The most baffling mystery of all

[Sarpedon]

What you say is quite logical. There are a few problems, however. First, it is based upon the assumption that existence (in and by itself) is somehow “better” than nonexistence. I don’t see how can you substantiate that. (I just hope that none of the nincompoops will ask if I would prefer not to exist. That nonsense has been uttered too many times before). Second, this alleged benevolence cannot be “exhausted” in the act af creation. God manifestly does not interfere in a benevolent fasion in our behalf.

We don’t have to assume that existence is better than nonexistence. The fact of the matter is that we exist, and God cannot benefit from either our existence or non-existence. Therefore, God cannot have a selfish motive for giving us existence, simply because He can’t improve Himself from us.

In a certain sense you’re right in that selflessness is not necessarily tied to benevolence. It is possible to conceive that God could be perfectly evil and therefore create us, even though He cannot benefit, for no reason at all. The problem with this is that we only observe evil in the sense of selfish gain. At least in the human sphere, we never observe perfectly selfless evil. We do observe perfectly selfless good (or can easily conceive of what it would be), while we do not observe perfectly selfless evil. Therefore, it makes more sense to describe God’s necessarily selfless act in terms of an observed phenomena in reality rather than a unobserved and barely conceivable phenomena.

In regards to your second point, God’s benevolence is certainly not exhausted. I imagine that you are looking at the suffering the world and asking why God’s benevolence is not stopping that.

From the Catholic perspective, the ultimate goal of man is to develop perfectly selfless love, which then allows the person to enter into a fully consummated intimacy with God and man. This is what we are created for, and this is the only thing that can perfectly fulfill us. The phrase “created in the image of God” means that we are given free will and therefore the capacity to choose good or evil. Our good consists not only in choosing good as some practical goal, but to align ourselves so that our will and desires are selflessly directed toward God and man.

All other goods are secondary to this, including physical comfort and safety. God, in His benevolence allows sufferings to envelope us because suffering forces us to make choices and align our will one way or the other. A comfortable, apathetic existence is antithetical to our true good. God in His benevolence gives and takes away suffering as needed to move humanity towards it true end. This does not imply fatalism, for by overcoming suffering we are actually participating in God’s task of inviting and transforming our wills and desires into a selflessness that enables us to truly achieve the intimacy that will fulfill us. In our human intellect we cannot fully understand how the balance works out, but we can know that suffering is not necessarily an evil thing. While a person choosing to cause suffering is evil (it is an attempt to play God), and a person choosing to ignore suffering is evil (it is an attempt to escape the task), and a person choosing to accept suffering without trying to overcome it is evil (it is an attempt to survive without true change), nevertheless we would not be inclined to orient our wills and desires in the proper direction if God did not place obstacles in our path to righteously achieved and legitimate happiness.

 

[Syntax]

You argue that intuitively and based upon common sense that the first 1 million experiments cannot predict the next 3 million ones.

…Any ninny can make a prediction. The question is how do you know the next 3 million cases will be like the 1st 1 million cases? You don’t. To assume you do know this, is just arguing in a circle.

Well, yes they can. There is this subject called mathematical statistics (part of the theory of probabilities) which deals exactly with this problem. It is very counterintuitive, but nevertheless mathematically proven that the absolute size of the sample, and not its relative size compared to the full population is what matters.

But you’ve never observed all possible cases. Of course it is counterintuitive. You are implicitly making Laplace’s same mistake in thinking you can justify inductive learning by the Rule of Succession. Take any ratio of

number of actually confirmed cases / number of total cases in a given domain

so that this ratio is expressed by n/n. Laplace made the mistake in thinking as the number of n trials continues to increase, the probability of the next trial being anything like past trials continues to increase as well, moving ever closer to a probability of 1 as can be seen in the schema expressed by Laplace’s rule of succession,

n+1/n+2.

This is intuitive enough. But he didn’t notice the following problem. n+1/n+2 is definitely the probability of the **next **trial coming out a certain way. And this is where your own arguments stop, RDaneel. But what about the trials after that? To figure out the probability of any further future trials we have to multiply probabilities in following way,

(n+1/-]n+2/-]) x (-]n+2/-]/-]n+3/-]) x (-]n+3//-]-]n+4/-]) x (-]n+4/-]/n+…)

so that the answer is,

n+1/n+infinity = 0

Consider poll taking. In the US there are about 300 million people. Poll takers select a sample of a few thousand (the selection method is another nifty problem) and the result will be highly accurate pertaining to the whole population. Is it 100% accurate? Of couse not. Is it accurate enough to make predictions on it? Most definitely.

