p>It is impossible to make all† of your prejudices and biases explicit. You can see a failure to acknowledge this, for example, in Hume's writings about what were universal human virtues (which he separated, IIRC, from religious virtues). Even if you reach universal agreement within some group of people, it can easily be the case that you are <i>all</i> biased and prejudiced, in the same way. If all of reality were red, you wouldn't know it. Your "justifications" will not terminate in Objective Ground, but instead Intersubjective Agreement.</p><p>The antinomy you draw between "explicit parameters" and "arbitrary fashion" seems underwhelming, unless you insist that e.g. the SCOTUS judges are being arbitrary because they don't always employ numbers and probabilities in their deliberations. Given that Loftus wishes everyone to employ "the probabilities" in all realms instead of just the non-human sciences, matters such as this seem germane.</p><p>† I note that you did not say "all".</p><p></p><blockquote>The universal priors that you did mention in your comment here (MacIntyre, Taylor, Hobbes etc.) seem to have little to do with prior probabilities - that is evident by the fact that you presented plenty of examples but not a single number (or something else that could indicate a degree of confidence in this context).</blockquote><p></p><p>Well, given that multiple ontologies for human being and humans in society are on offer, one could start trying to generate numbers. After all, people do convert from one ontology to another; Michael Taylor is an example. What I hope is clear is that which ontology is chosen has massive repercussions. Many people <i>continue</i> to believe in rational choice theory, and that belief arguably <i>creates</i> the very data which are consonant with that theory. This, of course, makes the human sciences considerably trickier than the non-human sciences. And yet, John Loftus wishes to talk about how to think about the human sciences.</p><p></p><blockquote>Also, I have to note that the question you refer to here:<br>"Why? He is absolutely obsessed with "the probabilities". It makes perfect sense to ask how those got seeded."<br>- is unanswerable. Because it seems that you wanted to know literally <i>everything</i> that Loftus believes [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>Nope; "how those got seeded" does not entail "<i>everything</i>". What I wanted is for Loftus to admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence, and as such, the statement, "the probabilities are all that matters" is incorrect <i>unless</i> he also means his universal prior probabilities. And yet, it would appear that he doesn't understand what a universal prior is, from my conversation with him. Otherwise, he would admit that not all probabilities come from "the evidence".</p><p>See, the Christian certainly respects the evidence; a major way he/she differs is how his/her epistemology is seeded. I am pretty convinced that for much of life, we have <i>nothing like</i> the time, or data, to <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"iterate long enough"</a>. Given this, the seed matters, <i>tremendously</i>.</p>
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  1932. <blockquote>It is impossible to make all† of your prejudices and biases explicit.</blockquote><p></p><p>1. This is completely irrelevant. What matters are the particular prejudices and biases that are <i>actually relevant for the question</i> you are dealing with in the particular context. My prejudices wrt, say, Baseball (it´s boring as f*#k!) are spectacularly irrelevant when I would try to use bayesian reasoning for, say, figuring out how confident we can be that Caesar actually crossed the Rubicon, given the available evidence. <br>2. You seem to have a better way. So what is your suggestion for an alternative that is better than bayesian reasoning at minimizing the impact of your subjective biases and maximizing the transparency of your reasoning?</p><p></p><blockquote>The antinomy you draw between "explicit parameters" and "arbitrary fashion" seems underwhelming, unless you insist that e.g. the SCOTUS <br>judges are being arbitrary because they don't always employ numbers and probabilities in their deliberations.</blockquote><p></p><p>You are completely misrepresenting what I said. I did not say, nor did I imply, that you are being necessarily arbitrary when your reasoning is not bayesian (although I would indeed say that all valid reasoning that deals with <i>empirical</i> evidence is bayesian in nature - although most of the times not explicitly so). What I actually did say is that you either justify your parameters for bayesian reasoning explicitly, or you do not, and if you do not - then you are being explicitly arbitrary <i>in how you use bayesian reasoning</i>.</p><p></p><blockquote>Nope; "how those got seeded" does not entail "everything". What I wanted is for Loftus to admit that he does not actually believe everything  probabilities" which came from evidence, and as such, the statement, "the probabilities are all that matters" is incorrect unless he also means his universal prior probabilities. And yet, it would appear that he doesn't understand what a universal prior is, from my  conversation with him. Otherwise, he would admit that not all probabilities come from "the evidence".</blockquote><p></p><p>And you actually expected to get a serious answer and have a serious conversation when you in fact asked a cheap gotcha question that would ideally allow you to say something like "Hah! You believe in the principles of logic and mathematics that are required to prove Bayes' theorem without having "probabilities" for that!" <br>?</p>
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  2032. <blockquote>1. This is completely irrelevant. What matters are the particular prejudices and biases that are <i>actually relevant for the question</i> you are dealing with in the particular context. </blockquote><p></p><p>My <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980217595" rel="nofollow">"all"</a> was meant to be restricted to those which are relevant.</p><p></p><blockquote>2. You seem to have a better way. So what is your suggestion for an alternative that is better than bayesian reasoning at minimizing the impact of your subjective biases and maximizing the transparency of your reasoning?</blockquote><p></p><p>Actually, I would argue that there are many realms of life which are not well-modeled with numbers like you indicate. For example, I have seen historians claim that Richard Carrier's focus on numbers and Bayesian inference provides the illusion of increased precision and decreased subjectivity when nothing of the sort happens.</p><p>The very idea that you can necessarily come up with the same way to frame a matter is very contentious when it comes to matters in the human sciences, which are what would produce the knowledge Loftus would need to govern 100% secularly. Part of the reason for asking Loftus about his universal priors is to expose that he doesn't always operate in terms of numeric probability. For example, I highly doubt that he has run the probabilities on whether rational choice theory or some other model of humans as economic players is better. I doubt he knows whether anyone whose judgment he trusts has run these probabilities. And yet, what model is employed in public policy is extremely important.</p><p></p><blockquote>You are completely misrepresenting what I said. I did not say, nor did I imply, that you are being necessarily arbitrary when your reasoning is not bayesian (although I would indeed say that all valid reasoning that deals with empirical evidence is bayesian in nature - although most of the times not explicitly so).</blockquote><p></p><p>My use of <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980217595" rel="nofollow">"unless"</a> was meant to render it unlikely that you believed what followed the "unless".</p><p></p><blockquote>What I actually did say is that you either justify your parameters for bayesian reasoning explicitly, or you do not, and if you do not - then you are being explicitly arbitrary <i>in how you use bayesian reasoning</i>.</blockquote><p></p><p>To the extent that one has to use reasoning other than Bayesian reasoning, Loftus' "the probabilities are all that matter" would seem erroneous, unless he is employing other inference methods based on numeric probabilities.</p><p></p><blockquote>And you actually expected to get a serious answer and have a serious conversation when you in fact asked a cheap gotcha question that would ideally allow you to say something like "Hah! You believe in the principles of logic and mathematics that are required to prove Bayes' theorem without having "probabilities" for that!"<br>?</blockquote><p></p><p>No, because I think Loftus assumes much more than "the principles of logic and mathematics". Religionists are happy to be transparent with their dogmas. Atheists, in my experience, want to pretend their dogmas don't exist, by claiming to be objective observers, or something like that. Loftus is an instance of this, as far as I can tell. If he weren't, he would not use the 'all' in "the probabilities are all that matters".</p><p>See, you only find out where a model runs out of gas by pushing it to its limits. Loftus does not do this with Bayesian inference, as far as I can tell. Instead, he refuses to engage when the limits are approached. This is what I find intellectually disingenuous. I see it as an attempt to manipulate the other person's <a href="http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/14319/what-is-an-unarticulated-background" rel="nofollow">unarticulated background</a>, while pretending objectivity all the day long. Why he must do this is quite clear; secular reason demands that we not be <i>explicit</i> about what we truly believe:</p><p></p><blockquote>No one expects that anything called "reason" will dispel such pluralism by leading people to converge on a unified truth—certainly not about ultimate or cosmic matters such as "the nature of the universe" or "the end and the object of life." Indeed, unity on such matters could be achieved only by state coercion: Rawls calls this the "fact of oppression."[36] So a central function of "public reason" today is precisely to keep such matters out of public deliberation (subject to various qualifications and exceptions that Rawls conceded as his thinking developed). And citizens practice Rawlsian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_reason" rel="nofollow">public reason</a> when they <i>refrain from</i> invoking or acting on their "comprehensive doctrines"—that is, their deepest convictions about what is really true—and consent to work only with a scaled-down set of beliefs or methods that claim the support of an ostensible "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlapping_consensus" rel="nofollow">overlapping consensus</a>".[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Liberalism" rel="nofollow"><i>Political Liberalism</i></a>, 133-172, 223-227] (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Disenchantment-Secular-Discourse-Steven-Smith/dp/0674050878" rel="nofollow">The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse</a>, 14–15)</blockquote><p></p><p>And so, if one wants to alter what another person believes as a "comprehensive doctrine", one has to be devious. I accuse Loftus of being devious in this way.</p>
