Miracles

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Even so, it DOES obey causality.

What if it didn't? Can it be absolutely proven that human behavior obeys causality?

It already HAS. The last 50 years of biomedical research have shown that Brains make minds.
You see, there is already PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that strongly points to causality when it comes to human behaviour. But do you have any scientifically obtained evidence it doesnt? There is increasing doubt among neuroscientists and even among physicists that we have total free will.................if ANY at all.

What is the basis, outside of hubris, that humans who exist in and are part of the physical world, are the only exception to the laws of cause and effect?

Actually, I was just being overly skeptical. What you speak of isn't absolute proof though, just very solid confirming evidence.

In any case, I know about this to some extent, it is particularly interesting given that I think the quantum brain idea has also failed due to research by MIT physicist Max Tegmark.

This is no basis. We are physical and we are subject to all physical laws.

ruveyn

What kind of miracles are we talking about? Mind/matter miracles has to do with psychology.
There is an exception to every rule in psychology. You can't study us like machines.
For example, falun gong is considered a way to perform so called miracle healings. I'm not saying I understand how miracles work. All I know is that I've experienced a few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

But medicine and physiology and psychology have been successful only by considering people as machines and responsive to chemistry and mechanics.

The result, lives saved, better health and longer healthy lifespans.

ruveyn

To go back a bit to the topic:

Especially medicine is full of examples, when "magic thinking" produced so-called "miracles". Like; "I went to St. ABC of XYZ and this healed me." or "I put each a crystal on in my mouth and now my haemorrhoids are gone." etc. pp.

The most of the "evidences" do not report the non-successes and end up in the classic "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

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Even if something could be not explained with current science, it does not mean that something supra natural happened.

The operative term here is a priori. The supernatural being ridiculously unlikely is what you start with. The question is, what do you end up with when you have the best possible evidence against all the naturalistic explanations you know?


That is only possible if the prior probability of the supernatural is 0, and then Hume' argument becomes superfluous. If p(miracle) > 0, then there can be a probability that is smaller, being closer to 0 than p(miracle).


The Bayesian calculation is not absurd, it is relevant because it shows what you need to be true so that the relative probability of a miracle can stay low, no matter what the evidence is. If you don't establish those conditions, you haven't got that logical point.


Only if you take "incredibly improbable" as a qualitative statement, and assume that something that starts out as incredibly improbable has to stay that way. But "incredibly improbable" is a quantitative statement masquerading as qualitative. You have to set a quantitative threshold below which you call something incredibly improbable. I know of nothing in probability theory that says if the prior probability if an event is below a threshold, then the posterior probability will stay below that threshold no matter what the evidence is. But that is what premise 3 claims. You have to establish this claim, because it does not follow from premises 1 and 2 unless you treat "incredibly improbable" as a qualitative statement, which is wrong. I offered you a way to refine premise 3 to give you what you want.


And your logic treats quantities as if they were qualitatively different. If the premise is wrong, the conclusion is unreliable.


It's not a question of citing it, but of applying it. I don't know whether you did, or whether you are so confident in your argument that you thought it not worth the bother.


A prior probability.


Two problems: You have to break down p(B) into its individual components to see what is going on. That's where the interesting stuff is happening

The stuff I put into bold is not in your original description of Hume's argument. It's a very big addition to the argument. You are saying that if you get a posterior probability you don't like, you change your likelihood ratios (the strength of the evidence) until you get what you do like.


Yes, I can see that now, but that doesn't make me like the argument better. You run a great risk of adjusting the strength of the evidence just because the result deviates from your expectations.


That is a case of hearsay being poor evidence. Hume claims even the best evidence can't make a miracle more likely than a naturalistic explanation. The case of evidence being poor is irrelevant to that claim.


Happens all the time when people make claims of the supernatural. That's why an investigation of a claim of the supernatural should never be left to scientists alone, but should involve stage magicians and fraud investigators. Anyway, in my Bayesian analysis, the possibility of being taken in by fraud is included under ignorance.


That is what Bayes' theorem is for. Your decision to adjust the strength of evidence that you plug into the equation if you don't believe the result goes beyond the theorem, but is generally risky. You could end up just fiddling with the numbers until you get the result you want, like the creationists do. To be fair, you say if you don't believe the result you will check the evidence until you find out what is wrong with it, which is a more principled approach than just fiddling with the numbers. It still misses the point, because it means saying the evidence isn't so good after all. Hume's argument, as you presented it, is about the evidence being not just good, but the best. Or do you want to say that
only means no level of evidence we can get in a world where perception itself is far from a perfect guide to what is going on, and where you never quite know whether you might be falling for a scam?