We don’t know the **inference **to all 300 million from a few thousand is an accurate inference until we verify it, of course. However, we **don’t **know these predictions are reliable inferences for the next case of 300 million people until we verify that too…and then for the next case of 300 million, and the next case of 300 million, ad infinitum, as shown above by Laplace’s Rule of Succession.

Consider the random movement of air molecules. Theoretically it is possible that sitting in a room one can die of asphyxiation, because all the air molecules just happen to go to the walls leaving the rest of the room in a prefect vacuum. What are the chances of that? In the whole lifespan of the universe it will not happen.

But you don’t know this at all without assuming nature is uniform. End of story. What are you not understanding here?

Actually it is not circular, it is an ever ascending spiral. I am sure you know the difference.

With respect to the problem of induction itself, NO, I do not see the difference at all. Moving a very finite distance from point A to point B along one direction of a number of continuous points without my being able to see the end of my destination, does not tell me the length of the total distance I will be travelling. So inductive reasoning has certainly worked for observable cases so far, but we are not able to tell that it holds for all nonobservable cases. To think it does hold without observing all these cases in which it might have worked is just question-begging.

Certainly I will answer you. It is a legitimate problem. Let’s make sure that we think about the same question. You have a box with 1000 balls it, some black, the other ones not black (say: white). I have to select 100 balls, randomly, and make inferences about the whole box based upon the result. You stipulate that all 100selected balls are black.

Agreed.

There are two ways to conduct the experiment.

Method A: One is that I take out 1 ball at a time, examine it, and put it to the side. Then I reach in again and take out another one, etc… The balls selected do not go back into the box. This is the same as reaching into the box and selecting 100 balls at the same time and pulling them out. These two methods are identical, the distribution is called hypergeometric distribution.

Method B: The other way to perform the experiment is to reach into the box, pull out a ball, examine it, jot down the result (it was black) and put it back. Shake the box, and repeat the experiment. This time we deal with binomial distribution.

The two physical methods are not identical, there is a very small difference. However, with having a 1000 balls in the box, the difference is negligible, the binomial distribution very closely approximates the hypergeometric distribution. I suggest to use the second method, the binomial distibution, because the other one is very cumbersome mathematically. Do you agree?

Take your pick on which method you want to use. I’ll leave that up to you.

So just give me rough estimate of what you think the contents of the box are. Don’t worry about crunching all the numbers…

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Still incorrect. Keep on trying.

when you feel like explaining, then let me know.

. But when you say something utterly nonsensical (like the substantiation of the moon landing is on par with the Bible), which has been explained to you over and over again, I will not waste any more time to respond.

if its nonsensical then prove it, dont just tell me its nonsensical, defend it.

this is the epistemological argument you keep dodging, as soon as i point out the problems, you stop responding. thats called dodging.

Of course I do. In the treads I post, I read every comment, even if I select which ones should I reflect upon.** I never use the “ignore” button**. There is always a chance that the poster-to-be-ignored does post something worthy to read.

thats not what you said here, post #11

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=434035

I was curious if you really have something to say. Apperantly you do not. The links you provided are crystal clear examples of semi-educated people monkeying around in disciplines far above their heads. It is funny that the semi-educated people are always the loudest and the most obnoxious.

**Well, you are back to my ignore list. **

If there is anyone else out there, who happens to agree that the messianic prophecies are a good way to substantiate God’s existence, and are willing to provide their line of arguments, I am still here and willing to listen. But no con-games plaase.

you either put me on on an ignore list or you never use the “ignore” button. they are mutually exclusive and demonstrate that you are making a false statement.

 

[Syntax]

you either put me on on an ignore list or you never use the “ignore” button. they are mutually exclusive and demonstrate that you are making a false statement.

ha ha! Now that’s pretty funny.

 

[Detales]

R Daneele:~“Jesus said it, I believe it, that is the end of it” Actually that is the beginning of it. By “it,” I mean contentious disagreement based on belief/opinion as distinct from actual knowledge. Remember, “knowledge” of such things/thinks as Scripture, revered as it might deservedly, or not, be, is pseudo-knowledge, or intellectual knowledge. It is far from the highest kind of Knowledge. Remember, even and ancient saying from Borneo admonishes that “All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscle.” That means until it has the the smooth unconsidered functioning of a driving maneuver, a golf swing, a dance move, or whatever.

