army1987 comments on What Bayesianism taught me - LessWrong

62 Post author: Tyrrell_McAllister 12 August 2013 06:59AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 12 August 2013 06:25:54PM 2 points [-]

I don't think it is. If Zeus really had eaten the homework, I wouldn't expect it to be reported in those terms. Some stories are evidence against their own truth -- if the truth were as the story says, that story would not have been told, or not in that way. (Fictionally, there's a Father Brown story hinging on that.)

What I was just about to say. See also Yvain on self-defeating arguments.

A white wall is also evidence, in that sense, for all crows being magenta, for the moon being made of green cheese,

Okay, but...

for every sparrow falling being observed by God, and for no sparrow falling being observed by God.

How so?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 12 August 2013 07:50:37PM 2 points [-]

for every sparrow falling being observed by God, and for no sparrow falling being observed by God.

How so?

Every white wall is a non-sparrow not observed by God, hence evidence for God observing every sparrow's fall. It is also a, um, no, you're right, the second one doesn't work.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 August 2013 10:27:58PM 2 points [-]

Every white wall is a non-sparrow not observed by God

How do we know that the wall is not observed by God?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 13 August 2013 07:44:54AM 2 points [-]

Ah, quite so. God sees all, sparrows and walls alike. Both of those examples are broken.

Comment author: Kawoomba 13 August 2013 07:50:55AM 6 points [-]

An omnipotence-omniscience paradox: "God, look away!" - "I can't!"

Comment author: [deleted] 13 August 2013 09:55:28AM *  0 points [-]

“There's something a human could do that God couldn't do, namely committing suicide.”

-- someone long ago, IIRC (Google is turning up lots of irrelevant stuff)

Comment author: Kawoomba 13 August 2013 10:20:03AM -1 points [-]

And since we usually desire the one thing we cannot have ...

Comment author: Carinthium 13 August 2013 08:56:47AM -1 points [-]

That one's easily solvable, isn't it? God could look away if he wanted to, but chose not to.

Comment author: Jiro 12 August 2013 08:55:14PM 1 point [-]

If sparrows do not exist, then "every sparrow falling is observed by God" and "no sparrow falling is observed by God" are both true. (And of course, every white wall is a tiny bit of evidence for "sparrows do not exist", although not very good evidence since there are so many other things in the universe that also need to be checked for sparrow-ness.)

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