I have philosophical proof on "belief". Please double-check it.

[DetlefK]

1.

"Belief" shall be defined as supporting a statement, even if there is insufficient proof-positive evidence or even if there is proof-negative evidence.
"Doubt" shall be defined as rejecting a statement, even if there is some proof-positive evidence.

"Belief" and "doubt" of the same statement shall be regarded as opposites of each other.

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2.

Let's say, there is something we don't know, e.g. the value of something in nature, e.g. the size of something.

We can regard this value mathematically as a probability-function. (A perfect, sharp value would simply be a delta-distribution.)
This probability-function is defined by an infinite set of statistical moments (mean, standard-deviation andsoforth). For each probability-function, these parameters have unique values, making the function clearly identifiable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_%28mathematics%29

How do we find that value? We experience it, measure it.

The problem: The means, standard-deviations andsoforth you get from your measurement aren't the same as the true mean, true standard-deviation andsoforth, because you are only using a subset of all the available data. That means, the values of the statistical moments are only known to exist within some interval. You don't get a value that has 100% accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_%28mathematics%29#Sample_moments
(E.g. instead of measuring all the coconuts in the world, you are only measuring 100 randomly chosen coconuts.
E.g. instead of only taking your visions of God into account, you have to take all visions of God into account that anybody has ever had and will have.)

As you take in more and more data, the interval where the true value is hiding gets smaller and smaller. Once you have an infinite amount of data to draw a conclusion from, the interval becomes infinitely small and you have the true value you were looking for.

Lemma:
To draw a 100% accurate conclusion, you need to take all the data into account, not just a random sample.
E.g. not just one witness, but all the witnesses. And all the forensic data. And all the psychological evaluations. And...

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3.

The problem: What if you cannot produce all the possible data?
You cannot measure all the coconuts that have ever been and will be. You can hardly measure all the coconuts that exist right now on planet Earth.
And what if forensic evidence got lost, e.g. by rotting away?

Lemma:
A finite observer has a finite upper limit on how much data he can witness, store and process.

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4.

100% accuracy is only possible if you are capable of taking into account 100% of the data. If you do not have 100% of all the possible data, there is always a probability that your conclusion is wrong.

If there is a probability that the conclusion is wrong, you have to doubt it.

Supporting a statement as fully true despite a probability of the statement being wrong is a phenomenon of belief.

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5.

As any conclusion drawn from a limited subset of data must be doubted (for mathematical reasons shown above), "methods of gaining knowledge from acts of witnessing" must contain the principle of doubt.

And as belief is the opposite of doubt, "methods of gaining knowledge from acts of witnessing" cannot be based on the principle of belief.

Translation:
Belief is exactly the wrong approach for a finite being to understand the world. Finite beings must use a method based on doubt.





This is the first time I wrote it down in full. I hope, I didn't forget anything.

[skepticscott]

1. Double check completed

This is a mishmash of wrongness.

Sorry.

[DetlefK]

2. Would you please list some of those things that you found to be wrong?

[skepticscott]

5. Why?

[Leontius]

6. You say it's wrong but offer nothing.

You evidently have no counter argument to offer worth hearing but always demand them of others, so that's "why".

[skepticscott]

9. Why is this person entitled to have their nonsense corrected?

It's not my job. They've been told they're wrong. The rest they can figure out. Not every piece of nonsense in the world is worth wasting time on.

[Leontius]

10. Just as I thought.

You as usual have nothing to offer, just another vapid post lacking in substance or value.

[skepticscott]

11. Oh, you mean like post 8?

But let's hear your take on the OP, Leo. Do you even have one? Do you have anything of intellectual substance or value to offer here, or is this your usual snark-dropping intrusion into a thread that you have no other interest in?

[skepticscott]

18. Guess we have our answer

Nothing but snark is what you have to offer.

[skepticscott]

8. Your definition of doubt is silly

As you take in more data, the interval gets larger, not smaller.

You cannot draw a 100% accurate conclusion.

You have no idea what "forensic" even means. You're just throwing that word in there because you think it makes you sound cool and knowledgeable.

That's just a few. I'm not going to waste my time with more. Life is too short.

[struggle4progress]

13. You should learn some statistics before attempting to correct others on the topic:

confidence intervals do typically decrease in size with increasing sample size

[skepticscott]

14. That's not the interval I was talking about

And in any case, the poster claimed that the interval they were talking about would get infinitely small, which is wrong.

Try again.

[struggle4progress]

15. ... full of sound and fury ...

[skepticscott]

16. In other words, you thought you were being clever

but wound up with egg on your face, because it was you who didn't know what they were talking about. And now are trying to deflect from that.

Fail. You should have Googled, dude.

[DetlefK]

23. And what interval where you talking about?

You keep calling me wrong without saying what irks you.

[goldent]

17. What he was stating is true - it is based on the

law of large numbers, probability 101.

