A rational unfalsifyable believe

Arielgenesis

I'm trying to argue that it is possible for someone rational to hold on to a believe that is unfalsifyable and remain rational.

There are three people in a room. Adam, Cain, and Able. Able was murdered. Adam and Cain was taken into police custody. The investigation was thorough but it remains inconclusive. The technology was not advanced enough to produce conclusive evidence. The arguments are basically you did it, no, you did it.

Adam has a wife, her name is Eve. Eve believed that Adam is innocent. She believed so because she has known Adam very well and the Adam that she knew, wouldn't commit murder. She uses Adam's character and her personal relationship with him as evidence.

Cain, trying to defend himself, asked Eve. "What does it take for her to change her believe". She replied, "show me the video recording, then I would believe". But there was no video recording. Then she said, "show me any other evidence that is as strong as a video recording". But there was no such evidence as well.

Cain pointed out, "the evidence that you use for your believe is personal relationship and his character. Then if there are evidence against his character, would you change your mind?"

After some thinking and reflection, she finally said. "Yes, if it could be proven that I have been deceived all these years, then I will believe otherwise."

All of Adam's artifact were gathered, collected and analysed. The search was so thorough, there could never be any new evidence about what Adam had did before the custody that could be presented in the future. All points to Adam good character.

Eve was happy. Cain was not. Then he took one step further. He proposed, "Eve, people could change. If Adam change in the future into man of bad character, would you be convinced that he could have been the murderer?"

"Yes, if Adam changed, then I would believe that it is possible for Adam to be the murderer." Eve said.

Unfortunately, Adam died the next day. Cain said to Eve, "how do you propose that your belief about Adam's innocence be falsified now?"

"It cannot be falsified now." Eve replied.

"Then you must be irrational."

Is Eve irrational?
Can believing an unfalsifyable believe be rational?
Can this argument be extended to believe in God?

A rational unfalsifyable believe

I'm trying to argue that it is possible for someone rational to hold on to a believe that is unfalsifyable and remain rational.

Cain pointed out, "the evidence that you use for your believe is personal relationship and his character. Then if there are evidence against his character, would you change your mind?"

After some thinking and reflection, she finally said. "Yes, if it could be proven that I have been deceived all these years, then I will believe otherwise."

"Yes, if Adam changed, then I would believe that it is possible for Adam to be the murderer." Eve said.

Unfortunately, Adam died the next day. Cain said to Eve, "how do you propose that your belief about Adam's innocence be falsified now?"

"It cannot be falsified now." Eve replied.

"Then you must be irrational."

Is Eve irrational?
Can believing an unfalsifyable believe be rational?
Can this argument be extended to believe in God?

You don't only need evidence that the fantastical events were caused, you also need evidence they were caused by the same thing if you wish to attribute them to that same thing.

Assume I observe X, Y, Z and form three hypotheses

A: All of X, Y, Z had causes
B: All of X, Y, Z had different causes
C: All of X, Y, Z had the same cause

A obviously has highest probability since it includes B and C as special cases. However, which one of B and C do you think should get complexity penalty over the others?

In you story:

Yes, it can be extended to belief in God. Provided we restrict "God" to a REALLY TINY thing. As in, gee, a couple thousand years ago, something truly fantastic happened - it was God! I saw it with my own eyes! You can keep believing there was, at that point in time, an entity causing this fantastic thing. Until you get other evidence, which may never happen. What you CANNOT do is say, "hey, maybe this 'God' that caused this one fantastic thing is also responsible for creating the universe and making my neighbor win the lottery and my aunt get cancer and ..." That's unloading a huge complexity on an earlier belief without paying appropriate penalties.

The relevant comparison is: Given that God did X, what is the probability that God also did Y and Z, verses God did not do those things.

P(God did Y, Z | God did X) = P(God did X,Y, Z) / P(God did X)

v.s.

P(God did not do Y, Z | God did X) = P(God did X, and something other than God did Y, Z) / P(God did X)

I am uncertain about how to correctly apply complexity penalty, but I do believe that the multi explanation model "God did X, and something other than God did Y, Z" should get complexity penalty over the sing explanation model "God did X, Y, Z".

The belief "God caused some tiny thing, a couple thousand years ago", should correlated with the belief "God did this big thing right now". This is why I firmly believe that God did not cause some tiny thing, a couple of thousand years ago.

Phrased like this, I see what you're getting at; but in my mind, I was describing extraordinary, but different events. Say, miracle cures and miracle plagues or whatever. A whole bunch of locusts and your aunt being cured of cancer most likely have different causes. In that case, you first have to postulate an entity which can summon a bunch of locusts. The actual summoning need not be magical or spontaneous in nature, only their appearance. So keeping a bunch of locusts hidden away whilst feeding them (somehow), before releasing them like a plague, would ... (read more)

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A rational unfalsifyable believe

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A rational unfalsifyable believe

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