I can’t see why (B) got excluded, but more significantly, what happened to (E)? In blue tentacle scenarios, that’s the most important one, the unknown unknowns. You list it explicitly, then completely ignore it.
Unknown unknowns are important long before the outer wilds of twenty sigma. It’s those that kill you when you thought you had all bases covered. And out in the weird realms where parochial messages can be hidden in eternal mathematics or cosmological engineering, it is impossible to conceive what else may be lurking there.
I can’t see why (B) got excluded, but more significantly, what happened to (E)?
You’re missing the point. Keep including (B) as a possibility if you like (I could debate with you on the probability of aliens so powerful that they can alter the fundamental constants of the universe they inhabit and be willing to do so just to prank humanity with a religion—but it’s not worth the trouble). Also add as many (E)s, (F)s, (G)s you like. Add a hundred different possibilities if you want.
Either way, if (A) gets significantly reduced as a probability, and we have no reason to simultaneously reduce the probability of (D) (or adjust the relative likelihood of the remaining probabilities in a manner that disadvantages (D)), then (D)’s estimated probability must increase by a factor analogous to the weight that (A) previously held.
If I currently believe (A) to be 99.99% percent likely, then its exclusion automatically increases the probability of (D) by a factor of 10,000 -- no matter how many alternate possibilities Es, Fs, Gs you also provide.
At this point I think you’re just being allergic at the idea of anything even hypothetically increasing the probability of Islam being true. What hypothetical amount of evidence would cause you to believe in Islam, if the scenario I provided isn’t sufficient?
Either way, if (A) gets significantly reduced as a probability, and we have no reason to simultaneously reduce the probability of (D) (or adjust the relative likelihood of the remaining probabilities in a manner that disadvantages (D)), then (D)’s estimated probability must increase by a factor analogous to the weight that (A) previously held.
E too, obviously, likewise with C.
But the question that began this thread was about (D), not about (C) or any Es. So that’s what I’m talking about.
End of conversation.
Seriously? You got offended after I patiently spend long paragraphs explaining basic probability to you? And you don’t even bother answering my question, after I answer all of yours?
I’ll keep this in mind next time I am tempted to respond to you.
I can’t see why (B) got excluded, but more significantly, what happened to (E)? In blue tentacle scenarios, that’s the most important one, the unknown unknowns. You list it explicitly, then completely ignore it.
Unknown unknowns are important long before the outer wilds of twenty sigma. It’s those that kill you when you thought you had all bases covered. And out in the weird realms where parochial messages can be hidden in eternal mathematics or cosmological engineering, it is impossible to conceive what else may be lurking there.
You’re missing the point. Keep including (B) as a possibility if you like (I could debate with you on the probability of aliens so powerful that they can alter the fundamental constants of the universe they inhabit and be willing to do so just to prank humanity with a religion—but it’s not worth the trouble). Also add as many (E)s, (F)s, (G)s you like. Add a hundred different possibilities if you want.
Either way, if (A) gets significantly reduced as a probability, and we have no reason to simultaneously reduce the probability of (D) (or adjust the relative likelihood of the remaining probabilities in a manner that disadvantages (D)), then (D)’s estimated probability must increase by a factor analogous to the weight that (A) previously held.
If I currently believe (A) to be 99.99% percent likely, then its exclusion automatically increases the probability of (D) by a factor of 10,000 -- no matter how many alternate possibilities Es, Fs, Gs you also provide.
At this point I think you’re just being allergic at the idea of anything even hypothetically increasing the probability of Islam being true. What hypothetical amount of evidence would cause you to believe in Islam, if the scenario I provided isn’t sufficient?
Why D in particular? Why not E?
End of conversation.
E too, obviously, likewise with C. But the question that began this thread was about (D), not about (C) or any Es. So that’s what I’m talking about.
Seriously? You got offended after I patiently spend long paragraphs explaining basic probability to you? And you don’t even bother answering my question, after I answer all of yours?
I’ll keep this in mind next time I am tempted to respond to you.
B got excluded because in-universe agents don’t write the universe’s laws.