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  2134. <blockquote>My "all" was meant to be restricted to those which are relevant.</blockquote><p></p><p>Then you are simply wrong.</p><p></p><blockquote>Actually, I would argue that there are many realms of life which are not well-modeled with numbers like you indicate. For example, I have seen historians claim that Richard Carrier's focus <br>on numbers and Bayesian inference provides the illusion of increased <br>precision and decreased subjectivity when nothing of the sort happens.</blockquote><p></p><p>I haven´t read Carrier´s books on that, and will not do so in the future (because I frankly couldn´t care less whether Jesus was completely mythological or not), but from the excerpts and blogposts I have seen about it - he does seem to understand how bayesian inference works. And if that is correct, then you will find explicit justifications for how he evaluates every single piece of evidence he talks about - if he is using bayes theorem properly, then he cannot hide his biases behind empty rethoric but is rather forced to provide an explicit account for how he weighs each piece of evidence and why he does so. That doesn´t necessarily mean that his conclusion is more "precise" because it could be that he didn´t consider all available evidence or made terrible judgments in weighing some (or most) pieces of evidence, but if he did so, then his approach guarantees that you can easily find <i>which</i> evidence was considered, <i>how</i> it was weighed and <i>why</i>.</p><p></p><blockquote>No, because I think Loftus assumes much more than "the principles of logic and mathematics".</blockquote><p></p><p>That was just an example. It doesn´t change the fact that your question was not sincere.</p><p></p><blockquote>Loftus does not do this with Bayesian inference, as far as I can tell. Instead, he refuses to engage when the limits are approached.</blockquote><p></p><p>Possible, but you do not know that. You asked him a disingenuous (and highly confusing) question with the intent to get him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence" instead of just asking <i>what you actually wanted to know</i> - whether there are things that he believes in despite not having a "probability" for them.</p>
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  2219. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980290455" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  2234. <blockquote>Then you are simply wrong.</blockquote><p></p><p>Unless you want to proffer an argument, I will continue believing as I have stated. I don't think one can avoid having prejudices; I don't think one can avoid having a <i>telos</i> which ultimately colors perception and informs actions. The most one can do is blind oneself to one's prejudices, by surrounding oneself with people who think just like oneself.</p><p></p><blockquote>That doesn´t necessarily mean that his conclusion is more "precise" because it could be that he didn´t consider all available evidence or made terrible judgments in weighing some (or most) pieces of evidence, but if he did so, then his approach guarantees that you can easily find <i>which</i> evidence was considered, <i>how</i> it was weighed and <i>why</i>.</blockquote><p></p><p>One needs neither Bayesian inference nor numbers to do this.</p><p></p><blockquote>That was just an example. It doesn´t change the fact that your question was not sincere.</blockquote><p></p><p>I have no idea what you mean by "sincere" in this context. I am attempting to work within John's system of thought, taking seriously his claim that "the probabilities are all that matter". I do think that he is talking nonsense (because he refuses to acknowledge the importance of universal priors and account for his own), but by taking him seriously and expecting him to articulate his system of thought more clearly, I can tease this out in a way which is maximally respectful of his way of thinking about reality.</p>
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  2336. <blockquote>Unless you want to proffer an argument, I will continue believing as I have stated. I don't think one can avoid having prejudices</blockquote><p></p><p>I neither said, nor implied, nor even hinted at the possibility of one not having any prejudices.<br>You are being obtuse.</p><p></p><blockquote>One needs neither Bayesian inference nor numbers to do this.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, but bayesian inference forces you to do it while no other established approach does so. Hence my earlier question: "what is your suggestion for an alternative that is better than bayesian reasoning at minimizing the impact of your subjective biases and maximizing the transparency of your reasoning?"<br>You criticize but you have absolutely nothing in terms of offering alternatives that are better, or even just as good as bayesian reasoning (in the fields where it is practical to use obviously).</p><p></p><blockquote>I have no idea what you mean by "sincere" in this context.</blockquote><p></p><p>You asked him how he "seeds probabilities". But that wasn´t what you wanted to know. You actually didn´t want to know anything at all - you rather wanted him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence". And that is why your question was not sincere (and it was also highly confusing).</p>
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  2435. <blockquote>I neither said, nor implied, nor even hinted at the possibility of one not having any prejudices.<br>You are being obtuse.</blockquote><p></p><p>I forgot to say the underlined bit: "one cannot avoid having prejudices <u>which are unarticulated</u>".</p><p></p><blockquote>No, but bayesian inference forces you to do it while no other established approach does so.</blockquote><p></p><p>I suggest looking at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28social_sciences%29" rel="nofollow">WP: Framing (social sciences)</a>. Bayesian inference simply doesn't do precisely what you say it does. <i>Any</i> time language is used, it depends on an underlying <a href="http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/14319/what-is-an-unarticulated-background" rel="nofollow">unarticulated background</a>. That's where justifications <i>must</i> terminate, and there is <i>no</i> guarantee of objectivity, of freedom from prejudice, or even knowing what your prejudices are.</p><p></p><blockquote>You criticize but you have absolutely nothing in terms of offering alternatives that are better, or even just as good as bayesian reasoning (in the fields where it is practical to use obviously).</blockquote><p></p><p>The very matter under debate is the suitability of Bayesian inference for the tasks required for humans to live and thrive, both individually and in society. To the extent that Bayesian inference is only useful here and there, John Loftus is under intellectual obligation to offer up an alternative method of inference with probabilities, or admit that "the probabilities are all that matters" <i>is false</i>.</p><p></p><blockquote>You asked him how he "seeds probabilities". But that wasn´t what you wanted to know. You actually didn´t want to know anything at all - you rather wanted him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence". And that is why your question was not sincere (and it was also highly confusing).</blockquote><p></p><p>Actually, I'm completely open to John Loftus having an answer, which works within his framework, of which I have not conceived. What I expect is for him to either acknowledge the limitations of Bayesian inference (or more precisely, all models of inference based on numeric probabilities) when it comes to real-world affairs, or show how any such limitations are irrelevant for real-world affairs. That I, personally, think his model does not work does not meant that it does not work.</p><p>Challenging a person to make his system of thought more rigorous is not insincere. I try to always be open to others have thought of solutions which I haven't thought of. Perhaps you operate differently, and you would be insincere were you to act as I am acting.</p>
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  2521. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980333687" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  2536. <blockquote>I suggest looking at WP: Framing (social sciences). Bayesian inference simply doesn't do precisely what you say it does. Any time language is used, it depends on an underlying unarticulated background. That's where justifications must terminate, and there is no guarantee of objectivity, of freedom from prejudice, or even knowing what your prejudices are.</blockquote><p></p><p>I´ll just grant you that for the sake of the argument. So your point is that because we cannot be completely free from prejudices and can also not know precisely what our prejudices are, we should therefore not even try to avoid from being prejudicial in making judgments and also should not even try to make our prejudices explicit? <br>If that is not your point - what is it?</p><p></p><blockquote>The very matter under debate is the suitability of Bayesian inference for the tasks required for humans to live and thrive, both individually and in society.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, what you say here would indicate that we are talking about whether bayesian reasoning is, or isn´t, applicable in a specific field of inquiry. We didn´t talk about that at all. Not in any way. I mentioned several times that I am talking about fields in which bayesian reasoning can be used and you have quoted and thus presumably read this.</p><p></p><blockquote>Actually, I'm completely open to John Loftus having an answer, which works within his framework, of which I have not conceived.</blockquote><p></p><p>You did not even want an answer to your question - you wanted to get him to  "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence".</p>
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  2626. <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980359978" data-role="relative-time" class="time-ago" title="Tuesday, April 21, 2015 4:42 PM">2 days ago</a>
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  2635. <blockquote>I´ll just grant you that for the sake of the argument. So your point is that because we cannot be completely free from prejudices and can also not know precisely what our prejudices are, we should therefore not even try to avoid from being prejudicial in making judgments and also should not even try to make our prejudices explicit?</blockquote><p></p><p>Nope, I'm simply objecting to your overinflated claims of what Bayesian inference can do. Furthermore, I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that Bayesian inference is the best way to expose prejudices, which is a position you seem to be advancing.</p><p></p><blockquote>No, what you say here would indicate that we are talking about whether bayesian reasoning is, or isn´t, applicable in a specific field of inquiry. We didn´t talk about that at all. Not in any way. I mentioned several times that I am talking about fields in which bayesian reasoning can be used and you have quoted and thus presumably read this.</blockquote><p></p><p>My very first reply to you, <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979465263" rel="nofollow">"How frequently, or infrequently, are we given "long enough"?"</a>, was meant to question where Bayesian inference is applicable. My second response was also meant to figure out where Bayesian inference is the best approach and where it is not:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979555003" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: There is a setting where I have expertise where your <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"if you iterate long enough"</a> fails miserably: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadcopter" rel="nofollow">quadcopters</a>. If you cannot figure out your attitude and position quickly enough, you crash and perhaps burn. I wonder how much of life is made up of such cases, where one has to actually presuppose quite a lot in order to get off the ground and stay off the ground.</blockquote><p></p><p>I was clear <i>from the outset</i>. As far as I can tell, you are doing everything within your power to shield readers from the likelihood that John Loftus is bullshitting when he says "the probabilities are all that matter".</p><p></p><blockquote>You did not even want an answer to your question - you wanted to get him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence".</blockquote><p></p><p><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">My opening comment</a> was very clear in asserting "<i>not based on the evidence</i>", and requesting:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801015286/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0801015286&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=wwwrandalraus-20" rel="nofollow">God or Godless?</a>, does Loftus talk about (i) how he arrived at his universal prior; (ii) how he knows this is the best [available] universal prior?</blockquote><p></p><p>I have no idea how I am being devious.</p>
