What Bayesianism taught me • Hacker News Board

Re: What Bayesianism taught me

#11

Post by bayesianhorse » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:10 AM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #10

bayesianhorse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't have any "knowledge" that there is no god. The issue isn't that there is a small probability of god existing, but rather there is a vanishingly small probability of your particular brand of god being true versus all the other particular brands of god or gods being true. The pudding in a Bayesian discussing is as so often in the normalizing factor...

No. I have done quite a lot of observations on the world. Each and every one of those observations has produced a result congruent with a world in which no gods exist, and so has very slightly nudged my P(god) towards zero. Under a Bayesian philosophy, this probability is called knowledge.

Then you have to assume that god fudges with the physics so you can catch him at it. Which means that all faiths on the world must assume a god would interfere in a situation that you utterly and completely observed and understood. Because otherwise there might be a true god from some religion who just doesn't care about you.

Re: What Bayesianism taught me

#12

Post by chronial » Sun, May 25, 2014, 11:17 AM UTC

6d0debc071 wrote: post #7

chronial wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It obviously does not help when you hit you little toe on the leg of a table, but it helps with more abstract problems. Realizing that philosophy can neither be right or wrong (only illogical) makes for a more relaxed life because you don’t have to worry about “the big questions”. You can just pick the answers you like.

Do you have examples? Depending on what the Big Questions are I may or may not agree with that. For example: It would be nice to believe in an omni-benevolent god that would take care of me after I die. But that's the sort of answer that I'd want to have confidence in - and I'd be aware that it's equally probable that there's an omni-malicious god waiting to torture me forever. If I'd started off believing in evil-go…

> If I'd started off believing in good-god then it would be a burden.

I disagree on that point. Even a good-god would have rules that are probably either complicated or vague, so trying to fulfill those will actually be a burden on your everyday life.

We are not talking about uncertainty here. Quite the contrary: we are talking about the clear certainty that there just is no true or false in these questions, not that we can’t determine them.

At least for me, once I realized that, I stopped wondering about an afterlife and just assumed the most probable version: nothing. And It doesn’t bother me in any way.

For morals it also helped me a lot, as I realized that is no universal good/bad. We (and especially I) create these notions ourselves and only by ourselves. That means if am faced with moral questions, I can freely think about what _I_ think is right or wrong and I don’t have to wonder about those omnipresent values that kind of seem to be there.

But you referenced “most people” and I agree that they probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about these thinks. But that obviously doesn’t change my perspective on the world.

But to give you more practical example: I guess everybody in the western world is at least in some way faced with the question of how they are going to handle the fact that their comfort and well-being is in a considerable degree made possible by the suffering of others. This of course not a situation that we created with our own hands, but we life in and by our everyday life support a system that works like this. I would say that if you believe in absolute morals, you either have to dedicate a significant part of your life to do something about that or you are probably a hypocrite.

The mentioned realization allows you to avoid this dilemma.

Re: What Bayesianism taught me

#13

Post by hitchhiker999 » Sun, May 25, 2014, 11:26 AM UTC

6d0debc071 wrote: post #7

chronial wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It obviously does not help when you hit you little toe on the leg of a table, but it helps with more abstract problems. Realizing that philosophy can neither be right or wrong (only illogical) makes for a more relaxed life because you don’t have to worry about “the big questions”. You can just pick the answers you like.

Do you have examples? Depending on what the Big Questions are I may or may not agree with that. For example: It would be nice to believe in an omni-benevolent god that would take care of me after I die. But that's the sort of answer that I'd want to have confidence in - and I'd be aware that it's equally probable that there's an omni-malicious god waiting to torture me forever. If I'd started off believing in evil-go…

Drop the definitions of 'good vs evil' - decide on your own. What is your best guess as to the nature of the universe, how it works.

Your best guess is as equally right/wrong as everyone else's, but it will be something you can truly get behind. You don't have to search through only other people's ideas, to find something you like. You can simply create your own, if we didn't do that - humanity would have no definitions to play with. Why is yours any worse than some dude who died 800 years ago? It's not.

Shitty definitions will hurt you, better ones will be useful to you.

Are religious definitions the only definitions in existence, of COURSE NOT! - So choose outside of that paradigm if that suits you, mix and match from everyone's ideas and your own. The world will open up if you do that, you'll make mistakes, you'll learn stuff, you'll create stuff..

Anyway, that's my two cents.

This whole way of thinking, the idea that no-one knows shit - 'it's all just a best guess' is extremely liberating. At least for me. That's why.

Re: What Bayesianism taught me

#14

Post by hitchhiker999 » Sun, May 25, 2014, 11:30 AM UTC

chronial wrote: post #12

6d0debc071 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples? Depending on what the Big Questions are I may or may not agree with that. For example: It would be nice to believe in an omni-benevolent god that would take care of me after I die. But that's the sort of answer that I'd want to have confidence in - and I'd be aware that it's equally probable that there's an omni-malicious god waiting to torture me forever. If I'd started off believing in evil-go…

> If I'd started off believing in good-god then it would be a burden. I disagree on that point. Even a good-god would have rules that are probably either complicated or vague, so trying to fulfill those will actually be a burden on your everyday life. We are not talking about uncertainty here. Quite the contrary: we are talking about the clear certainty that there just is no true or false in these questions, not that…

I believe there's an afterlife, because the system we live in is insanely complex. I won't discount that we may be simply living a temporary instance of a 'experience'. I won't discount that I may be completely wrong, and will vanish into a puff of nothingness. Either way I'm good.

However, regardless - I WISH there were more people like you on the planet, things would get a whole lot better if we just started discussions as thinking folk.