Now that may be said to happen with Scripture and doctrine, in that it may habitually roll off the tongue in a practiced way, but that is always on a collision course with those who do not share your particular world story. So to me the most baffling mystery of all is that we do not from the outset acknowledge that we hold a belief that is in fact a story we emotionally invest in as a way of behavior. There is no reality to such a story other that that which we choose to imbue it with. That applies especially to religion and our adamantine insistence that ours is right because someone says so.

That saying so is the least examined, least critically thought about, least open to discussion of all the stories we choose to live by, whether those stories are religious, scientific, (at least there is the hope of teleolgy here, despite the limited scope of science) political, or emotional.

 

[Syntax]

R Daneele:~“Jesus said it, I believe it, that is the end of it” Actually that is the beginning of it. By “it,” I mean contentious disagreement based on belief/opinion as distinct from actual knowledge. Remember, “knowledge” of such things/thinks as Scripture, revered as it might deservedly, or not, be, is pseudo-knowledge, or intellectual knowledge. It is far from the highest kind of Knowledge. Remember, even and ancient saying from Borneo admonishes that “All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscle.” That means until it has the the smooth unconsidered functioning of a driving maneuver, a golf swing, a dance move, or whatever.

Now that may be said to happen with Scripture and doctrine, in that it may habitually roll off the tongue in a practiced way, but that is always on a collision course with those who do not share your particular world story. So to me the most baffling mystery of all is that we do not from the outset acknowledge that we hold a belief that is in fact a story we emotionally invest in as a way of behavior. There is no reality to such a story other that that which we choose to imbue it with. That applies especially to religion and our adamantine insistence that ours is right because someone says so.

That saying so is the least examined, least critically thought about, least open to discussion of all the stories we choose to live by, whether those stories are religious, scientific, (at least there is the hope of teleolgy here, despite the limited scope of science) political, or emotional.

Nicely said!

How ironic that I think of Nietzsche who said something like, “No matter how objective a man thinks he is in his own investigations, in the end, he writes in nothing but his own blood.” Whether we like it or not, every person on the planet has an ideology, either explicit or implict–and this is what makes the man what he is.

 

[Image_of_God]

when you feel like explaining, then let me know.

if its nonsensical then prove it, dont just tell me its nonsensical, defend it.

this is the epistemological argument you keep dodging, as soon as i point out the problems, you stop responding. thats called dodging.

Warpspeedpetey, you are very right. All of us assume certain historical events to be true and others not to be. There just is no way to absolutely ascertain them. But the difference is, whereas we admit this, they continue to deny it. And therefore, the burden of proof remains on them…since they claim that it is not by trust that we acknowledge historical events.

 

[Detales]

“Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling block to our attempts to reach God in simple love …] and must always be overcome. For if you do not overcome this need to understand, it will undermine your quest. It will replace the darkness which you have pierced to reach God with clear images of something which, however good, however beautiful, however Godlike, is not God.” ~ The Cloud of Unknowing

Relying on Scripture, rituals, dogma, faith, alleged history, all are futile in knowing God. God is not provable nor disprovable, but is the Light even to your efforts to deny that God IS, or to prove that God IS. Both are vanity. Both are intellections, and are the manipulation of mental contents, having little to do with Meaning or any synonym of God.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Warpspeedpetey, you are very right. All of us assume certain historical events to be true and others not to be. There just is no way to absolutely ascertain them. But the difference is, whereas we admit this, they continue to deny it. And therefore, the burden of proof remains on them…since they claim that it is not by trust that we acknowledge historical events.

it all boils down to having courage of ones convictions.

no courage…no conviction.

how seriously can we take someone who refuses to expose their cherished belief to examination?

fact is, they dont even really believe it themselves.

 

[R_Daneel]

Take your pick on which method you want to use. I’ll leave that up to you.

