Less likely? I think the claim can be stated and proven independently of the motive. A > motive certainly will give it more plausibility but not necessarily make it more likely in > a Bayesian way. I’m trying to answer a question of how, whereas the motive would be > relevant to a question of why, for what reason.
On the contrary, motive is a perfectly relevant Bayesian modifier. I’m also not sure what you mean by saying that the motive can make something more plausible but not necessarily more likely. What is plausibility if not a metric of likelyhood given the evidence?
Second, you seem to be operating under the assumption that if the plane attacks > were executed by terrorists they couldn’t also have planted explosives?
And they would have done so when exactly? Moreover, why bother? The entire success of using planes in this way is that you don’t need to bother with bombs in your target. The planes themselves do the work. Setting explosives makes the plan for more complicated with little gain.
On the contrary, motive is a perfectly relevant Bayesian modifier. I’m also not sure what you mean by saying that the motive can make something more plausible but not necessarily more likely. What is plausibility if not a metric of likelyhood given the evidence?
Person X drops down dead with a perforation of his head. Claim: he was killed by a bullet. This can be examined independently of the question: Who had a motive to do so? Do you agree that it would be wrongheaded to start the investigation with: X was a well known and popular person and so no one would have a motive to kill X therefore the claim of death by bullet is extremely unlikely and we shouldn’t even bother investing much time in its investigation.
That’s a really bad analogy with multiple problems: First, stray bullets exist. Second, insane people shooting at random individuals exist. Third, the assumption that no would have a motivation to kill the person in question is an incredibly strong one. Moreover, even in that situation, if you did have a very high confidence that no one would deliberately shoot the individual, that would in fact reduce the confidence value that the person had been killed by a gunshot since it reduces the probability of certain gun-shot hypotheses being correct. You might think it doesn’t reduce it by enough to matter but it can’t no alter it if the presence of motivations would increase the probability. Conservation of evidence and all that.
Moreover, the notion you’ve constructed of not even bothering to investigate the hypothesis is a strawman. No one has said that alternate investigation might not have made sense at one point. But it simply isn’t a useful tool at this point. To extend your analogy, slightly differently, if the doctors all say that the person died from a random piece of shrapnel and have a lot of evidence for that claim (including videos of the shrapnel impact) then at a certain point it isn’t useful to spend resources investigating the bullet hypothesis. If you can’t construct a plausible motive for the shooter that becomes yet another reason to reduce confidence in the (already low) probability assigned to the bullet hypothesis.
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed? Where would it have to be installed? How many hours would that take, and how many workers? How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow? Where did the explosives come from? Who paid for them? Who delivered them, and to whom, where? Why would the project be timed to go on September 11th? Why would the denotation of the explosives be delayed to seven hours after the debris struck the building? Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives? How much noise would the explosives make? How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
Even if you think the official story is not well supported, I have to say it stacks up positively magnificently compared to the building-implosion theory.
It seems you have ignored my queries. In the spirit of staying as close to the original question as possible, however, I shall withdraw “Why would the project be timed to go on September 11th?” and “Why would the denotation of the explosives be delayed to seven hours after the debris struck the building?”, and ask again:
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed?
Where would it have to be installed?
How many hours would that take, and how many workers?
How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow?
Where did the explosives come from?
Who paid for them?
Who delivered them, and to whom, where?
Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives?
How much noise would the explosives make?
How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
In the art of rationality there is a discipline of closeness-to-the-issue—trying to observe evidence that is as near to the original question as possible, so that it screens off as many other arguments as possible.
Maybe I should have emphasized “screens off as many other arguments as possible”. You have a made a list of such arguments/questions. Mind you, they are all worth investigating but I’m screening them off the key question, namely:
“Were explosives planted in WTC7?” or “What caused WTC7 to collapse”(hat tip to Morendil).
Do you agree that this was a controlled demolition?
Do you agree that you can make this statement without having any of your listed questions answered?
If yes, you can then proceed to ask your previous list of questions:
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed?
Where would it have to be installed?
How many hours would that take, and how many workers?
How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow?
Where did the explosives come from?
Who paid for them?
Who delivered them, and to whom, where?
Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives?
How much noise would the explosives make?
How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
That video was pretty awesome, actually—a superb job of imploding a thirty-story building (the Landmark Tower in Fort Worth, Texas, March 18, 2006). And did you hear the noise of those explosive charges, and see those bright flashes as they detonated—it was most distinct!
And did you hear the noise of those explosive charges, and see those bright flashes as they detonated—it was most distinct!
Someone pointed this out a while ago and so the truthers decided that the buildings were brought down by thermite. Someone then pointed out that thermite can’t make horizontal cuts and that’s how the truthers figured out the government used nanothermite.
Roland, sorry to address you again after I disengaged. I don’t want to reenter the argument but I am curious: What do you believe was used to bring down the building? Presumably not thermite since you put all that effort into getting us to watch that video of the guy who heard an explosion…
The question in this case is: “Were explosives planted in WTC7?”.
No. Fool. They got hit by freaking planes. I saw it live on TV. You’re just WRONG and RIDICULOUSLY SO. It doesn’t matter which person you signal affiliation with. Or which works you link to. You’re still wrong.
Aside from the fact that ata is right and WTC7 was actually brought down from fires and structural damage caused by the falling tower, not the airplanes themselves, this strikes me as a reasonable response to persistent and uncorrectable wrongness. Do people disagree? If so, what is the appropriate response?
WTC7 was not one of the buildings that got hit by a plane.
(Lest anyone misinterpret my motives… I’m just correcting a statement of fact. I am absolutely not defending the claim that any of them were brought down by explosives, which I do not believe.)
