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Old December 13th, 2006, 09:57 PM

Quietly Quietly is offline
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Default Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?

Quote:
Dedas said:
Well, as a philosophy teacher I just want to add that all speculation on what is to come in the future is based on what have passed, which really doesn't tell us anything about the future as it is the past and not the future. Even if you add millions of past events together it is still the past you are "foretelling" with. The future hasn't happened yet, it is still unknown.

And saying that one future is more "likely" to happen than another future is subjected to the same problem (the problem of induction), in that the predictions are based on past events. The future as a factor is still not precent in the calculations.

Saying that the sun will go up the next morning is not certain, but it is not even (logically) more or less probable. The universe could disappear, and alien armada could destroy it or whatever. Just because we haven't seen it before must not mean that it can't happen or even that it is more or less probable. I would say it could happen or it could not - 50%/50%.

You could of course choose to believe in probability (and it seems wise) as you see the "truth" of it all day happening. But it is just that - belief. I just happen to believe in logic.

Sorry for my "off-topicness", but I couldn't resist to say something about the fascinating thing that is probability.
What is this logic you believe in... you are engaging deconstructionism to such an extreme level, you are essentially denying the practice of the scientific method (making assumptions/predictions about an underlying physical reality based on observation).

The gamebreaking fallacy of this type of argument, is that it is only possible to express given language... and language necessitates an outside world to communicate with... an outside world is only possible through interpretation of our senses, and so your argument is fallacious.

You can say anything you want has a 50/50% chance of happening... in fact, you can _say_ it has a 300% chance of occurring. Your ability to say this, does not invalidate, or even affect in the slightest, the validity or invalidity of probabilistic statements.

Sorry, but I am from a math background, and hence have somewhat strongminded views on the matter... All of human language, experience, science... all are essentially more closely modelled as probabilistic distributions, rather than discrete answers. Every measuring device or method in science comes with an error range. Even things that people think of as discrete, such as a statement like "I saw one man run off into the forest!" are really more accurately modelled as a probability distribution... Poor eyesight, tricks of light, sudden onset of mental illness... all are very real, though small, observable probabilities, that would give you more information about the situation if you knew said distributions.

/unrant!
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