So just give me rough estimate of what you think the contents of the box are. Don’t worry about crunching all the numbers…

I will answer this part of your post now, the rest later. Obviously I did the number crunching - I advise to “calculate not speculate” and I stick to my own advice. In mathematics, especially when it comes to probabilities, speculation can lead to incredible errors. If you wish to see the mini-program I wrote, I will include it here:

Dim balls As Double
Dim balls1 As Double
Dim blacks As Double
Dim blacks1 As Double
Dim blacks2 As Double
Dim sample As Double
Dim blacks_in_sample As Double
Dim x As Double
Dim res As Double

    List1.Visible = False
    balls = 1000
    
    sample = 100
    blacks_in_sample = 100
    
    For blacks = 0 To balls
        blacks1 = blacks
        blacks2 = blacks
        balls1 = balls
        
        res = 1
        For x = 1 To sample
            res = res * blacks2 / balls1
            blacks2 = blacks2 - 1
            balls1 = balls1 - 1
            If blacks2 <= 0 Or balls1 = 0 Then
                If x < sample Then
                    res = 0
                End If
                Exit For
            End If
        Next x
        
        List1.AddItem blacks1 & "    " & res
    Next blacks
    List1.Visible = True

It is a very simple VB code - you, or anyone else can copy and paste it into a VB program and run it. Upon reflection I decided to use the precise hypergeometric distribution, for the sake of complete accuracy. When I run it, the result is quite intersting. Obviously the box with the thousand balls must contain at least 100 black balls, since we do not replace the selected ones, just put them aside. That is a trivial observation. If you would have only 100 black and 900 white balls, the chance of randomly selecting 100 balls and finding all of them black is less than 10 to the power of minus 143.

If the box would contain exactly 800 black balls and 200 white ones, the probability of randomly selecting a 100 balls and finding all of them as black is 0.0000000000053423811 - a very low value. If the box would contain 900 black and 100 white balls, the probability would be 0.0000014696 - also extremely low. To have a 50% chance of finding 100 black balls the box must contain 994 black and only 6 white balls. The value reaches 90% probability if the box contains 999 black balls and one white.

To put it into plain English, if a 50% confidence level is sufficient, the box must contain at least 994 black balls. Usually 50% confidence is not enough. Even a 90% confidence is too low - and to reach that level the box must contain 999 black balls. To have a higher level of confidence the box must contain exactly 1000 black balls and no white ones.

Now you said that I may repeat this experiment until I am “blue in the face”. So I did, and ran the program for 10000 balls, where the number of selection is 1000 - the same ratio as you specified - which is equivalent to running 10 consecutive experiments. The numbers are even more interesting. The 50% confidence level requires 9994 black balls and only 6 white ones. The 90% confidence level requires 9999 black balls and only one white.

Not surprisingly, when I ran the program for a 100000 balls, the values were even more stringent. The 50% confidence was reached at 99994 black and 6 white balls, and the 90% confidence was reached at 99999 black and one white ball.

Contrary to what you assert, the higher number of experiments we run, the more precise numbers we shall get. Of course, this is not surprising to any mathematician who is familiar with the central distribution theorems.

I will return to the rest of your post later.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I will return to the rest of your post later.

i would be fascinated to know how you think this solves the problem of induction?

 

[Syntax]

I will answer this part of your post now, the rest later. Obviously I did the number crunching - I advise to “calculate not speculate” and I stick to my own advice. In mathematics, especially when it comes to probabilities, speculation can lead to incredible errors. If you wish to see the mini-program I wrote, I will include it here:It is a very simple VB code - you, or anyone else can copy and paste it into a VB program and run it. Upon reflection I decided to use the precise hypergeometric distribution, for the sake of complete accuracy. When I run it, the result is quite intersting. Obviously the box with the thousand balls must contain at least 100 black balls, since we do not replace the selected ones, just put them aside. That is a trivial observation. If you would have only 100 black and 900 white balls, the chance of randomly selecting 100 balls and finding all of them black is less than 10 to the power of minus 143.

If the box would contain exactly 800 black balls and 200 white ones, the probability of randomly selecting a 100 balls and finding all of them as black is 0.0000000000053423811 - a very low value. If the box would contain 900 black and 100 white balls, the probability would be 0.0000014696 - also extremely low. To have a 50% chance of finding 100 black balls the box must contain 994 black and only 6 white balls. The value reaches 90% probability if the box contains 999 black balls and one white.

To put it into plain English, if a 50% confidence level is sufficient, the box must contain at least 994 black balls. Usually 50% confidence is not enough. Even a 90% confidence is too low - and to reach that level the box must contain 999 black balls. To have a higher level of confidence the box must contain exactly 1000 black balls and no white ones.

Now you said that I may repeat this experiment until I am “blue in the face”. So I did, and ran the program for 10000 balls, where the number of selection is 1000 - the same ratio as you specified - which is equivalent to running 10 consecutive experiments. The numbers are even more interesting. The 50% confidence level requires 9994 black balls and only 6 white ones. The 90% confidence level requires 9999 black balls and only one white.