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  2736. <blockquote>Nope, I'm simply objecting to your overinflated claims of what Bayesian inference can do. Furthermore, I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that <br>Bayesian inference is the best way to expose prejudices, which is a position you seem to be advancing.</blockquote><p></p><p>Your objection is completely baseless and your skepticism is irrelevant as long as you have no alternative that is either better or even just as good as bayesian inference is.</p><p></p><blockquote>As far as I can tell, you are doing everything within your power to shield readers from the likelihood that John Loftus is bullshitting when<br> he says "the probabilities are all that matter".</blockquote><p></p><p>You still think you have "readers"?</p>
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  2835. <blockquote>Your objection is completely baseless and your skepticism is irrelevant as long as you have no alternative that is either better or even just as good as bayesian inference is.</blockquote><p></p><p>Au contraire, pointing out limitations of extant models is absolutely critical for making progress. Furthermore, I express skepticism that Bayesian inference is indeed an ideal, something to which all systems of human inquiry ought to aspire to do (once they get enough data, computational power, and time)—at least until something better than Bayesian inference is discovered which can then have hegemony over all human inquiry into what is true.</p><p></p><blockquote>You still think you have "readers"?</blockquote><p></p><p>On Randal's blog, I know I do. Not infrequently, people butt in on conversations to have a say. Good deflection from the substance of my comment:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980359978" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: <u>I was clear <i>from the outset</i>.</u> As far as I can tell, you are doing everything within your power to shield readers from <u>the likelihood that John Loftus is bullshitting when he says "the probabilities are all that matter".</u></blockquote><p></p><p>Neither you, nor Loftus, has even established that "the probabilities are <s>all that matter</s> <u>what matter the most</u>". And so, I see no reason to reject Randal's analysis:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978012628" rel="nofollow">RR</a>: So far as I can see, Loftus invokes the language of "probabilities" as a form of rhetoric.</blockquote><p></p><p>One of the best ways to deal with empty rhetoric is to challenge the speaker to fill in the voids. That is <i>precisely</i> <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">what I asked John Loftus to do</a>. You have spent the last N comments vigorously waving your hands and imputing insincerity to me, instead of addressing the matter head-on.</p>
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  2936. <blockquote>Au contraire, pointing out limitations of extant models is absolutely critical for making progress.<br></blockquote><p></p><p>The most charitable interpretation of you pointing out such limitations is "I do not think that biases can be avoided 100% and I also do not believe that they can be made 100% transparent, therefore, I think that we shouldn´t even try to do either".</p><p></p><blockquote>Furthermore, I express skepticism that Bayesian inference is indeed an ideal, something to which all systems of human inquiry ought to aspire <br>to do (once they get enough data, computational power, and time)—at least until something better than Bayesian inference is discovered which<br> can then have hegemony over all human inquiry into what is true.</blockquote><p></p><p>So you "express skepticism" that the best way to do x should be used until a better way to do x becomes available. You are certainly welcome to that opinion.</p><p></p><blockquote>Neither you, nor Loftus, has even established that "the probabilities are &lt;srike&gt;all that matter what matter the most".</blockquote><p></p><p>Indeed. I also didn´t even try to "establish" that probabilities are "all that matters", nor am I interested in doing so, nor do I even believe it to be true. I also don´t believe that Loftus believes it (and frankly don´t care whether he does) - what I pointed out was rather that the question that you posed to him was disingenuous and as confusing as possible.</p><p></p><blockquote>One of the best ways to deal with empty rhetoric is to challenge the speaker to fill in the voids. That is precisely what I asked John Loftus to do.</blockquote><p></p><p>In a dishonest way, because you didn´t want him to actually "fill a void" but rather wanted him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities"  and maximally confusing way. And also in a maximally confusing way, because it was completely unclear what your question actually meant and the "clarification" you provided to him was positively misleading instead of clarifying anything.</p>
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  3035. <blockquote>The most charitable interpretation of you pointing out such limitations is "I do not think that biases can be avoided 100% and I also do not believe that they can be made 100% transparent, therefore, I think that we shouldn´t even try to do either".</blockquote><p></p><p>This is a terrible interpretation.</p><p></p><blockquote>So you "express skepticism" that the best way to do x should be used until a better way to do x becomes available.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, I express skepticism that Bayesian inference is "the best way to do x", for <i>nearly</i> as many "x" as you apparently think it is "the best way". The context of this whole discussion is "all that matters", and given that Loftus says stuff like:</p><p></p><blockquote>Religious diversity stands in the way of achieving a moral and political global consensus. (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Test-Faith-Which-Religion-ebook/dp/" rel="nofollow">The Outsider Test for Faith</a>, 162)</blockquote><p></p><p>, we can conclude that what he considers as "mattering" is not just science, but also social, political, and international life.</p><p></p><blockquote>I also didn´t even try to "establish" that probabilities are "all that matters", nor am I interested in doing so, nor do I even believe it to be true. I also don´t believe that Loftus believes it (and frankly don´t care whether he does) [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>Whether you care is immaterial; Loftus <i>repeatedly</i> says stuff like at <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2013/10/who-cares-about-certainty-we-have.html" rel="nofollow">Who Cares About Certainty? We Have Virtual Certainty!</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>It isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that probability is <u>all that matters</u> when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. It it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that sufficient objective evidence is <u>all that matters</u> when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. It it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that evidence based reasoning is <u>all that matters</u> when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. Since evidence based reasoning is science based reasoning, it's likewise true to say that it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that science based reasoning is <u>all that matters</u> when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. If anyone can provide a better method for understanding the nature of the universe then what is it? Faith has no method at all.</blockquote><p></p><p>(underlining added) It is not your views which I am critiquing, but Loftus' views. Exaggeration is positively harmful when it obscures important elements which are expressly excluded by the nature of the exaggeration.</p><p></p><blockquote>[...] what I pointed out was rather that the question that you posed to him was disingenuous and as confusing as possible.</blockquote><p></p><p>I think you are wrong on both counts, and have argued why. The terms 'disingenuous' and 'confusing' are both judgment calls and I generally do not trust your judgment calls. Indeed, you have explicitly stated that you prefer that I not trust you.</p>
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  3136. <blockquote>This is a terrible interpretation.</blockquote><p></p><p>You are welcome to that opinion.</p><p></p><blockquote>No, I express skepticism that Bayesian inference is "the best way to do x", for nearly as many "x" as you apparently think it is "the best way".</blockquote><p></p><p>And for a domain where it is applicable - which would be pretty much everything that deals with inferences from <i>empirical</i> evidence - you still have not provided any alternative that would be as good or better, you didn´t even try. So your skepticism is rather uninteresting.</p><p></p><blockquote>I think you are wrong on both counts, and have argued why. </blockquote><p></p><p>I think I am right and have argued why, also you yourself admitted that I am right on one count.</p>
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  3220. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980477660" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  3235. <blockquote>And for a domain where it is applicable - which would be pretty much everything that deals with inferences from <i>empirical</i> evidence - you still have not provided any alternative that would be as good or better, you didn´t even try.</blockquote><p></p><p>You've done nothing to demonstrate that Bayesian inference is applicable, for example, to whether rational choice theory is the best model for the economic basis of a society's decision-making, nor whether something like Thomas Hobbes' state of nature is the best ontological basis for political theorizing. Both of these matter very much, falling into Loftus' "all that matters" category. And yet, they have to do with <i>valuing</i>, and therefore <i>prejudices</i>. Yes, once the goals are set then we can unleash various mathematical methods, such as Bayesian inference. However, what is under contention is <i>not</i> the restricted domain of "inferences from <i>empirical</i> evidence", but "all that matters". You keep pulling bait-and-switches, or somehow you think that the purpose of this discussion is to talk about <i>your</i> views, instead of <i>Loftus'</i> views.</p>
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  3360. <blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980115709" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: Also, I have to note that the question you refer to here:<br>"Why? He is absolutely obsessed with "the probabilities". It makes perfect sense to ask how those got seeded."<br>- is unanswerable. Because it seems that you wanted to know literally <i>everything</i> that Loftus believes [...]</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980217595" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: Nope; "how those got seeded" does not entail "<i>everything</i>". What I wanted is for Loftus to admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence, and as such, the statement, "the probabilities are all that matters" is incorrect <i>unless</i> he also means his universal prior probabilities. And yet, it would appear that he doesn't understand what a universal prior is, from my conversation with him. Otherwise, he would admit that not all probabilities come from "the evidence".</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980248734" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: And you actually expected to get a serious answer and have a serious conversation when you in fact asked a cheap gotcha question that would ideally allow you to say something like "Hah! You believe in the principles of logic and mathematics that are required to prove Bayes' theorem without having "probabilities" for that!"<br>?</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980265027" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: No, because I think Loftus assumes much more than "the principles of logic and mathematics". Religionists are happy to be transparent with their dogmas. Atheists, in my experience, want to pretend their dogmas don't exist, by claiming to be objective observers, or something like that. Loftus is an instance of this, as far as I can tell. If he weren't, he would not use the 'all' in "the probabilities are all that matters".</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980290455" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: That was just an example.