Humean Skepticism - An Enemy to Religious Skeptics

[2PhiloVoid]

No, but I will find it and read it. My introduction to Bayes, was in grad school studying search algorithyms for artificial intelligence applications. Once I read Bayes, I realized the broad application to epistemic questions.

Then ran into a podcast in a doctrine class by William Lane Craig on Bayes. WLC's approach was the main source for my post.

I like your overall idea in your OP, Uber. It's thoughtful, and I suppose there are various considerations we can bring into it for discussion in connection to either Hume or Bayes, or both.

As far as Bayes' Theorem is concerned, I've honestly never had statistics or higher maths in grad school, but I've been introduced to Bayes and have been slowly trying to understand the basic ideas within in it that some people feel may have application to philosophy, history and other fields. So, I'm sure you know more about it than I do. I first came across Bayes' in a book by [christian] Steven D. Unwin (2003) titled, "The Probability of God." It's an interesting book, and Unwin is a brilliant guy - he has a degree in theoretical physics, and his book even got a little applause from skeptic Michael Shermer. However, after reading it, it seemed to me that Unwin's thesis just didn't demonstrate to me a likely "probability" of God, especially after I read his elaboration on the limits of application for Bayes. On the other hand, I'm also not convinced by Richard Carrier's use of Bayes as he applies it to his thesis that "Jesus most likely didn't exist."

The article I mention previously itself is old, and it for some reason has more than the usual typos, which is strange being that it comes from a peer-reviewed academic journal. But, despite this, it deals with some interesting theoretical ideas that I think may apply to Bayes theorem. Also, it is a rather long article, so if you decide you don't want to read it, that's ok.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I personally disagree with the wide application of Bayes theorum. For we cannot ascertain Truth, so to decide what is more probable is a shot in the dark. It comes down to your epistemological outlook. We cannot assess prior knowledge vis-a-vis our metaphysics, so application of Bayes-style inference is largely a construct of assumption.

To me this is merely another attempt to solve Bernstein's Cartesian Anxiety, instead of realising the base uncertainty of things, we are trying to shore up absolutes or building fantastical statistical webs of arcane equations. At heart we cannot alter our subjective beliefs accordingly if our so-called knowledge we would use to do so is equally yet to be validated. Applications of statistical models to less certain fields like history, religion or metaphysics based on assumed knowledge is largely an exercise in futility, in my opinion. It is all well and good within its own sphere, but cannot be too widely applied without losing a lot of its coherence. For instance, historical applications rest on applying it from texts or history that is assumed true to test what is thought less secure, but as the initial propositions are themselves not definite, this really changes very little except obfuscating matters.

I confess that I am not the most knowledgable individual on the minutiae of Bayes, but I do know of the limitations of knowledge and statistics and I can't help feeling the ghosts of other absolutist 'truth-construct' dialectic breathing down my neck like Marxist-Leninism, Evidence-Based Medicine or Scholasticism. While it may be useful, I do not think we should be throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to traditional methods and applying Bayes's inference too widely.