Not surprisingly, when I ran the program for a 100000 balls, the values were even more stringent. The 50% confidence was reached at 99994 black and 6 white balls, and the 90% confidence was reached at 99999 black and one white ball.

ha ha! Now I feel bad. I don’t doubt the results above are correct given what you think you are dealing with, namely, a total of 1000 accessible balls! But I told you *not *to crunch the numbers because I already knew whatever answer you gave wasn’t going to solve the problem of induction for the stupid example I had in mind.

Now I will reveal the actual contents of box:

There are two layers in the box separated by a piece of plastic. The top layer is all black. The bottom is all white. That is your epistemic limitation. So you do not have the ability to demonstrate there is anything other than black balls.

Your correct calculations above are only dealing with a limited domain, namely only 1000 black balls, just as the limited domain in the case that I have in mind is the **first top layer **of the box. In *both *cases, our epistemic limitations are the same, and in neither situation can we project past cases to all unobserved cases.

So this is the position humans find themselves in. You and all the best theorists in the world cannot see in the box so you come up with your best shot. However, what is in the box is not demonstrable nor empirical.

I am offering a stupid illustration to show you the problem of induction which your calculations are not going to solve. My apologies that you went through all that work just so that my silly example could be demonstrated. But you were not understanding the problem of induction at all, so I had to give a basic example a 10 year old could understand.

Contrary to what you assert, the higher number of experiments we run, the more precise numbers we shall get. Of course, this is not surprising to any mathematician who is familiar with the central distribution theorems.

I never disagreed with this point. You are correct, but only given the limited domain you know you are working with. But this still doesn’t solve the problem of induction.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

ha ha! Now I feel bad. I don’t doubt the results above are correct! But I told you not to crunch the numbers because I already knew whatever answer you gave wasn’t going to solve the problem of induction.

if he doesnt understand at this point then i can only explain it in a medium he does understand, binary.

011010000110010100100000011010010111001100100000011011010110100101110011011100110110100101101110011001110010000001110100011010000110010100100000011000100110000101100011011010110110011101110010011011110111010101101110011001000010000001101000011001010010000001101110011001010110010101100100011100110010000001110100011011110010000001110011011011110110110001110110011001010010000001110011011101010110001101101000001000000110000100100000011100110110100101101101011100000110110001100101001000000111000001110010011011110110001001101100011001010110110100101110

run that through a binary converter.

 

[Syntax]

if he doesnt understand at this point then i can only explain it in a medium he does understand, binary.

011010000110010100100000011010010111001100100000011011010110100101110011011100110110100101101110011001110010000001110100011010000110010100100000011000100110000101100011011010110110011101110010011011110111010101101110011001000010000001101000011001010010000001101110011001010110010101100100011100110010000001110100011011110010000001110011011011110110110001110110011001010010000001110011011101010110001101101000001000000110000100100000011100110110100101101101011100000110110001100101001000000111000001110010011011110110001001101100011001010110110100101110

run that through a binary converter.

Yeah, I don’t know why this is so difficult to understand. The problem of induction is NOT a statistical problem, but RDaneel continues to construe it this way.

 

[Detales]

There are only 10 kinds of people in world; those who understand binary and those who don’t.

 

[R_Daneel]

ha ha! Now I feel bad. I don’t doubt the results above are correct given what you think you are dealing with, namely, a total of 1000 accessible balls! But I told you not to crunch the numbers because I already knew whatever answer you gave wasn’t going to solve the problem of induction for the stupid example I had in mind.

Now I will reveal the actual contents of box:

There are two layers in the box separated by a piece of plastic. The top layer is all black. The bottom is all white. That is your epistemic limitation. So you do not have the ability to demonstrate there is anything other than black balls.

Changing the parameters? You stipulated that I can reach into the box with my hand and make the selection myself. If there would be a layer of plastic, I would be able to discover that, break through it and shake the balls to get a true statistical sample.

You assume that there is a “soft, plastic layer” in reality, which prevents us from making a correct assessment of part of reality. What is the reason for this assumption? What are the supporting pieces of evidence for it? Or are you just speculating?

I never disagreed with this point. You are correct, but only given the limited domain you know you are working with. But this still doesn’t solve the problem of induction.

What is the “problem of induction” you refer to? If it would be the lack absolute, 100% certainty, then you are fighting a windmill. No one states that.

 

[R_Daneel]

…Any ninny can make a prediction. The question is how do you know the next 3 million cases will be like the 1st 1 million cases? You don’t. To assume you do know this, is just arguing in a circle.

