Anything outside of time and space don't exist.

[Solitary]

First off, I don't appreciate that you tried to say that Bayesian statistics is prone to the gambler's fallacy, because it isn't

According to who----you? Statistical analysis shows that most people believe in God, so that proves God exists in objective reality? It comments more fallacies than the gamblers' fallacy----like bias confirmation fallacy.   

[Baruch]

Hakurei - so you are saying that gambler's don't rationalize, or that you are not a gambler, or that you don't rationalize (we all do).  I find any of those claims betray a lack of faith in the Force (Einstein was wrong, reality is dice, all the way down).

Solitary - everyone likes bias confirmation fallacy ... but nobody is honest enough to admit it ;-))

[Nihil-ist]

Hakurei - well not being a statistician by trade (I used it professionally only once) ... I don't think I or the other readers will get the point about biasing or unbiasing the method of estimation.  That is post-college level ;-)

Nihil-ist - I will have to consult the professional references ;-)  When we are dealing with elevated abstractions in metaphysics ... it gets tricky to define words in a jargon way free of the popular language.  Existence for example ... a professional definition that academic philosophers will fight over in a wrestling pit filled with jello ... or what the average person understands ... such as ... my right hand exists (provided it hasn't been amputated).  The existence of nouns that don't refer to physically realized objects ... such as love ... are much more tricky.  It is perhaps a weakness of English to use "existence" as a word describing too many ideas?  Between Thales and Pythagoras ... material and mathematical existence are defined ... and they are the forefathers of Plato.  How are you with the four causes of Aristotle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes

I wasn't thinking of the etymology. I always get lost in semantics haha.
I've hardly brushed the great Greeks. I need to do a lot of reading

[Baruch]

"I need to do a lot of reading" ... hence I am a compulsive reader ... it is bookworms all the way down.

Jumping ahead ... in classical terms, there is "substance" and there is "form", there is "existence" and there is "essence".  In philosophy, these four have engaged in a long dialectic.  For example ... there is such a general thing such as gold, and there is a specific piece of gold.  The specific piece of gold is thought to have form and existence.  The general thing is thought to have substance and essence.  Existence is the generalization of the specific and the form.  Essence is the generalization of the general and the essence.  Different philosophers have put different focus and primality on this duality, and even in a meta way ... is generalization legitimate?  This is the problem of the "universals".  And there is yet another abstract axis involved ... actuality vs potentiality.  Reality is often defined as actuality plus potentiality.  That what isn't even potential, let alone actual, is unreal.  Most posters here would agree to that ... hence they dismiss fiction as unreal (and in some respects it is) ... but since I reject duality, I can't do that ... I perceive, and thus experience ... interbeing ... which bridges reality and non-reality.

There are many translation of the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing) ... do you know the translation by Red Pine?  Chuang Tzu is my man!  Well, at least for philosophical Daoism ... I find it inspiring.  The latter religious form, not so much.  The communists still suppress Daoism in a way they don't do with Buddhism, because Daoism is associated with peasant revolts.    But in Chinese thought, Daoism and Buddhism are somewhat merged, particularly in Chan/Zen.

[A Sea of Red]

Cosmologies basic principles are formulated through general relativity, which works fine until you get to the Planck epoch at which point, GR can no longer extrapolate further into the past. The quantum theory of fields (different branch of physics from just QM) has described all of the interactions in the universe very well - with the exception of gravity. We have to have a quantum theory that describes gravity in order to understand further back than 10-43.

[Hakurei Reimu]

According to who----you? Statistical analysis shows that most people believe in God, so that proves God exists in objective reality? It comments more fallacies than the gamblers' fallacy----like bias confirmation fallacy.   

Bayesian probability is a measure of knowledge, not conviction.

Hakurei - so you are saying that gambler's don't rationalize, or that you are not a gambler, or that you don't rationalize (we all do).  I find any of those claims betray a lack of faith in the Force (Einstein was wrong, reality is dice, all the way down).