</blockquote><p></p><p>I highly doubt this, given that it is rhetorically powerful to criticize the Christian for possibly thinking that it is questionable to assume "the principles of logic and mathematics that are required to prove Bayes' theorem". Your "just an example" <i>completely</i> ignores very important areas of presupposition, or to speak in terms of Loftus' "the probabilities are all that matter", of universal prior probability. An example I gave was <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980050976" rel="nofollow">the ontology of human beings and humans in society</a>. It is <i>precisely</i> assumptions such as these, assumptions not 100% based on "the evidence", that I have tried to tease out of John Loftus. However, he refuses to speak on them, which merely means that they remain unarticulated. This fits into a pattern, by the way:</p><p></p><blockquote>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There are several reasons why the contemporary social sciences make the idea of the person stand on its own, without social attributes or moral principles. Emptying the theoretical person of values and emotions is an atheoretical move. We shall see how it is a strategy to avoid threats to objectivity. But in effect it creates an unarticulated space whence theorizing is expelled and there are no words for saying what is going on. No wonder it is difficult for anthropologists to say what they know about other ideas on the nature of persons and other definitions of well-being and poverty. The path of their argument is closed. No one wants to hear about alternative theories of the person, because a theory of persons tends to be heavily prejudiced. It is insulting to be told that your idea about persons is flawed. It is like begin told you have misunderstood human beings and morality, too. The context of this argument is always adversarial. (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Missing-Persons-Critique-Personhood-Wildavsky/dp/0520207521" rel="nofollow">Missing Persons: A Critique of the Personhood in the Social Sciences</a>, 10)</blockquote><p></p><p>Refusal to be articulate about such matters constitutes an attempt to manipulate non-rationally.</p>
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  3461. <blockquote>It is precisely assumptions such as these, assumptions not 100% <br>based on "the evidence", that I have tried to tease out of John Loftus. <br>However, he refuses to speak on them, which merely means that they <br>remain unarticulated.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, you didn´t try to "tease them out" - you didn´t even ask for them. You rather asked a disingenuous question with the intent of getting him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence".<br><i>Now</i> you say that you wanted to know which things he believes in that are <i>not</i> based on "the evidence" ( or "probabilities") - <i>but that is not what you asked him for!</i></p>
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  3545. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980332630" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  3560. <p>FFS, read Charles Taylor's <a href="http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/previous/en_GB/wp-72/_files/82530826701377082/default/WP72.pdf" rel="nofollow">Explanation and Practical Reason</a>, and specifically on the two kinds of practical reason he establishes: "ad hominem" and "apodeictic" (2). Note that his use of "ad hominem" is nonstandard: it merely means arguing within another person's intellectual framework, instead of attempting to impose one's own on the other person. This essay has <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=8361882194320402135&amp;as_sdt=2005&amp;sciodt=0,5&amp;hl=en" rel="nofollow">177 'citations'</a> and can be found in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Arguments-Charles-Taylor/dp/0674664779" rel="nofollow">Philosophical Arguments</a>, which has <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9294993386667180342&amp;as_sdt=2005&amp;sciodt=0,5&amp;hl=en" rel="nofollow">1288 'citations'</a>. Taylor is a highly respected intellectual; if you won't believe that the strategy is legit, read what he has to say on it. Perhaps you will find that I am not correctly employing Taylor's "ad hominem" technique.</p>
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  3646. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980339264" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  3661. <blockquote>it merely means arguing within another person's intellectual framework, instead of attempting to impose one's own on the other person</blockquote><p></p><p><i>That´s</i> what you think you were doing? <br>You didn´t "argue" at all -  you asked an unanswerable question that you thought would force someone to admit something (although it is much more likely that Loftus had no fucking clue what you were even talking about because your question was phrased in an extremely confusing way). That might qualify as a cheap <i>debating</i> tactic, but certainly not as "arguing".<br>Here is a much better question that you could have asked: <br>"John, your "probabilities are ALL that matters" is certainly an exaggeration, isn´t it? There are surely things you believe that are not a matter of "probabilities" - for example, on what grounds do you believe in the principles of mathematics and logic that are necessary to prove Bayes' theorem in the first place? Surely not based on an evaluation of empirical evidence leading to probabilities, or do you? "<br>That took me ten seconds - and that is actually intelligible and I´m positively certain that <i>that</i> question would actually have been answered and the follow-ups might have allowed you to <i>actually</i> challenge John´s views. Seriously, your approach here was completely ridiculous - I´m almost certain that John did not even understand your question or where you wanted to go with it (I sure as hell didn´t for &gt;50% of this thread).</p>
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  3745. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980358426" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  3760. <blockquote>You didn´t "argue" at all - you asked an unanswerable question that you thought would force someone to admit something (although it is much more likely that Loftus had no fucking clue what you were even talking about because your question was phrased in an extremely confusing way).</blockquote><p></p><p>What's confusing about asking someone about his/her universal prior probability? All we need to make that completely sensible is to acknowledge that there isn't always enough time, data, and/or computational power to satisfy <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"if you iterate long enough"</a>.</p><p></p><blockquote>Here is a much better question that you could have asked:<br><br>"John, your "probabilities are ALL that matters" is certainly an exaggeration, isn´t it? There are surely things you believe that are not a matter of "probabilities" - for example, on what grounds do you believe in the principles of mathematics and logic that are necessary to prove Bayes' theorem in the first place? Surely not based on an evaluation of empirical evidence leading to probabilities, or do you? "</blockquote><p></p><p>After <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980324430" rel="nofollow">I said that your examples are <i>terrible</i></a>, you go on to use precisely the same examples. I reject this as "a much better question".</p><p></p><blockquote>Seriously, your approach here was completely ridiculous - I´m almost certain that John did not even understand your question or where you wanted to go with it (I sure as hell didn´t for &gt;50% of this thread).</blockquote><p></p><p>That you are confused indicates that you have a crippled understanding of how Bayesian inference works. Universal prior probabilities are <i>not hard</i>. The idea that <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"if you iterate long enough"</a> may not be obtainable is <i>not hard</i>. Unless I am drastically wrong on these "<i>not hard</i>"s, you are making much ado about nothing.</p>
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  3861. <blockquote>What's confusing about asking someone about his/her universal prior probability?</blockquote><p></p><p>I´m tired of repeating myself.</p><p></p><blockquote>After I said that your examples are terrible, you go on to use precisely the same examples. I reject this as "a much better question".</blockquote><p></p><p>Because you evidently don´t care about asking questions that are sincere or even just intelligible.</p><p></p><blockquote>That you are confused indicates that you have a crippled understanding <br>of how Bayesian inference works. Universal prior probabilities are not hard.</blockquote><p></p><p>Your "universal prior probabilities" and bayesian "prior probabilities" have nothing to do with each other as I pointed out in the very beginning of this thread. I might well have a crippled understanding - you don´t even understand the basics.</p>
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  3960. <blockquote>I´m tired of repeating myself.</blockquote><p></p><p>Me too. Maybe someone ostensibly neutral will chime in. At this point, given the number of replies, I'm not hopeful.</p><p></p><blockquote>Because you evidently don´t care about asking questions that are sincere or even just intelligible.</blockquote><p></p><p>As far as I can tell, you are 100% blowing smoke in saying this. That I don't always ask a question which is perfectly catered to the person in question is an artifact of my being a finite human being. But the accusation that my question wasn't sincere is utter nonsense. It is not insincere to challenge someone to make his or her claims more rigorous.</p><p></p><blockquote>Your "universal prior probabilities" and bayesian "prior probabilities" have nothing to do with each other as I pointed out in the very beginning of this thread.</blockquote><p></p><p>No, you showed that one's universal prior doesn't matter <b>under a very restrictive condition</b>: <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">"if you iterate long enough"</a>. You never demonstrated "have nothing to do with each other" <i>in the domain that matters</i>.</p><p></p><blockquote>[...] you don´t even understand the basics.</blockquote><p></p><p>I doubt a single ostensibly neutral person would agree with you. Now, if we were on <i>Debunking Christianity</i>, I am sure you would get a chorus of affirmations. Fortunately, this is not <i>Debunking Christianity</i>; there is much less echo chamber effect here.</p>
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  4061. <blockquote>But the accusation that my question wasn't sincere is utter nonsense.</blockquote><p></p><p>Wrong. You yourself even admit that you have not been sincere, you said that the purpose of your question was to get him to "admit that he does not actually believe everything "probabilities" which came from evidence" - but your question was how he "seeds probabilities". So <i>by your own words</i>, you did not want an answer to your question but rather used it as a tool that had the purpose of getting him to admit something that you wanted him to admit. Which means that your question was not sincere.</p><p> </p><blockquote>No, you showed that one's universal prior doesn't matter under a very restrictive condition: "if you iterate long enough".</blockquote><p></p><p>You are conflating two different issues again. What you quote here is me talking about <i>bayesian</i>  "prior probabilites". You keep pretending that your "universal priors" are the same thing. They are not, you said: <br>"No, I'm intentionally saying that we need to talk about <b>all beliefs</b>,  and among those beliefs are <b>beliefs in how to reason</b>, how to evaluate <br>evidence, etc. <b>My very point in talking about universal priors</b> is to ferret out <b>all presuppositions</b>. "<br>- You are talking about ALL beliefs and presuppositions, that includes plenty of stuff that has <i>nothing</i> to do with <i>bayesian</i> prior probabilities. And I already explained that to you several times but you still keep pretending that the two concepts are the same thing. <br>You are being obtuse.</p><p></p><blockquote>I doubt a single ostensibly neutral person would agree with you.</blockquote><p></p><p>The opinion of a "single ostensibly neutral person" would only be relevant as long as said person understands bayesian inference. Which you do not.</p><p></p><blockquote>Now, if we were on Debunking Christianity, I am sure you would get a chorus of affirmations. Fortunately, this is not Debunking Christianity; there is much less echo chamber effect here.</blockquote><p></p><p>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it - John Loftus hurt your feelings and you are really, really angry. However, I didn´t comment on Debunking Christianity in ages, and didn´t even read anything by Loftus in quite a while - I even skipped his chapters in the last two books he edited because I think he´s very good at editing but not nearly as good at writing and reasoning. To make it short: I couldn´t care less about the axe you have to grind with him.</p>