On the contrary, motive is a perfectly relevant Bayesian modifier. I’m also not sure what you mean by saying that the motive can make something more plausible but not necessarily more likely. What is plausibility if not a metric of likelyhood given the evidence?
And they would have done so when exactly? Moreover, why bother? The entire success of using planes in this way is that you don’t need to bother with bombs in your target. The planes themselves do the work. Setting explosives makes the plan for more complicated with little gain.
Person X drops down dead with a perforation of his head. Claim: he was killed by a bullet. This can be examined independently of the question: Who had a motive to do so? Do you agree that it would be wrongheaded to start the investigation with: X was a well known and popular person and so no one would have a motive to kill X therefore the claim of death by bullet is extremely unlikely and we shouldn’t even bother investing much time in its investigation.
That’s a really bad analogy with multiple problems: First, stray bullets exist. Second, insane people shooting at random individuals exist. Third, the assumption that no would have a motivation to kill the person in question is an incredibly strong one. Moreover, even in that situation, if you did have a very high confidence that no one would deliberately shoot the individual, that would in fact reduce the confidence value that the person had been killed by a gunshot since it reduces the probability of certain gun-shot hypotheses being correct. You might think it doesn’t reduce it by enough to matter but it can’t no alter it if the presence of motivations would increase the probability. Conservation of evidence and all that.
Moreover, the notion you’ve constructed of not even bothering to investigate the hypothesis is a strawman. No one has said that alternate investigation might not have made sense at one point. But it simply isn’t a useful tool at this point. To extend your analogy, slightly differently, if the doctors all say that the person died from a random piece of shrapnel and have a lot of evidence for that claim (including videos of the shrapnel impact) then at a certain point it isn’t useful to spend resources investigating the bullet hypothesis. If you can’t construct a plausible motive for the shooter that becomes yet another reason to reduce confidence in the (already low) probability assigned to the bullet hypothesis.
Eliezer managed to write much more eloquently what I’m trying to say:
In the art of rationality there is a discipline of closeness-to-the-issue—trying to observe evidence that is as near to the original question as possible, so that it screens off as many other arguments as possible.
The question in this case is: “Were explosives planted in WTC7?”.
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed? Where would it have to be installed? How many hours would that take, and how many workers? How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow? Where did the explosives come from? Who paid for them? Who delivered them, and to whom, where? Why would the project be timed to go on September 11th? Why would the denotation of the explosives be delayed to seven hours after the debris struck the building? Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives? How much noise would the explosives make? How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
Even if you think the official story is not well supported, I have to say it stacks up positively magnificently compared to the building-implosion theory.
In the art of rationality there is a discipline of closeness-to-the-issue—trying to observe evidence that is as near to the original question as possible, so that it screens off as many other arguments as possible.
It seems you have ignored my queries. In the spirit of staying as close to the original question as possible, however, I shall withdraw “Why would the project be timed to go on September 11th?” and “Why would the denotation of the explosives be delayed to seven hours after the debris struck the building?”, and ask again:
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed?
Where would it have to be installed?
How many hours would that take, and how many workers?
How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow?
Where did the explosives come from?
Who paid for them?
Who delivered them, and to whom, where?
Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives?
How much noise would the explosives make?
How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
And how did They (whoever They are) get all of those presumably well-intentioned workers to keep quiet, before and after the operation?
Quoting myself again for the 3rd time:
Maybe I should have emphasized “screens off as many other arguments as possible”. You have a made a list of such arguments/questions. Mind you, they are all worth investigating but I’m screening them off the key question, namely: “Were explosives planted in WTC7?” or “What caused WTC7 to collapse”(hat tip to Morendil).
Look at the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sJ1bMR6VQ
Do you agree that this was a controlled demolition? Do you agree that you can make this statement without having any of your listed questions answered? If yes, you can then proceed to ask your previous list of questions:
How much explosive charge would it take to cause the failure observed?
Where would it have to be installed?
How many hours would that take, and how many workers?
How many people would have to be displaced so as not to witness the building being prepared to blow?
Where did the explosives come from?
Who paid for them?
Who delivered them, and to whom, where?
Why didn’t the fire interfere with the operation of the explosives?
How much noise would the explosives make?
How quickly would the building collapse after the explosion?
That video was pretty awesome, actually—a superb job of imploding a thirty-story building (the Landmark Tower in Fort Worth, Texas, March 18, 2006). And did you hear the noise of those explosive charges, and see those bright flashes as they detonated—it was most distinct!
...wait.
Edit: Here’s another camera angle on the Landmark Tower, I believe.
Someone pointed this out a while ago and so the truthers decided that the buildings were brought down by thermite. Someone then pointed out that thermite can’t make horizontal cuts and that’s how the truthers figured out the government used nanothermite.
And so, small concession after small concession, nothing changes...
Roland, sorry to address you again after I disengaged. I don’t want to reenter the argument but I am curious: What do you believe was used to bring down the building? Presumably not thermite since you put all that effort into getting us to watch that video of the guy who heard an explosion…
No. Fool. They got hit by freaking planes. I saw it live on TV. You’re just WRONG and RIDICULOUSLY SO. It doesn’t matter which person you signal affiliation with. Or which works you link to. You’re still wrong.
Aside from the fact that ata is right and WTC7 was actually brought down from fires and structural damage caused by the falling tower, not the airplanes themselves, this strikes me as a reasonable response to persistent and uncorrectable wrongness. Do people disagree? If so, what is the appropriate response?
WTC7 was not one of the buildings that got hit by a plane.
(Lest anyone misinterpret my motives… I’m just correcting a statement of fact. I am absolutely not defending the claim that any of them were brought down by explosives, which I do not believe.)