Rationalize ≠ rationalism. Rationalization is in many ways the opposite of rationalism.

[peacewithoutgod]

Bayesian probability is a measure of knowledge, not conviction.
Rationalize ≠ rationalism. Rationalization is in many ways the opposite of rationalism.

Yes, when you rationalize an idea, it's usually an attempt to make it appear sane and rational when it is really batshit crazy.

[Baruch]

A Sea Of Red ... well that is a problem with extrapolation.  No direct information before the Universe went transparent at the 3K event horizon, though attempts have been made to understand the variation in polarization of that early light, as well as the bumps in intensity.  I don't think that a quark plasma in the LHC is too good a model for the Big Bang ... though it is popular to claim so (Weinberg talked his book).  Like claiming a water molecule tells all we need to know about oceanography ;-)  And I don't think even tiny quark plasmas are well understood, do you?

Hakurei - so if someone had carnal knowledge, you would convict them?  Seeing those kinds of words getting bandied about, even in "official sources" sounds too much like "truthiness" to me.  As far as I know, we have no scientific theory of consciousness, so I don't think we have anything like scientific theory of knowledge or convictions.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Hakurei - so if someone had carnal knowledge, you would convict them?

Only if pedo.

Seeing those kinds of words getting bandied about, even in "official sources" sounds too much like "truthiness" to me.

So what if it sounds like truthiness to you?

As far as I know, we have no scientific theory of consciousness, so I don't think we have anything like scientific theory of knowledge or convictions.

Convictions are readily measurable. Just put the person in question into situations where their convictions are in conflict with their survival. If they die for it, then you have a good idea that it's a strongly held conviction. (Now, I didn't say this measurement was ethical, just possible.) Knowledge is also readily measurable. Just ask the person who claims some knowledge what that knowledge is, then put it to some test that will discern whether it's true or not. If the test fails, you know the person is talking shit. You don't need a theory of consciousness to do either of these.

Now, we have a very good way of obtaining knowledge. It's the scientific method. What do we do in the scientific method? We have a hypothesis, then we formulate predictions based on that hypothesis, then we test the hypothesis. If it passes the test, we have confirmation that the hypothesis is true. If it doesn't, then the hypothesis is undermined.

In Bayesian hypothesis testing, when confirmatory data is observed, the posterior probability of the hypothesis is increased; when detrimental data is observed, the posterior probability of the hypothesis is decreased.

Sound familiar?

Other things that Bayesianism provides the theoretical basis for: Occam's Razor. Why meta-analysis needs to be done carefully. How to choose a stopping condition. Why approaching a problem from multiple angles produces better qualitative results. Why resampling works. How to select models. etc. When you do Bayesianism, a lot of things start making sense. And not just fake sense, real sense. Sense you can put money on.

[Baruch]

If the subject is empirically ... a probabilistic (gambling) rational actor (as per economics) ... but then such a person doesn't exist empirically, except in economic books.

If you don't have any tingling sense of truth vs truthiness ... I would suggest staying away from a dice table ... you won't be able to intuit that the dice are loaded or not.  In the real world, people cheat ... I won't blame the dice themselves for being imperfect.  It helps a lot if you know the casino owner ... many decades ago, my folks knew a small casino owner, and he showed them the magnets under the table.

[Hakurei Reimu]

If the subject is empirically ... a probabilistic (gambling) rational actor (as per economics) ... but then such a person doesn't exist empirically, except in economic books.

If you don't have any tingling sense of truth vs truthiness ... I would suggest staying away from a dice table ... you won't be able to intuit that the dice are loaded or not.  In the real world, people cheat ... I won't blame the dice themselves for being imperfect.  It helps a lot if you know the casino owner ... many decades ago, my folks knew a small casino owner, and he showed them the magnets under the table.