What is at conflict here is basic assumption. When something is declared as a miracle a person of faith takes this as indication that a supernatural event has occurred. A person who relies on reason may declare ignorance over what actually occurred but his underlying confidence is that with due attention natural laws will be discovered to clarify what happened. A "miracle" is a challenge to further understanding in a person whose mental constitution analyses the universe. A person of faith is content to live in ignorance.

No, you cannot prove anything with probability and statistics.

Umm... they are still more likely because the supernatural is ridiculously unlikely. That's what the argument is trying to suggest, there is always some natural explanation, and this natural explanation is always more likely because the supernatural, by it's nature must be ridiculously unlikely, otherwise it would not contradict the lawful behavior we know.


The probability of a miracle is not 0, but you are assuming that the probability of a miracle CAN exceed the probability of a natural occurrence, and Hume's argument attacks THAT assumption to a greater extent.


No, it is IRRELEVANT because you have to show that the relative probability of a miracle is lower no matter what the evidence is. Thus, the discussion still must turn to that matter rather than mathematical analysis, because mathematical analysis is divorced from the qualitative matters are necessary to discuss, as math does not have to be realistic.


How is it really masquerading as quantitative? Words are not quantitative unless they exchange pretty directly for numbers. I do not have to set a quantitative threshold at all to make the argument, because the argument is about relative probabilities from a qualitative standpoint. Can one talk about probability qualitatively? Sure. In fact, when this is abstract, it is often better to do so, rather than assign a number pointlessly.

Gromit, the point isn't probability theory so much as it is the relative probability of 2 qualitative categories of events, something that, while related to probability theory, isn't the same as probability theory because the problem rests in the qualities, not in the mathematics.

Qualitative statements are not wrong. Particularly given that we are dealing with a situation with a plethora of natural explanations, some of which might even qualify as skeptical hypotheses in how difficult they are to disprove. Looking to probability theory while ignoring the nature of the probabilities that you must be arguing against is incredibly problematic.


Well, yeah, they are qualitatively different. One is grossly more improbable than any example of the other. The issue is that the qualitative difference is where the argument rests, because quantities can be randomly manipulated to unrealistic perspectives, but verbal logic is makes qualitative relations clearer.


It *isn't* worth the bother, as this is not an argument based upon Bayes. This is an argument based upon the relative probabilites of natural vs miraculous occurrences based upon a verbal logic explanation of both. The math is pointless unless you can come up with a realistic instance where this seems to hold.


Well, no. The issue is that if P(B) is unrealistic, then it wouldn't be trusted on it's own grounds, as unrealistic things are re-evaluated all of the time.


You mean people deal with evidence honestly at any point in time? I mean, I am not one of those fellows who believes that absolute proofs and absolute logic exists or matters. Every assessment is biased.


But.... well, you have to take into account the limitations of evidence. Evidence can never prove anything 100% or even approach it. It's impossible, so there is a limit on how much evidence can change relative probabilities, particularly for the incredibly improbable.


No, Bayes theorem is for instances where we are working with real probabilities. Not with making up numbers for imaginary instances. This is not Bayesian, as this is about real world occurrences, it may become Bayesian if we are trying to evaluate a real world possibility in order to refute the argument, but beyond that, your attempt to go back to probability theory is empty and meaningless.

I am not sure that applying Bayes' theorem to creationism is a valid application. You probably mean ID, and are talking about bioinformatics. In any case, people jack around with evidence all of the time, I see that as just human nature talking, not some special or magical event.

Well.... honestly, give me the best evidence, and tell me that there is no natural hypothesis that could equally account for it. I posit that there IS a natural hypothesis that could account for almost any miracle. Now, we can argue that there is an extreme case of a miracle that is irrefutable, but you haven't invoked that extreme case, and I might even be unwilling to grant that this would work either because of the possibility of a working natural hypothesis.

I still think you misunderstand the point of my objection to Hume's argument, but I can't think of any better way to explain it than I have offered already. I also think your understanding of Bayes' theorem is not quite correct, but I can't find out as long as you are not willing to look at it in more detail.

This brings to mind one miracle, mentioned in the bible, that I've heard did occur.

When god parted the sea for Moses and his people, and drowned their pursuers.

In the modern bible, there is a mistranslation at this part. They describe the red sea parting, but in fact it was the Reid sea. This is much less deep and broad, and could be crossed in a matter of 17 minutes. It has been proven that around this time period the bible describes, there occurred a massive tsunami that could have literally ‘parted the sea’ due to the drawback effect when the tsunami approached. The Hebrews could have crossed the sea at this moment as the effect would have lasted roughly about 29 minutes. When the Egyptians arrived later, they began to cross the sea but halfway across were hit by the tsunami.

The tsunami has been proved, the mistranslation has been proved, but the chances of the Hebrews arriving at that exact moment seem a little scarce. Still, theres one miricle that did occur for you.