I got lost in the later steps.

[skepticscott]

19. The reason you got lost

Is that it's mostly nonsense. Muddle instead of mathematics.

[DetlefK]

20. Let's do this step-by-step:

1. Just calling it "silly" is meaningless. Do you have a more accurate definition of "doubt"? And why is my definition "silly"?

2. See the second link in my OP. As you can see, as "n", the amount of of data, goes to infinity, the standard-deviations of your statistical moments goes to zero. More data means more accuracy.

3. Mathematically, if you have all the data that could possibly be available available to you, you can draw a 100% accurate conclusion on a matter.

4. And in what respect is an error in an example (if I have made one) relevant to the theoretical background of the example?

[TygrBright]

3. There is no such thing as "100% of the data," sorry.

Time exists, entropy may exist, change is a constant, new data exists with every passing instant. The number of variables is effectively infinite.

regretfully,
Bright

[DetlefK]

21. You are incorrect on that one:

1. Example: coconuts. Let's say you want to measure the average size of a coconut. New coconut get harvested every minute while old coconuts gets eaten every minute. But just because something ceases to exist, that doesn't mean it's data ceases to exist. One could easily measure the size on an individual coconut before eating it. The coconut gets destroyed and the data persists. Time goes forward, entropy increases, change happens and new data gets added to old data.

2. And just because YOU, an entity with finite timespan and finite mental capacities, are unable to to gather 100% of the data on something, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

3. Even if there is an infinite number of variables, that doesn't mean much. If it's a countable infinity, you can still sort the variables and construct that infinity bit by bit.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. You'd need to be an infinite being to collect and understand infinite data.

So the fact that 'it exists' is a pointless statement in human terms. It gains us nothing. You're essentially just saying 'Only a God could have enough access to the data to understand it'.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'double check' your proof, but all I can see you saying is that empiricism is rational.

I 'believe' that the sun will not go supernova tomorrow, based upon my past experience of it not doing so every previous day in my life and in recorded history. Someday I 'believe' it will, because we've seen what we interpret as other suns going supernova, and 'believe' we've deduced the lifepath of stars.

So under your definition, we all just 'believe' things despite having insufficent (ie, perfect) knowledge to do so.

I think what you've proven is that most people don't use the word 'belief' in as absolutist a way as you do, but many of us still prefer empiricism, collecting data, and rejecting ideas when the data seems to go against them.

[DetlefK]

28. Well, my concern was about "belief" as a tool of revelation.

Only an infinite being can process an infinite amount of data. => Only an infinite being can draw a conclusion from all the data there is. => Only an infinite being can make conclusions that have 100% accuracy.

My point is: The human cannot make infallible conclusions, as he is finite. Therefore all conclusions must be doubted and none must be believed to be absolute truth. => The human can only use methods of revelation based on doubt, but not methods of revelation that are based on absolute claims.





You know what's funny?
About a month ago I posted an OP here in the Religion-group, inquiring how "belief" as a tool of revelation actually works. "What do I have to do to get an answer from a belief?"
I got one answer, and IIRC that guy was more along the lines of "it's about the journey you make while searching for your answer".

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

29. That clears things up a bit.

Wasn't quite sure what you were getting at, at first.

I'm not big on revelation. It's not satisfying from what I consider almost a point of personal aesthetics. No one 'worked' for it. Like the archetypal student in various parables, I find more 'worth' or 'value' in what we are forced to discover, than in what is simply handed to us.

[Festivito]

4. Doubtlessly, supporting a belief with infinite knowledge would as well know the outcome.

Which leads to a big: so what!

[Major Nikon]

7. You are comparing belief in abstract vs physical

There is a number of all the coconuts that have ever been and will be. One doesn't have to decide whether or not that number exists, which is a separate question from what that number is or if it can be determined.

[struggle4progress]

12. "Believe" has multiple meanings

It means one thing, when a person says to another "Yes, I believe you"

It means another thing, when a person says "I believe in democracy"

It means still another thing, when a person says "I believe So-&-so would be a good president"

It means something different, when a person says "I believe So-&-so can win the November election"

The word is used to indicate choices and preferences: say, "I believe I'll have another drink"

It is used to indicate various opinions: say, "I believe in the death penalty" or "I believe we should lock him up and throw away the key"

It is used to indicate ideas-contrary-to-fact: say, "She really believes space aliens control her mother's body"

It is used to indicate confidence: say, "You have to believe in yourself"

In particular, "believe" does not always indicate a definite stance on whether or not a certain assertion is "true" -- though "believe" can sometimes be used to indicate such a stance. This is the case for "I believe the man, who was thrown overboard, drowned in the sea," though the meaning of "I believe the man, who was thrown overboard, most probably drowned in the sea" is rather more tangled

The notion, that a statement is "true," is similarly complex. The idea, that a statement must either be "true" or "false," is an idealization that is useful only in limited circumstances: even if one could admit only statements unambiguous enough to be either "true" or "false," there would be no general way to determine whether such a statement is actually "true" or "false." So as a purely practical matter the actual status of almost statements will not be "true" or "false," and we must introduce at least one other value "?" -- and we probably must introduce an in definite number of such other values "?0," "?1," "?2" ...

