for any hypothesis H, it’s on average equally “problematic” to believe its probability is 1% as it is to believe its probability is 99%.
This is obviously true because there’s an isomorphism between hypotheses and their negations, and “for any hypothesis” includes both. (There might also be other, less obvious reasons why it’s true.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
And I don’t think the conclusion is true, either, though I wouldn’t want to say much more without being specific about what set of entities we’re considering. (All logically possible ones? Physically possible? Entities that people claim to have communicated with? Of course it’s not your job to do this, the parent was underspecified.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
I figured anyone who thinks proving non-existence is extra hard also probably lacks a sufficiently thought-out concept of “existence” to convincingly make that claim :)
But ok, to engage more with the parent: My atheism takes the form “For all God-concepts I’ve heard of, my attempt to make them specific has either yielded something wrong like Helios, or meaningless like belief-in-belief or perhaps a bad word choice like ‘God is probability’”.
If the set of all God-concepts I’ve heard were empty, I wouldn’t have the need to say I’m an atheist. That’s why the burden of proof is actually on the God-concept-proposers.
This doesn’t quite engage with the parent.
This is obviously true because there’s an isomorphism between hypotheses and their negations, and “for any hypothesis” includes both. (There might also be other, less obvious reasons why it’s true.)
But the set of hypotheses “X does not exist” doesn’t contain both sides of the isomorphism, so the obvious argument doesn’t carry through.
And I don’t think the conclusion is true, either, though I wouldn’t want to say much more without being specific about what set of entities we’re considering. (All logically possible ones? Physically possible? Entities that people claim to have communicated with? Of course it’s not your job to do this, the parent was underspecified.)
I figured anyone who thinks proving non-existence is extra hard also probably lacks a sufficiently thought-out concept of “existence” to convincingly make that claim :)
But ok, to engage more with the parent: My atheism takes the form “For all God-concepts I’ve heard of, my attempt to make them specific has either yielded something wrong like Helios, or meaningless like belief-in-belief or perhaps a bad word choice like ‘God is probability’”.
If the set of all God-concepts I’ve heard were empty, I wouldn’t have the need to say I’m an atheist. That’s why the burden of proof is actually on the God-concept-proposers.