pangloss comments on The Sin of Underconfidence - Less Wrong

55 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 April 2009 06:30AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (176)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Jack 24 April 2009 01:29:27PM 1 point [-]

If we shouldn't expect evidence in either case then the probability of God's existence is just the prior, right? How could P(God) be above .5? I can't imagine thinking that the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent being who answers prayers and rewards and punishes the sins of mortals with everlasting joy or eternal punishment was a priori more likely than not.

I wonder what variety of first cause argument he's making. Even if everything must have a cause that does not mean there is a first cause and the existence of a first cause doesn't mean the first cause is God. Aquinas made two arguments of this variety that actually try to prove the existence of God, but they require outdated categories and concepts to even make.

Comment author: pangloss 24 April 2009 02:20:46PM 0 points [-]

Given the problems for the principle of indifference, a lot of bayesians favor something more "subjective" with respect to the rules governing appropriate priors (especially in light of Aumann-style agreement theorems).

I'm not endorsing this manuever, merely mentioning it.