This is a messy situation

The solution of Descartes to the multitude of inadequately-answered factual questions is to limit one's ambition and to study one question at a time: rather than trying to doubt everything, Descartes recommends temporarily adopting conventional views on almost everything, except the one question one intends to study in detail right now, and then to get as clear a view of the status of that one question as possible: that is, to be rigorously skeptical but always in a precisely limited fashion, restricted to a topic where there is some hope for progress. This explains why his method of methodical doubt does not lead Descartes into atheism: he modestly doubts one thing at a time while continuing to hold, for the moment and for purely practical reasons, conventional views on everything else

Of course, Pascal, the younger contemporary of Descartes, regarded Descartes as an atheist. Pascal, in famous passage, gives some indication of why he does not think skepticism produces a convincing attack on his own religious views: If this religion boasted of a clear view of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, then to say that nothing in the world establishes it clearly would indeed attack it. But .. on the contrary, this religion says that men are in darkness and estranged from God ... So it is Pascal's view that his religion begins with the observation that we are in a state of such profound ignorance that we cannot escape it, and that our inability to find definitive proofs on religious questions merely illustrates the depth of that ignorance

There is some overlap between these two. Descartes regards us as being in a state of ignorance on many topics, but thinks we can make some progress on certain questions by focussing his method on one appropriate question at a time while not discarding for the moment everything else we think know, if only for pragmatic reasons. But many religious questions seem ill-suited for the Cartesian method

It is perhaps notable that your argument attempts to eliminate certain unprovable assumptions by replacing them with others. You seem to "believe" (for example) in delta-distributions and in probability-functions defined by infinite sets of statistical moments. These are fairly abstract notions, and although they do have some practical uses, it is not entirely unreasonable to entertain some doubts about them. Unless, for example, you "believe" the law of the excluded middle (LEM), the notion that a "delta-distribution" exists (say, as a linear functional evaluating a function at a given point) makes sense only in world of continuous functions; and LEM itself is dubious. You have also committed yourself to "believing" in "infinite sets of statistical moments" -- even though the actual existence of "infinite sets" seems to admit no scientific proofs

[DetlefK]

22. You are trying to confuse the situation by playing word-games.

My OP is clearly about "belief" as a general approach to statements and evidence and how one reacts to those.

When a religious person says "I believe in God.", the person is most definitely not saying "There is a probability that this character God exists."
"Believing in God" is intended as an absolute statement, declaring God's existence true.

Or how about "I believe, Earth is 6000 years old."? Are these people talking about confidence-intervalls of various theories on the age of Earth, or is it intended as an absolute statement?

"I believe there is a purpose in life. I believe there is a universal set of morals." All the same. All intended as absolute statements.




Descartes was from the late Renaissance and still deeply enmeshed in the magical and religious thinking of that time. Science was an off-shot of the magic-focused research of the Renaissance. For these "scientists of magic", experiments only existed to fill in the gaps of what was already known. Experiments weren't intended to test what was already known, such as the existence of God. Even for early scientists like Descartes, pondering an atheist world-view was psychologically next to impossible.

Descartes was a materialist though: A proponent of the idea that laws of nature govern nature, instead of the intentions and whims of gods 'n stuff. The scientists circumvented the religious implications by inventing "Intelligent Design" as an excuse: God had created the laws of nature.




Descartes' method of only doubting one thing at a time has a serious flaw.
Example: "Is there a God? Yes, because the Bible says so." <-> "Can the Bible be trusted? Yes, because it was written by God."
Back-and-forth and you never make any progress.





I do not "believe" in stochastics. Stochastics is independent from what I think of it. Stochastics is always the same, no matter what people preach about it or claim about it. There is no "leap of faith" necessary when using stochastics. You do not have to "believe" anything you are told about stochastics.
You can recreate the principles of stochastics out of your imagination, logic and experiments and it will always be the same.

(This infinte set of statistical moments isn't related to data/experiments. It's in the same realm as a Taylor-expansion or Fourier-expansion. It's simply another way to write a function.)

[struggle4progress]

24. Descartes' method of only doubting one thing at a time is fundamental

to all serious research: one can only make progress by limiting one's attention and focussing

[DetlefK]

25. Do you mean on a psychological level or an experimental level?

[struggle4progress]

26. Having an imperfect map is better than having no map at all. We therefore

do not discard our existing maps completely: rather, we set out to improve them bit by bit. We pick a small region, ask who has looked there or nearby before and what they have reported, try to learn possible ways into the area, and see how this process informs us. With some effort and some luck, we make an improvement, and everybody then has a slightly better map