Carl Sagan described himself as agnostic, and it’s a rational position to hold. As Sagan said:
“An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed”.
However, I personally attach zero likelihood to anything like the Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu god or gods existing. Technically I might be an agnostic, but I think “atheist” represents my outlook and belief system better. Then again, “a-theism” is defined in terms of what it doesn’t believe. I prefer to minimize talking about atheism, and talk about what I do believe in—science, rationality and a naturalistic worldview.
0 and 1 are not probabilities anyway, so refusing to call someone an atheist (or a theist) because they assign a non-zero (or ‘non-one’) probability to a god existing seems pointless to me, because then hardly anyone would count as atheist (or a theist). (It’s also a fallacy of gray, because assigning 0.1% probability to a god existing is not the same as assigning 99.9% probability to that.)
This kind of comment completely throws me off. I will have to read Eliezer’s arguments more carefully to see the meaning of these things further, but “0 and 1 are not probabilities”? What?! Under what mathematical model for Bayesianism is this true? I read “it’s more convenient to use odds when you’re doing Bayesian updates” and some discussion of the logistic transformation, some reasonable comments about finite changes under updating, and that MAYBE we should try to formulate a probability theory without 0 and 1, (resp. -inf, inf) to the title’s apparent claim: “0 and 1 are not probabilities”. Talk about a confusing non-sequitur. Same thing with the fallacy of gray. What? Eliezier rejects P(not A)=1-P(A) too?? I haven’t read that yet but whatever form of Bayesianism he ascribes too, it’s not a standard one mathematically.
EDIT: nevermind about the gray. I misread it. gray is just ignoring the difference between different probabilities., This applies to the word “agnostic” (i.e. are you a high agnostic or a low agnostic) but, then, nobody forced me to declare my probability numerically. I was just introducing where I fit in the usual spectrum. P({ of possibilities in which there is a God} | life)>1/100.
EDIT2: Thanks for the “gray” post. I liked this best: “If you say, “No one is perfect, but some people are less imperfect than others,” you may not gain applause; but for those who strive to do better, you have held out hope. No one is perfectly imperfect, after all.”
EDIT3: deleted a nonsense remark.
Carl Sagan described himself as agnostic, and it’s a rational position to hold. As Sagan said:
“An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed”.
However, I personally attach zero likelihood to anything like the Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu god or gods existing. Technically I might be an agnostic, but I think “atheist” represents my outlook and belief system better. Then again, “a-theism” is defined in terms of what it doesn’t believe. I prefer to minimize talking about atheism, and talk about what I do believe in—science, rationality and a naturalistic worldview.
0 and 1 are not probabilities anyway, so refusing to call someone an atheist (or a theist) because they assign a non-zero (or ‘non-one’) probability to a god existing seems pointless to me, because then hardly anyone would count as atheist (or a theist). (It’s also a fallacy of gray, because assigning 0.1% probability to a god existing is not the same as assigning 99.9% probability to that.)
This kind of comment completely throws me off. I will have to read Eliezer’s arguments more carefully to see the meaning of these things further, but “0 and 1 are not probabilities”? What?! Under what mathematical model for Bayesianism is this true? I read “it’s more convenient to use odds when you’re doing Bayesian updates” and some discussion of the logistic transformation, some reasonable comments about finite changes under updating, and that MAYBE we should try to formulate a probability theory without 0 and 1, (resp. -inf, inf) to the title’s apparent claim: “0 and 1 are not probabilities”. Talk about a confusing non-sequitur. Same thing with the fallacy of gray. What? Eliezier rejects P(not A)=1-P(A) too?? I haven’t read that yet but whatever form of Bayesianism he ascribes too, it’s not a standard one mathematically.
EDIT: nevermind about the gray. I misread it. gray is just ignoring the difference between different probabilities., This applies to the word “agnostic” (i.e. are you a high agnostic or a low agnostic) but, then, nobody forced me to declare my probability numerically. I was just introducing where I fit in the usual spectrum. P({ of possibilities in which there is a God} | life)>1/100. EDIT2: Thanks for the “gray” post. I liked this best: “If you say, “No one is perfect, but some people are less imperfect than others,” you may not gain applause; but for those who strive to do better, you have held out hope. No one is perfectly imperfect, after all.” EDIT3: deleted a nonsense remark.