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  4160. <blockquote>Wrong. You yourself even admit that you have not been sincere [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>I will not accept your judgment on this matter. A third party who can convince me that he/she is sufficiently neutral is welcome to try and explain how I am being insincere, if indeed that person concludes you are correct.</p><p></p><blockquote>You are conflating two different issues again. What you quote here is me talking about <i>bayesian</i> "prior probabilites". You keep pretending that your "universal priors" are the same thing.</blockquote><p></p><p>They are the same thing under John Loftus' paradigm of "the probabilities are all that matter". I am doing my best to work within that paradigm, to test its limits and see if those limits are irrelevant to "all that matters", or quite relevant.</p><p></p><blockquote>You are talking about ALL beliefs and presuppositions, that includes plenty of stuff that has <i>nothing</i> to do with <i>bayesian</i> prior probabilities.</blockquote><p></p><p>Here you are almost certainly deviating from John Loftus' point of view, as you have described:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980452287" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: I also didn´t even try to "establish" that probabilities are "all that matters", nor am I interested in doing so, nor do I even believe it to be true. I also don´t believe that Loftus believes it (and frankly don´t care whether he does) [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>However, I am not interested in your view to the extent that it deviates from Loftus' view. According to John Loftus, "the probabilities are all that matters". He is welcome to explain whether he always and only uses <i>Bayesian</i> inference, or whether he also uses other inference. <i>Within Loftus' paradigm</i>, all beliefs and presuppositions are probabilities, because (i) they matter; (ii) "all that matters are the probabilities". You appear to be deviating from John's view when it is convenient to do so; since I am explicitly targeting what I take to be John's view, you of course will find "problems" via your strategy. It just turns out that those "problems" are utterly irrelevant to my purpose.</p><p></p><blockquote>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it - John Loftus hurt your feelings and you are really, really angry.</blockquote><p></p><p>How you got that from what I said, I may never know.</p>
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  4261. <blockquote>I will not accept your judgment on this matter.</blockquote><p></p><p>Of course you don´t.</p><p></p><blockquote>They are the same thing under John Loftus' paradigm....<br>...<br>Here you are almost certainly deviating from John Loftus' point of view...<br>...<br>However, I am not interested in your view to the extent that it deviates from Loftus' view.</blockquote><p></p><p>Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. So all this time you didn´t try to address <i>me</i> and <i>my</i> expressed views but rather twisted and shoehorned them into whatever the hell it is you think Loftus' views are, and then replied to this caricature you were building? <br>I thought that your behaviour could no longer shock me, thanks for proving me wrong.</p><p></p><blockquote>You appear to be deviating from John's view when it is convenient to do so...</blockquote><p></p><p>Believe it or not, my views are my own. I don´t care whether Loftus agrees or disagrees with them. I also never said or implied that I agree with Loftus' views on "the probabilities" - I don´t even know exactly what his views are in that respect, <i>and I said as much</i> - I also already said that I don´t really care about his views in this respect. I also didn´t deviate from anything here, my views on bayesian inference have been pretty consistent over the last five years (ever since I learned how it works and started using it for my job).   <br>You are simply lying here.</p><p></p><blockquote>since I am explicitly targeting what I take to be John's view</blockquote><p></p><p>Now I know. Thanks a lot for wasting my time.</p><p></p><blockquote>How you got that from what I said, I may never know.</blockquote><p></p><p>Probably from your gratuitous and out of context bitching about Loftus and his blog like for example:<br>"Now, if we were on Debunking Christianity, I am sure you would get a chorus of affirmations. Fortunately, this is not Debunking Christianity;there is much less echo chamber effect here."</p>
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  4360. <blockquote>Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. So all this time you didn´t try to address me and my expressed views but rather twisted and shoehorned them into whatever the hell it is you think Loftus' views are, and then replied to this caricature you were building?</blockquote><p></p><p>No I didn't "twist and shoehorn" everything. However, I was largely targeting Loftus' view; after all, <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">I started out offering a critique of Loftus' views</a>. At what point in the discussion did this become about <i>your</i> views? I took your very first reply to a be a <i>defense</i> of Loftus' "all that matters are the probabilities":</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: The key point here is that if you use bayesian inference in such an iterative fashion - the end result will be the same if you iterate long enough <i>no matter which values you used for the prior probabilities in the first iteration</i>.<br>That is in fact one of the biggest strengths of bayesian approaches - you can still use them even if you have zero prior empirical knowledge about the question at hand, by simply assigning equal probabilities to all possibilities for the first bayes round and calculating many iterations of Bayes theorem.</blockquote><p></p><p>This can very easily be construed to mean that my criticism of Loftus falls flat, because the universal prior quickly becomes irrelevant. Now, I questioned this "quickly becomes irrelevant", questioning just how many domains of which this is true, of which there are enough data, enough computational power, and enough time for it to be true. This restored my criticism of Loftus, making <i>which</i> universal prior very important once again.</p><p></p><blockquote>Believe it or not, my views are my own. I don´t care whether Loftus agrees or disagrees with them.</blockquote><p></p><p>Given that <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">my root comment</a> is about Loftus' views, if you don't care what his views are, perhaps you should not have replied to the thread. Unlike you, I do care what his views are.</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980496256" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: You appear to be deviating from John's view when it is convenient to do so...</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980514273" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: You are simply lying here.</blockquote><p></p><p>I very carefully used the word <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980496256" rel="nofollow">"appear"</a>. I know that your own sentences sometimes contain utterly superfluous words, <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/09/the-evidential-problem-of-evil-part-2/#comment-1627314551" rel="nofollow">such as "rapidly"</a>, such that the removal of the word from a sentence does not alter the meaning at all. I do not do this.</p><p></p><blockquote>Now I know. Thanks a lot for wasting my time.</blockquote><p></p><p>Since you think I'm an idiot, I fail to see how any of your interactions with me do <i>not</i> qualify as "wasting [your] time", from your point of view. No, it wasn't just "idiot"; here's a very partial list:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955588177" rel="nofollow">"moron"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955327192" rel="nofollow">"idiot"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1957945545" rel="nofollow">"cannot read"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1957969324" rel="nofollow">"insufferable trolling P.o.S."</a></p><p>You have also repeatedly called me a liar, and gotten fed up with me so much that not once, but <i>twice</i> you asked me to never respond to you again and said you would never respond to me again. Let's see: <a href="https://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/out-of-eden-are-we-approaching-a-golden-era/comment-page-1/#comment-11722" rel="nofollow">"And now, I would appreciate it if you´d finally stop replying to me or talking about me if that is not too much to ask."</a> Oh, here's a gem:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/09/the-evidential-problem-of-evil-part-2/#comment-1636130624" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: You are absolutely impossible to reason with – and I repeat, you are either mentally ill or a pathological liar, and I strongly recommend that you seek out help from a specialist.</blockquote><p></p><p>And yet you have the gall to accuse me of "wasting [your] time". How delicious.</p>
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  4461. <blockquote>No I didn't "twist and shoehorn" everything. <br></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980514273" rel="nofollow">Liar</a>.</p><p></p><blockquote>At what point in the discussion.... </blockquote><p></p><p>This was at no point a "discussion" because you are either mentally incapable of, or simply unwilling to have one.</p><p></p><blockquote>....did this become about your views?</blockquote><p></p><p>That depends on how many moronic Luke Breuer heuristics we accept. If we accept both: a) "if Andy says something about x, without quoting John Loftus or indicating any particular awareness or affirmation of John Loftus' views wrt x, it still must be assumed that Andy is parroting John Loftus until the opposite has been proven" and b) "Andy explicitly saying that he doesn´t know and / or doesn´t care what John Loftus thinks wrt x obviously does not count as "proof" in a) because reasons" - then never.</p><p></p><blockquote>This can very easily be construed to mean that my criticism of Loftus <br>falls flat, because the universal prior quickly becomes irrelevant. <br>.....<br>This restored my criticism of Loftus, making which universal prior very important once again.</blockquote><p></p><p>Ist das nun Dummheit oder Niedertracht?<br>See, and that is why I am saying that you are either  "stupid" or a "troll" - because Dummheit and Niedertracht are the only candidate explanations for why you <i>still</i> keep pretending that Breuerian "universal priors" and bayesian "prior probabilities" are the same thing.</p><p></p><blockquote>I know that your own sentences sometimes contain utterly superfluous words, such as "rapidly", such that the removal of the word from a sentence does not alter the meaning at all.</blockquote><p></p><p>If you were wondering, the word "lying" in "you are lying", cannot be removed without destroying the intended meaning.</p><p></p><blockquote>I do not do this.</blockquote><p></p><p>Of course you don´t, because dropping the word "utterly" from "I know that your own sentences sometimes contain utterly superfluous words" for example, would totally change the meaning of the sentence (assuming Breuerian english of course).</p><p></p><blockquote>Since you think I'm an idiot...</blockquote><p></p><p>That is by now more of an observation than an opinion.</p><p></p><blockquote>No, it wasn't just "idiot"; here's a very partial list:<br><br>     • "moron"<br>     • "idiot"<br>     • "cannot read"<br>     • "insufferable trolling P.o.S."</blockquote><p></p><p>Again, more of an observation by now than an opinion.</p><p></p><blockquote>You have also repeatedly called me a liar</blockquote><p></p><p>That is called "calling a spade a spade".</p><p></p><blockquote>Oh, here's a gem:<br><br><blockquote>AS:<br> You are absolutely impossible to reason with – and I repeat, you are either mentally ill or a pathological liar, and I strongly recommend that you seek out help from a specialist.</blockquote></blockquote><p></p><p>Again, the "absolutely impossible to reason with" is by now more of an observation than an opinion.</p><p>So, it appears that now you just have to point out that someone questioning your intelligence and / or sincerity, after you have demonstrated your deficiencies in one or both, means that said someone is <a href="https://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/out-of-eden-are-we-approaching-a-golden-era/comment-page-1/#comment-11684" rel="nofollow">"participating in terrible and evil spirits" and makes you want to kill yourself</a> - and we are full circle.</p>