It all depends on what you mean by “knowing”. Define “knowing” to me. And all those “ninnys” can make predictions, all right, but are those predictions borne out by the facts?

But you’ve never observed all possible cases. Of course it is counterintuitive. You are implicitly making Laplace’s same mistake in thinking you can justify inductive learning by the Rule of Succession. Take any ratio of

number of actually confirmed cases / number of total cases in a given domain

so that this ratio is expressed by n/n. Laplace made the mistake in thinking as the number of n trials continues to increase, the probability of the next trial being anything like past trials continues to increase as well, moving ever closer to a probability of 1 as can be seen in the schema expressed by Laplace’s rule of succession,

You are misquoting or misunderstand the rule of succession. Here is the link to it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_succession . As a matter of fact, since the time of Laplace there were some advances in mathematics. Read up upon the Central Distribution Theorems here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem

Since it is pretty heavy math, I will give you a small synopsis in plain English. Suppose that the theoretical probability of a stochastic event is “p”. We perform “n” experiments and the number of positive outcomes is “k”. If the value of the ratio “k/n” is in the vicinity of “p”, we say that the experiment did not contradict the null-hypothesis.

The central distribution theorem proves mathematically, beyond any doubt whatsoever that when we increase the number of experiments the difference between “p” and “k/n” - “abs(p - k/n)” converges to zero. Thus it proves that more experiments will increase our confidence in the null-hypothesis. This theorem does not say anything about any specific “p” or “k” or “n”. It proves the method that undertking more experiments will justify our increased certainty (which will never reach 100%) in our null-hypothesis.

But you don’t know this at all without assuming nature is uniform. End of story. What are you not understanding here?

How many times are you going to return to this? I already agreed that the uniformity of nature is a basic principle. It cannot be “proven” in a deductive fashion, but our confidence in its veracity keeps on increasing - as justifed by the Central Distibution Theorems.

So inductive reasoning has certainly worked for observable cases so far, but we are not able to tell that it holds for all nonobservable cases.

I ask you again: what is the rational underpinning for your skepticism here? Is it mere, empty speculation, or you have something explicit in mind?

 

[R_Daneel]

when you feel like explaining, then let me know.

I give you a hint: the two players are under no obligation to show one and two fingers at exactly 50% of the time. From here on you can find the correct answer. If you are still baffled, just ask, politely.

you either put me on on an ignore list or you never use the “ignore” button. they are mutually exclusive and demonstrate that you are making a false statement.

There are two kinds of “ignores”, the hardware and software ignores. The hardware is to push the “ignore” button. I use the software method (and I never stated otherwise). The fact that you don’t understand the difference is your problem, not mine. I admit weakness here. I read your posts, because I find them amusing. Your level of ignorance of truly “catholic” proportions, coupled by your obnoxious, abrasive and taunting style is funny. But then again, I have a strange sense of humor. So keep on entertaining me.

 

[R_Daneel]

We don’t have to assume that existence is better than nonexistence. The fact of the matter is that we exist, and God cannot benefit from either our existence or non-existence. Therefore, God cannot have a selfish motive for giving us existence, simply because He can’t improve Himself from us.

Yes, we do. You demonstrated that God cannot benefit from our existence - which is somewhat disputable since God wishes or desires our worship - so he gets something out of the deal. But what about us? If God is benevolent, then he would not create us if we were not better off existing, rather than non-existing. So you analysis still lacks until you can show that any existence is always better than nonexistence. If existence and non-existence would be equally “good”, God would have no reason to choose either one. If non-existence is better, then God would not create us. So your analysis demands to show that existence is in and by itself is more desirable than non-existence.

 

[R_Daneel]

Yeah, I don’t know why this is so difficult to understand. The problem of induction is NOT a statistical problem, but RDaneel continues to construe it this way.

This was your first post in this thread:

What do you mean by “verified”? There’s this implicitly naive and false assumption in these threads among some of you that repeated “verifications” somehow raise the probability of a general hypothesis being true. This is false. No matter how many times an experiment is repeated, these number of trials cannot raise the probability of a hypothesis being true above 50%. To think otherwise is to perform the reverse of the Gambler’s Fallacy. There is no more reason to think a hypothesis is true than false no matter how many times you repeat an experiment whose results come out “correct.”

You explicitly introduced the “probability of 50%” into the discussion, and now you wish to disown it? Come on, at least be intellecually honest about your own posts.