Huh? I would think if anything it is the other way around. We have something which locates the Jehovah hypothesis, ancient texts claiming the entity’s intervention and modern individuals claiming to communicate with the entity. The real issue is that after locating, there are much better explanations for the data.
If you think that it’s easier to locate the hypothesis of Jehovah than the hypothesis of theism, then you’re falling victim to a variation of the conjunction fallacy. Belief in Jehovah is itself a variety of theism.
Nevertheless, I agree with you that there’s plenty of evidence to locate the hypothesis of Jehovah (and therefore there is at least that much to locate theism), just very little evidence to confirm it when it’s examined.
Locating a hypothesis means to have enough evidence for a hypothesis that one can say that the hypothesis is worth considering at some minimal level. This is necessary because humans have limited cognitive capability so we can’t consider every possible hypothesis out there (we can’t even practically list them all).
Thus for example, if someone ran up to you on the street and screamed “the mutant aliens are in the sewer. They’re powered by draining nuclear power plants!” you probably wouldn’t consider the claim much at all, but would rather entertain others (the person is mentally ill, or is engaging in some strange prank would both be more likely).
Toby’s point was that my claim that the Jehovah hypothesis could be more easily located than the theist hypothesis must be wrong. Since the theist hypothesis is implied by (or encompasses depending on how you look at it) the Jehovah hypothesis, anything that located the Jehovah hypothesis must be locating the more general theist hypothesis. This is a common cognitive error that humans make called the conjunction fallacy, where people will assign a higher probability to something more specific than something general, even though the general thing is entailed by the specific thing. I’m a bit embarrassed by that actually, since it shows serious failings on my part as a rationalist.
The reason that I said ‘a variation of the conjunction fallacy’ is that the standard conjunction fallacy that I know is about assigning probabilities to propositions rather than attending to them. (You might choose to attend to something with a fairly low probability, for example, if its expected consequences are significant enough to overcome this.) Nevertheless, to consider the possibility that Jehovah exists, you must consider the possibility that a god exists.
Wow that was fast. I was writing an edit, after looking up the wiki, when I refreshed and it looked almost exactly like your first paragraph. Yes, in absolute probability terms theism must be more probable than jehovah. Thus, the conjunction fallacy.
At first glance the terminology ‘locate the hypothesis’ is rather non-intuitive. I’m going to put some consideration, and I don’t think this is the appropriate place anyway, before commenting further on that.
That line works a lot better for ‘Jehovah’ than ‘theism’, especially if you apply the latter term liberally.
Huh? I would think if anything it is the other way around. We have something which locates the Jehovah hypothesis, ancient texts claiming the entity’s intervention and modern individuals claiming to communicate with the entity. The real issue is that after locating, there are much better explanations for the data.
If you think that it’s easier to locate the hypothesis of Jehovah than the hypothesis of theism, then you’re falling victim to a variation of the conjunction fallacy. Belief in Jehovah is itself a variety of theism.
Nevertheless, I agree with you that there’s plenty of evidence to locate the hypothesis of Jehovah (and therefore there is at least that much to locate theism), just very little evidence to confirm it when it’s examined.
Yes, you’re right. That’s an awful conjunction fallacy. Almost textbookish. Ugh.
I don’t think I understand what ‘locate the hypothesis is’. I do know what the conjunction fallacy is. I suspect the confusion here is my own..
You can identify a dog with more certainty than identify a mammal, even though all dogs are mammals. What did I miss?
Locating a hypothesis means to have enough evidence for a hypothesis that one can say that the hypothesis is worth considering at some minimal level. This is necessary because humans have limited cognitive capability so we can’t consider every possible hypothesis out there (we can’t even practically list them all).
Thus for example, if someone ran up to you on the street and screamed “the mutant aliens are in the sewer. They’re powered by draining nuclear power plants!” you probably wouldn’t consider the claim much at all, but would rather entertain others (the person is mentally ill, or is engaging in some strange prank would both be more likely).
Toby’s point was that my claim that the Jehovah hypothesis could be more easily located than the theist hypothesis must be wrong. Since the theist hypothesis is implied by (or encompasses depending on how you look at it) the Jehovah hypothesis, anything that located the Jehovah hypothesis must be locating the more general theist hypothesis. This is a common cognitive error that humans make called the conjunction fallacy, where people will assign a higher probability to something more specific than something general, even though the general thing is entailed by the specific thing. I’m a bit embarrassed by that actually, since it shows serious failings on my part as a rationalist.
The reason that I said ‘a variation of the conjunction fallacy’ is that the standard conjunction fallacy that I know is about assigning probabilities to propositions rather than attending to them. (You might choose to attend to something with a fairly low probability, for example, if its expected consequences are significant enough to overcome this.) Nevertheless, to consider the possibility that Jehovah exists, you must consider the possibility that a god exists.
Wow that was fast. I was writing an edit, after looking up the wiki, when I refreshed and it looked almost exactly like your first paragraph. Yes, in absolute probability terms theism must be more probable than jehovah. Thus, the conjunction fallacy.
At first glance the terminology ‘locate the hypothesis’ is rather non-intuitive. I’m going to put some consideration, and I don’t think this is the appropriate place anyway, before commenting further on that.
Hopefully this should clear things up.