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  4545. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980800064" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  4560. <blockquote>This was at no point a "discussion" because you are either mentally incapable of, or simply unwilling to have one.</blockquote><p></p><p>Let's see, how did it go? Here's a caricature of two major threads of actual discussion:</p><p><b>1. When universal priors matter</b><br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: John Loftus needs to say what his universal prior is.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: Universal priors are irrelevant "if you iterate long enough".<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979465263" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: And how often do we have "long enough"?<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979490900" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: It depends.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979555003" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: Then sometimes, perhaps often, one's universal prior <i>does</i> matter.</p><p>At this point, we hared off into stuff that wasn't directly relevant for critiquing Loftus' epistemology of "the probabilities are all that matters" and "the evidence is all that matters". All I needed to establish is that Bayesian inference is <i>not</i> omnicompetent, and I did that. And so, I started getting less interested in this part of the conversation.</p><p><b>2. What's in a universal prior?</b><br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1977947876" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: John Loftus needs to say what his universal prior is.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978911468" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: You can use an uninformative prior.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979465263" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: No, not a completely uninformative one.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979490900" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: Now you're conflating matters.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979555003" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: (i) No, I'm examining <i>all</i> beliefs, <i>all</i> presuppositions. (ii) I'm intentionally using Loftus' own language.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979709859" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: You're conflating matters.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979735385" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: Asking how John seeds his probabilities is sensible.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980004332" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: What does it mean to "seed a probability"?<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980050976" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: *lists some starting ontologies for human nature*<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980115709" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: (i) No numbers ⇒ not probabilities. (ii) You appear to want to know <i>everything</i> Loftus believes.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980217595" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: (i) Choosing between ontologies is what matters. (ii) I want Loftus to admit that not all his probabilities come from the evidence.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980248734" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: But (ii) is a cheap gotcha, because obviously Loftus has to believe in logic and maths.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980265027" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: No, Loftus gets more than logic and maths from non-evidence.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980290455" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: Logic and maths were just an example.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980324430" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: That's completely lame; the <i>other</i> things he gets from non-evidence are important and Loftus hides them. I'm trying to tease them out.<br><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980332630" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: No, you didn't try to "tease them out"; you were asking a disingenuous question.</p><p>In this caricature, as well as the actual text, it was 100% clear I was talking about Loftus' viewpoint. You even noticed this in the second (ii). Where we appear to differ is that where Loftus says "the probabilities are all that matters", you say "the probabilities are very important". The difference here is <i>absolutely crucial</i>. John Loftus says "the probabilities are all that matter", time and again. Given that, I made the obvious deduction that <i>all</i> of his beliefs are encoded in "the probabilities". Every last one of his beliefs. That necessarily includes logic and maths, but also plenty of other things. And so, it makes sense to put these in the category of "universal prior".</p><p>It was only by performing a bait-and-switch, your view for Loftus', that you could accuse me of conflating matters. And now you have the gall to whine that we should have been talking about <i>your</i> view all along, instead of Loftus'. You have the gall to call <i>me</i> insincere.</p>
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  4661. <blockquote>LB: John Loftus needs to say what his universal prior is.<br>AS: Universal priors are irrelevant "if you iterate long enough".</blockquote><p></p><p>Wrong from the get go. Because I always talked about bayesian prior probabilities. A concept that you yourself referred to in this context although it has nothing to do with Breuerian "universal priors".</p><p></p><blockquote>2. What's in a universal prior?<br>LB: John Loftus needs to say what his universal prior is.<br>AS: You can use an uninformative prior.</blockquote><p></p><p>That you still pretend that your Breuerian "universal prior" is the same thing as bayesian "prior probabilities" is by now completely inexplicable without assuming a significant deficiency wrt to either your intelligence, your sincerity, or both.</p><p></p><blockquote>It was only by performing a bait-and-switch, your view for Loftus</blockquote><p></p><p>Lying scumbag.</p>
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  4745. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981924763" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  4760. <p>Once again, you shift from</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (1) John Loftus' "the probabilities are all that matters"<br>to<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (2) your restricted-domain Bayesian inference</p><p>Under (1), every belief necessarily shows up in one's universal prior. Under (2), this is manifestly false, and you are 100% right to use phrases such as "nothing to do with Breuerian "universal priors"". The thing is, I've been consistently arguing according to (1). I have made that clear, <i>repeatedly</i>. I made it clear that I am arguing <i>within John's paradigm</i>. I made it clear that John is welcome to introduce a method of probabilistic inference other than Bayesian inference; whatever that other thing is, it will still have to have something like (1)-type universal priors, <i>or</i> the 'all' in "the probabilities are all that matters" will go away, and John will have to account for why he admits some things into his belief system <i>not</i> based on the evidence, <i>not</i> based on probabilities.</p>
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  4846. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981945672" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  4861. <blockquote>Once again, you shift from<br><br>     (1) John Loftus' "the probabilities are all that matters"<br>to<br>     (2) your restricted-domain Bayesian inference</blockquote><p></p><p>So your strategy seems to be now to simply repeat <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980514273" rel="nofollow">this lie</a>, hoping that the lie will turn into truth if you just repeat it often enough.</p>
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  4945. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981986767" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  4960. <p>From my point of view, it's the other way around. And so, we're back at:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955855297" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: So, every one of those statements is really f(Andy Schueler, Luke Breuer) = X, where X can be 0–100% true of Andy Schueler and 100–0% true of Luke Breuer, with the total percentage being between 100% and 200%.</blockquote><p></p><p>The sane person sees the crazy person as crazy, while the crazy person sees the sane person as crazy.</p>
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  5046. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981994421" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  5061. <blockquote>From my point of view...</blockquote><p></p><p>Those five words, coming from you, practically guarantee that something will follow that is either a) stupid, b) dishonest or c) both. <br>Which one will it be? Lets find out:</p><p></p><blockquote>So, every one of those statements is really f(Andy Schueler,  Luke Breuer) = X, where X can be 0–100% true of Andy Schueler and 100–0% true of Luke Breuer, with the total percentage being between 100%<br> and 200%.</blockquote><p></p><p>So, within the framework of Breuerian mathematics 0-100% + 0-100% = 100-200%. <br>Well, turns out that a) was correct.</p>
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  5143. <span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a href="https://disqus.com/by/LukeBreuer/" data-action="profile" data-username="LukeBreuer" data-role="username">Luke Breuer</a></span>
  5144.  
  5145. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982041641" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  5151. <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982099776" data-role="relative-time" class="time-ago" title="Wednesday, April 22, 2015 2:19 PM">a day ago</a>
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  5160. <p>Yep, because <i>before</i> you uttered the charge of 'liar', it could have been:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0% Andy Schueler <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0% Luke Breuer</p><p>However, <i>after</i> you uttered the charge of 'liar', it must be that:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0% Andy Schueler<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 100% Luke Breuer</p><p>or</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 100% Andy Schueler<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0% Luke Breuer</p><p>or</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 100% Andy Schueler<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 100% Luke Breuer</p><p>It is impossible for you to utter 'liar', without one of us being one, given that clearly you aren't making an innocent mistake. And so, the utterance of 'liar' ensures that lying is going on. Who is lying, on the other hand, is up to the reader to judge. I have my view and you have yours. Clearly we aren't going to change each other's mind.</p>
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  5245.  