Funny, I don't recall ever saying that any person is a perfect Bayesian or a perfect rational agent. Of course we're going to mess up. Of course we're going to always be susceptible to woolly thinking. Of course people are going to take advantage of our imperfection in thought to cheat us. That's life. Our imperfections in following rationality or Bayesianism or scientific discipline or morals is not an indictment on rationality, or on Bayesian methodology, or on science, or on morality â€" it's an indictment on us.

[Baruch]

But I thought atheism was all about ... proposing a perfect straw man G-d, and knocking him down.  I can see G-d making the same excuses ;-)

[peacewithoutgod]

But I thought atheism was all about ... proposing a perfect straw man G-d, and knocking him down.  I can see G-d making the same excuses ;-)

Straw-man god - Baruch, seriously! As an atheist, I really don't enjoy having my time hijacked by Christians arguing to defend their god, and with it their power to impose their will over the rest of us. If the day ever came that people no longer asserted their gods to be a reality and demand that I recognize them as such, then I sure would not be wasting my time building straw-man gods!

If you had the Thor argument in mind, then you miss the point entirely. Yeah, very few people today still believe in the god Thor, but that wasn't always the case. Thor, the Roman gods, the Greek pantheon, the gods of the Egyptians, Baal, Moloch, and those followed by the Celts were all very real gods in the minds of real people living in real societies, therefore no straw men are any of them. Millions of Hindus and indigenous peoples still believe in gods which are equally strange, if not more so to Western culture, and they don't even get admission to most arena events between atheists and their detractors who represent abrahamic religious ideas. Now I do happen to be aware that you have studied world religions comparatively, therefore you should understand exactly what I'm talking about there.

So if you really don't know how atheism is defined, here it is, and it's really quite simple, so please don't try and complicate it:

Atheism = Non Theism, or non-belief in a god.

Unless you believe in all gods, you are an atheist just like me on most of them. In my culture the conflict is primarily over Jesus, part of Yahweh-based trinity which was invented by church officials long after he died, and since I disbelieve in this deity too I am an atheist on all gods. Most people may not be you, but most people today are already atheists, failing to understand how those who identify as atheists have gone only one god beyond themselves in their disbelief. Because logic!

[Baruch]

My bad ... I was responding in a very metaphorical way to Hakurei ... it wasn't directed at you.  But then look for Peacewithoutgod ... when that is my intention ;-)

[widdershins]

To say that nothing can exist outside of space/time (same thing, different forms, according to Einstein) is not valid.  For one, it's not an argument, it's a statement; a claim.  For another, there is no evidence whatsoever to support that claim.  And finally, it is a claim of absolute; that there can be no other valid truth.  For instance, to say that something could exist outside of space/time is a valid statement.  It is not a claim as it is a possibility, not an absolute.  It is essentially the equivalent of saying, "I don't know."  But when you change it to "nothing can..." you are saying, "I know".  You are making a claim.  But you do not know, so it can be rightfully interpreted as "I believe".  But stating a belief as a fact is never sound logic.  It's unintentionally deceptive at best.  By the very nature of science any claim of absolute is not scientific as all of science must allow for alternate explanations given new data.  Something, even a god, could exist outside of space/time.  We just don't know.  The likelihood of there being some form of god outside of space/time as we know it is laughably small and becomes ever smaller the more you try to define the qualities of that god to the point of being absolutely ludicrous when you're trying to convince me of a beast who is simultaneously a loving father figure, being the only critter in the universe capable of "perfect love", who is also perfectly willing to light his children on fire for all eternity for doing something naughty like looking at boobies on the Internets.  When the being is described to the point that its description is contradictory to itself, that approaches absolute impossibility.

As for whether you accept quantum theory or not, that is completely irrelevant.  The universe/multiverse is what it is, regardless what you know or believe it to be.  To point out flaws in a scientific theory is not proof that any given underlying claim or possibility in that theory is definitively false, just that there isn't yet enough data to call it as close to "truth" as scientific theory ever gets, 95% or better acceptance in the scientific community.