  5246. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982099776" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  5261. <p>And you honestly wonder why I have said things like: <br></p><blockquote>....You are absolutely impossible to reason with – and I repeat, you are either mentally ill or a pathological liar, and I strongly recommend that you seek out help from a specialist.</blockquote><p></p><p>?</p>
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  5344. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982120258" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  5359. <p>Every now and then a conversation needs a reboot. </p>
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  5443. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982139287" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Randal Rauser</a></span>
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  5458. <p>Oh, Andy and I have done this twice already; <i>twice</i> he asked me never to reply to him again, indicating that he would never reply to me again. Both times he broke his word. His calling me <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955588177" rel="nofollow">"moron"</a>, <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955327192" rel="nofollow">"idiot"</a>, <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1957969324" rel="nofollow">"insufferable trolling P.o.S."</a>, and <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981924763" rel="nofollow">"lying scumbag"</a> is really par for the course these days. He has admitted to being a very passionate person, and I cannot recall the last time he admitted any serious error on his part, so I suspect he has to constantly project onto others. <i>Someone</i> has to take the blame.</p><p>One thing I did discover, this time 'round. That is his clever shift from Loftus' viewpoint, which is clearly what I started this thread out critiquing, to his own viewpoint, which does not have the problems I am critiquing in Loftus'. By slyly switching out the thing being critiqued, Andy "shows" that I don't know what I'm talking about. As it turns out, Andy is not the first to do this to me; The Thinker has as well. TT will inject presuppositions I never stated nor entailed, or do things like grant an LFW God while denying LFW humans, so that the foundation one is building on is poisoned from the start. Then, he just "happens" to find absurdity in what is built on that foundation, and declares victory.</p><p>So, while tedious, this has also been an education. I've been watching bits of the 2011 modernized <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus_%28film%29" rel="nofollow">Coriolanus</a>, and one sees the same rhetorical sleight of hand go on. Furthermore, I went to see a few presentations by Rhetoric students at UC Berkeley, and afterwards the father of one of the students talked about how he, a doctor, has been working with the Berkeley Chancellor on some matters. He said he wished he had rhetoric background, and because he didn't, had to hire an expensive lawyer to deal with all the sleight of hand which he could see going on in meetings with the Chancellor and others, but couldn't keep up with himself.</p>
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  5550. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982120258" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  5565. <p>Where have I wondered this thing? <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955855297" rel="nofollow">"f(Andy Schueler, Luke Breuer) = X"</a> explains it quite nicely. Your complaint about 0–200% vs. 100–200% is facile. You didn't even notice the following:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982041641" rel="nofollow">LB</a>: [...] where X can be <u>0–100%</u> true of Andy Schueler and <u>100–0%</u> true of Luke Breuer, with the total percentage being between 100% and 200%.</blockquote><p></p><p>Compare this to your own representation:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982041641" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: <u>0-100%</u> + <u>0-100%</u> = 100-200%.</blockquote><p></p><p>My explicit use of <u>100–0%</u> was meant to presuppose that the sum is at least 100%. This makes perfect sense with a number of the criticisms you've offered:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955588177" rel="nofollow">"moron"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1955327192" rel="nofollow">"idiot"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1957945545" rel="nofollow">"cannot read"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/#comment-1957969324" rel="nofollow">"insufferable trolling P.o.S."</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981924763" rel="nofollow">"lying scumbag"</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; • <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/09/the-evidential-problem-of-evil-part-2/#comment-1636130624" rel="nofollow">"impossible to reason with"</a></p><p>I don't see how, once one of the above is uttered, it does not immediately become true of at least one of us. But you're apparently more interested in cheap shots than addressing the substance of what I'm saying. And so, you make little snipes about 0–200% vs. 100–200%. How droll.</p>
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  5666. <blockquote>You didn't even notice the following:<br></blockquote><p></p><p>Yeah, I guess I didn´t notice that among the tens of thousands (literally, unfortunately) garbage comments you spam all over the www, there was also a comment that contradicts the one I replied to here.</p><p></p><blockquote>But you're apparently more interested in cheap shots than addressing the substance of what I'm saying.</blockquote><p></p><p>There is no substance to address.</p>
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  5765. <p>There was substance to address: how it could possibly be 0%–200% instead of 100%–200%. Instead of playing with notation which I did not specify with the level of rigor required by my ultra-rigorous, stereotypical German Ma1a course (where we proved calculus), you could have addressed whether it could possibly make sense for it to be 0%–200%. But you did not do this. And so, it would seem that you prefer appearances over substance. Of course, many who prefer appearances don't even know there is substance. This was a criticism of Jesus'.</p>
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  5850.  
  5851. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1982178610" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  5866. <blockquote>Instead of playing with notation which I did not specify with the level of rigor required by my ultra-rigorous, stereotypical German Ma1a course<br> (where we proved calculus)</blockquote><p></p><p>Your "notion" would also not meet the level of rigor required by an ultra-lenient high school math teacher. The problem with it is also not a lack of rigor - the problem is rather that it is flat out wrong. Using a formal notation for what you wanted to say was completely gratuitous anyway since what you actually wanted to convey could have easily and unambiguously been stated in normal english.</p><p></p><blockquote>you could have addressed whether it could possibly make sense for it to be 0%–200%</blockquote><p></p><p>Yay for useless meta-"discussion"!</p>
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  5950. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983512586" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  5965. <p>What it sounds like is that you understood precisely what I was communicating, but instead of addressing it, you decided to take a cheap shot. This seems to be a pattern with you. Instead of attacking the true substance of a matter—like the power distribution in a society which will practice indefinite quarantine, or one's model of causality when talking about free will and rationality—you instead poke and prod about surface issues.</p>
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  6051. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983538493" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  6066. <p>No, the actual pattern is you running out of arguments - and then either a) desperately trying to change the topic to an issue where you think you have better arguments or b) misrepresenting the dialog so far ad nauseam until your interlocutor is exhausted and quits.</p>
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  6150. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983558230" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  6165. <blockquote>No, the actual pattern is you running out of arguments [...]</blockquote><p></p><p>You are of course welcome to believe whatever you like. If you want to possibly escape our little <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theorem" rel="nofollow">Poincaré recurrence</a>, our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return" rel="nofollow">Eternal Return</a>, our infinite loop, at least one of us will have to start interacting differently. I have suggested to you that when you claim I am doing "the bad thing", that you provide sufficiently many examples, excerpted and cited, of that pattern. You're welcome to suggest an alternative. I will say, it was pretty hilarious when you said <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980514273" rel="nofollow">"Thanks a lot for wasting my time."</a> Don't be insane, don't expect a different result when you are trying the same thing, over and over.</p><p></p><blockquote>a) desperately trying to change the topic to an issue where you think you have better arguments</blockquote><p></p><p>Wait, you mean <i>precisely the thing you did</i>, where the topic was originally John Loftus' view, and then switched to your view?</p><p></p><blockquote>b) misrepresenting the dialog so far ad nauseam until your interlocutor is exhausted and quits</blockquote><p></p><p>If I am doing this, you have not demonstrated it in a way I can understand. You are welcome to take the time and effort to do your own version of <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981651027" rel="nofollow">my caricature-summaries</a>. From my point of view, you are actually guilty of "misrepresenting the dialog" at times, including this time.</p>
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  6251. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983648897" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  6266. <blockquote>Wait, you mean precisely the thing you did, where the topic was originally John Loftus' view, and then switched to your view?</blockquote><p></p><p>Repeating the lie won´t make it true.</p>
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  6350. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983703644" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  6365. <p>You are welcome to provide your own account of what happened. From my point of view, I started out by critiquing John Loftus' view, and never meant my critiques to make sense against <i>your</i> view. You took them as against <i>your</i> view however, and found them appropriately ridiculous, because your view is critically different from Loftus' view.</p>
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  6451. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983706586" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  6466. <p>I replied to one of your comments that mentioned bayesian inference, and I pointed something out about  bayesian inference. And I <i>never</i> talked about anything other than bayesian inference. I assumed that bayesian inference was what you wanted to talk about and that your "universal priors" are synonymous to bayesian prior probabilties - and you indeed have used those phrases interchangeably and <i>still do it</i>(!), you even substitute <i>your</i> "universal priors" for <i>my</i> "prior probabilities" when you <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981651027" rel="nofollow">summarized how the dialog in your opinion did proceed</a>, although the two concepts are completely different. For a large part of the dialog, I didn´t know <i>and could not possibly have known</i> that when you say "bayesian inference", you don´t actually mean bayesian inference at all. Also, I gave you plenty of reasons to believe that I do NOT intend to speak for or try to defend John Loftus (by saying things like neither knowing nor caring what John Loftus believes wrt "the probabilities"). You on the other hand didn´t give me any reason to believe that when you say "bayesian inference" <i>you actually mean something completely different</i>, until the very end of the dialog. Again, just a few comments ago, you were STILL using bayesian "prior probabilities" and your Breuerian "universal prior" <i>interchangeably</i>.</p>
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  6550. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1983799536" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Andy_Schueler</a></span>
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  6565. <blockquote>I assumed that bayesian inference was what you wanted to talk about and that your "universal priors" are synonymous to bayesian prior probabilties - and you indeed have used those phrases interchangeably and <i>still do it</i>(!),</blockquote><p></p><p>What is technically wrong with how I included, in a universal Bayesian prior probability, <i>all</i> beliefs instead of just <i>some</i>? Is my usage a formal mathematical error, or is it just foreign to how <i>you</i> employ Bayesian inference, and indeed how <i>most</i> people employ Bayesian inference?</p><p>Remember here that "the probabilities" are used (by Loftus) as "all that matters", and thus no belief can avoid being one of "the probabilities". This means that, per Loftus, whatever inference method he is using on "the probabilities", whatever <i>seeds</i> it, must involve <i>all</i> beliefs, <i>each</i> having a probability prior to a single observation. Whether or not he uses Bayesian inference or some other kind of inference, I don't really care.</p><p>It would be quite interesting to note if Bayesian inference somehow breaks down if you try to stuff all beliefs into the prior, instead of just some. This would indicate that either Loftus means some inference method other than Bayesian inference, or that there is a problematic <i>formal</i> error in his claim that "the probabilities are all that matter".</p><p></p><blockquote>Also, I gave you plenty of reasons to believe that I do NOT intend to speak for or try to defend John Loftus (by saying things like neither knowing nor caring what John Loftus believes wrt "the probabilities").</blockquote><p></p><p>Oh, you mean this:</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1980452287" rel="nofollow">AS</a>: Indeed. I also didn´t even try to "establish" that probabilities are "all that matters", nor am I interested in doing so, nor do I even believe it to be true. I also don´t believe that Loftus believes it (and frankly don´t care whether he does) - what I pointed out was rather that the question that you posed to him was disingenuous and as confusing as possible.</blockquote><p></p><p>The timestamp on that is:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; April 21, 2015 6:01 PM</p><p>The timestamp on the last item in <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1981651027" rel="nofollow">the longer caricature-dialogue</a>?</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; April 21, 2015 4:21 PM</p><p>So, your one example reason came <i>after</i> the last item in my caricature-dialogue. Somehow I don't feel bad for not realizing, <i>by 4:21</i>, that you never meant to deal with my critique, <i>as it was targeted at Loftus</i>. Now, the date on the caricature-dialogue is:</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; April 22, 2015 10:32 AM</p><p>So at that point, I had your reason. But the purpose of the caricature-dialogue was to show how my interpretation of the interchange was legit, <i>up to that point</i>—contrary to your own claims that I ought to have known from the beginning, or closer to the beginning than April 21, 2015 6:01 PM, which is already quite far from the beginning.</p>
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  6651. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1984188270" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Luke Breuer</a></span>
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  6666. <blockquote>What is technically wrong with...</blockquote><p></p><p>...saying you talk about x while not talking about x at all? That is a stupid question.</p><p></p><blockquote>The timestamp on the last item in the longer caricature-dialogue?<br><br>     April 21, 2015 4:21 PM</blockquote><p></p><p>No. It´s April 22, 1:21 AM (me) and 1:14 AM (you). How the hell do you manage to fuck up a job like looking for the most recent date in a list of dates <i>again</i>?</p><p></p><blockquote>So, your one example...</blockquote><p></p><p>I could bring additional examples, but then you will start posting timestamps - I will have to go through the list of comments and see how you managed to screw up a simple task like looking for timestamps, and while I find your incompetence in this area to be hilarious, it is still a spectacular waste of time to do so.</p><p></p><blockquote>the purpose of the caricature-dialogue was to show how my interpretation of the interchange was legit, up to that point</blockquote><p></p><p>So I do not need to provide any more examples than the one I did anyway. Because <i>after</i> that point And after that point, you eagerly continued twisting and shoehorning my comments to say whatever the hell you think it is Loftus beliefs wrt "the probabilities". </p>
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  6854. <p>Even though you have had some difficulties with him -- perhaps you can invite Loftus to pop in to the discussion on those posts (unbanning him at least temporarily if need be).</p>
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  6936.  
  6937. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978073572" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> tabula rasa</a></span>
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  6952. <p>"have had some difficulties with him" is the biggest understatement of the week. The short answer is "no". Loftus has publicly insulted me too many times, often choosing to insult rather than offer a reasoned response to an argument. </p>
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  7049. <p>Obviously it is your choice -- but there is this thing about 70 times 7 somewhere or other in the Gospel. I am only half joking. Perhaps there is a third party who could act as a go-between for this particular purpose. Unless I am misreading the situation, Jonathan Pierce seems to have good relations with both of you. He could perhaps forward civil responses from Loftus (if any) to the blog posts which discuss his (Loftus') chapters.</p>
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  7129. <span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a href="https://disqus.com/by/Randal_Rauser/" data-action="profile" data-username="Randal_Rauser" data-role="username">Randal Rauser</a></span>
  7130. <span class="badge moderator">Mod</span>
  7131.  
  7132. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978098536" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> tabula rasa</a></span>
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  7147. <p>The issue is not "forgiveness". It is whether Loftus (a) is capable of engaging in civil discourse and (b) has anything interesting to say. In my experience the answer is "no" to both (a) and (b). As a case in point, consider my multi-part critique of his "Why I Became an Atheist" last summer. Loftus offered no thoughtful repartee, opting instead to complain that I was being unfair and to insult me with profane language. </p>
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  7227. <span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a href="https://disqus.com/by/robgressis/" data-action="profile" data-username="robgressis" data-role="username">Rob Gressis</a></span>
  7228.  
  7229. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978117151" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Randal Rauser</a></span>
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  7244. <p> Do you think it was worth it writing a book with him? </p>
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  7325. <span class="badge moderator">Mod</span>
  7326.  
  7327. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978551375" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Rob Gressis</a></span>
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  7342. <p>Eh, depends which day of the week you ask me. In his favor, (1) Loftus has a larger audience than most internet atheists and (2) he proves himself capable to handle the, introductory argument. On the other hand, (1) he is an emotionally volatile personality and (2) he retains a fundamentalist dichotomy between the enlightened and the deluded which renders him incapable of engaging seriously with those with whom he disagrees.</p>
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  7438. <p>"...he retains a fundamentalist dichotomy between the enlightened and the deluded which renders him incapable of engaging seriously with those with whom he disagrees." - Randal</p><p>That seems to adequately characterize plenty of his followers on his DC website.  That forum can be toxic.</p>
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  7535. <p>The volitility is unfortunate. As an ex christian, I can remember how I felt when I was a believer, and someone ridiculing me or going ballistic about my beliefs and what kind of person I was for having those beliefs would not have caused me to rethink them or consider my sanity.</p>
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  7617. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979786704" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> epicurus</a></span>
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  7632. <p>"I can remember how I felt when I was a believer, and someone ridiculing me..."<br>===<br>When I was a christian I felt that being ridiculed is actually beneficial to my faith. I guess some people here feel the same way. I don't understand why some are irked when I ridicule them.</p>
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  7735. <blockquote>That seems to adequately characterize plenty of his followers on his DC website. That forum can be toxic.</blockquote><p></p><p>Opposing viewpoints are indeed seen as unacceptable, and to be combated "by any means necessary". (I've been watching <i>Star Trek: DS9</i> with my wife, and whenever you hear a Starfleet admiral say "by any means necessary", you're supposed to feel shivers go up your spine.) See also Stephen Toulmin's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolis-The-Hidden-Agenda-Modernity/dp/0226808386" rel="nofollow">Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>The suppression of free enquiry is very much a modern phenomenon, and Paul Johnson interestingly cites an observation from Beethoven's <i>Conversation</i> Book, that 'Before the French Revolution there was great freedom of thought and political action. The Revolution made both the government and the nobility suspicious of the common people, and this has led by degrees to the present policy of repression.' (77–78)</blockquote><p></p><p>Of course, Enlightenment mythology has it that the Enlightenment provided the space for said "free enquiry", liberating intellectuals from the iron grip of dominating religion. See, many atheists are only evidence-driven when it suits their purposes. When mythology will suffice, mythology will be used. See, for example, how long the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis" rel="nofollow">conflict thesis</a> was believed by Enlightened individuals. Sadly, according to sociologist Christian Smith's study of over a thousand Americans aged 18–23, 70% believe the conflict thesis is <i>true</i>. See 7:00–15:30 at [1], chart at 11:53.</p><p>[1] <span></span><div class="media-container media-mode-deferred">
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  7847. <p>Speaking of Enlightenment individuals and being only evidence driven when it suits their purposes, the one quote I liked enough to write down from a book I recently read on the Enlightenment (Norman Hampson) was about Voltaire objecting to geological evidence because it clashed with his beliefs:</p><p>…Finally, men’s accessibiltiy to new theories was influenced, if not actually determined, by their philosophical presuppositions. This is clearly demonstrated by the case of Voltaire, whose denial of plain geological evidence would have provoked his own devastating scorn if it had come from some other unfortunate abbe intent on vindicating the literal truth of the Old Testament. Voltaire was, and always remained, a Newtonian, wedded to a Providential explanation of the universe and the fixity which that implied. In 1749 he attacked those who would make the earth two million years old, to find room for the explanation of biological changes that he himself refused to accept.</p>
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  7930.  
  7931. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979924919" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> epicurus</a></span>
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  7946. <p>Heh. Now, to point out that not everyone is like this, I point interested individuals to Noam Chomsky's 2012 lecture, "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding"[1] (<a href="http://luke.breuer.com/time/item/Noam_Chomskys_2012_lecture%2c_The_machine%2c_the_ghost%2c_and_the_limits_of_understanding/707.aspx" rel="nofollow">my notes</a>). Folks like Newton and Descartes were a lot smarter than we sometimes give them credit. For example, Newton knew that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy" rel="nofollow">mechanical philosophy</a> was probably doomed, due to his own need for "action at a distance" in his theories of motion. The goal of the mechanical philosophy was for all force to be <i>contact</i> force: billiard balls bumping into one another. Quantum theory delivered the final death blow, but perhaps if folks had been more rigorous, they would have wasted fewer brain cycles on this philosophy.</p><p>[1] <span></span><div class="media-container media-mode-deferred">
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  8054.  
  8055. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1978117151" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Randal Rauser</a></span>
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  8070. <p>"...insult me with profane language."<br>===<br>Do you expect atheists to insult you with sacred language?</p>
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  8151.  
  8152. <span><a href="http://randalrauser.com/2015/04/a-readers-journey-through-god-or-godless-this-may/#comment-1979393813" class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> lapona</a></span>
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  8167. <p>Xianity is a profane worldview.</p>
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