The fact that such an experience happened, given no other information, may be evidence for God. But you have other information and are ignoring it.
sigh
Very well. If you insist that I not ignore information, then there is a lot more information that needs to be properly considered. Decades of experiences that need to be sorted and categorised. Hundreds of writings, ancient and modern; thousands of accounts, of one sort or another.
We’ll just have to go through it all, piece by piece. Only the bits that are relevant, of course, but there’s a lot that is relevant.
For a start, let me consider the probability of the existence of God, given the existence of brains (or any form of hardware capable of supporting intelligence in some or other form).
Where, just to be clear, I use the word ‘God’ to refer to any omniscient, omnipotent being.
For that, we need to consider the probability that a randomly chosen universe will contain brains, at some or other point in its history.
In order to do that, let us consider all possible universes.
Here, I start by considering the null universe; a universe that contains no matter. Since it contains no matter, it cannot contain brains.
Then, let us add a piece of matter; a single quark. this one-quark universe also cannot contain brains, as there is insufficient matter to form the brains.
I don’t think it’s sensible to consider different one-quark universes as different; no matter where the quark is, or how fast it is moving, it’s just a coordinate transform to make it identical to any other one-quark universe.
Then, let us add a second quark. Now, it is sensible to differentiate between different two-quark universes, because there is a measurement that can change from one universe to another; and that is the distance between the two quarks. There is also another measurement that can change from one universe to another, and that is their relative velocity. However, it is not always clear whether two diffferent snapshots of two-quark universes are different universes, or the same universe at different times. Still, no brains are possible.
There are even more three-quark than two-quark universes; at a rough estimate, I’d say that the number of three-quark universes is half of the square of the number of two-quark universes. Still no brains.
Four-quark universes; here, I expect the total number of universes to be roughly x^3/6 where x is the number of two-quark universes.
For an N-quark universe, in general, I expect that the total number of possible universes would be roughly x^(N-1)/(N-1)!. This is an interesting function; it grows exponentially for low N, the rate of increase slows as N approaches x, and finally, when N exceeds x, the number of possible N-particle universes actually begins to drop. Of course, x is either infinite or at least very very large, so we can expect that most universes will have quite a lot of matter; more than enough to form brains.
Now, what are the odds of a universe which contains enough matter containing brains? Note that the universes under consideration here contain a number of quarks, in what is essentially a random configuration. All possible configurations are under consideration here, so at least some of them will have brains (in some cases, Boltzman brains; in other cases, brains with bodies and whole civilisations around them). However, since every possible random configuration is permitted, it would seem to me that a highly ordered set of particles, like a brain, must be relatively rare.
So, P(Brain | no God) seems like it should be fairly low.
Now, let us consider P(Brain | God). This time, we do not have to consider every possible universe; only those universes that could exist in the presence of an omniscient, omnipotent being. It seems likely that such a being will adjust any universe to His liking, and possibly create one if one does not exist.
It also seems quite probable, to me, that if a single intelligent being exists, then that being is quite likely to realise that he (or she) would like a conversation with someone else. Being omnipotent, it seems likely that God would create someone to talk with, and thus create brains.
So, it seems likely that P(Brains | God) is high.
Putting a high value for P(Brains | God) and a low value for P(Brains | no God) into the equation from earlier:
...will produce the result that P(God | Brains) > P(God). This seems to be a fairly major effect.
A mystical experience in a human brain is much better evidence for a brain malfunction than it is for God.
Do you have any figures for the likelihood of such a brain malfunction? Or any form of data at all to back up this assertion?
My scenario not only involves being in 1805, but also ruling France.
Yes. That is quite a lot of bits of information; since it eliminates all but one of the people throughout all of history who thought they were Napoleon.
It’s a bit like the difference between asking “what are the odds of getting a six on a fair die roll?” and “what are the odds that I got a six on the fair die I rolled on Thursday 10 April 2014 at 21:10?”—though the difference is a bit more pronounced, as I’m sure there were more than six people throughout history who claimed to be Napoleon.
sigh
Very well. If you insist that I not ignore information, then there is a lot more information that needs to be properly considered. Decades of experiences that need to be sorted and categorised. Hundreds of writings, ancient and modern; thousands of accounts, of one sort or another.
We’ll just have to go through it all, piece by piece. Only the bits that are relevant, of course, but there’s a lot that is relevant.
For a start, let me consider the probability of the existence of God, given the existence of brains (or any form of hardware capable of supporting intelligence in some or other form).
Where, just to be clear, I use the word ‘God’ to refer to any omniscient, omnipotent being.
So, what is P(God | Brains)?
According to Bayes’ Theorem:
P(God | Brains) = P(Brains | God)*P(God)/P(Brains)
Of course, P(Brains) = P(Brains | God)P(God)+P(Brains | no God)P(no God).
Thus, a simple substitution gives:
P(God | Brains) = P(Brains | God)P(God)/[P(Brains | God)P(God)+P(Brains | no God)*P(no God)]
So. What is P(Brains | no God)?
For that, we need to consider the probability that a randomly chosen universe will contain brains, at some or other point in its history.
In order to do that, let us consider all possible universes.
Here, I start by considering the null universe; a universe that contains no matter. Since it contains no matter, it cannot contain brains.
Then, let us add a piece of matter; a single quark. this one-quark universe also cannot contain brains, as there is insufficient matter to form the brains.
I don’t think it’s sensible to consider different one-quark universes as different; no matter where the quark is, or how fast it is moving, it’s just a coordinate transform to make it identical to any other one-quark universe.
Then, let us add a second quark. Now, it is sensible to differentiate between different two-quark universes, because there is a measurement that can change from one universe to another; and that is the distance between the two quarks. There is also another measurement that can change from one universe to another, and that is their relative velocity. However, it is not always clear whether two diffferent snapshots of two-quark universes are different universes, or the same universe at different times. Still, no brains are possible.
There are even more three-quark than two-quark universes; at a rough estimate, I’d say that the number of three-quark universes is half of the square of the number of two-quark universes. Still no brains.
Four-quark universes; here, I expect the total number of universes to be roughly x^3/6 where x is the number of two-quark universes.
For an N-quark universe, in general, I expect that the total number of possible universes would be roughly x^(N-1)/(N-1)!. This is an interesting function; it grows exponentially for low N, the rate of increase slows as N approaches x, and finally, when N exceeds x, the number of possible N-particle universes actually begins to drop. Of course, x is either infinite or at least very very large, so we can expect that most universes will have quite a lot of matter; more than enough to form brains.
Now, what are the odds of a universe which contains enough matter containing brains? Note that the universes under consideration here contain a number of quarks, in what is essentially a random configuration. All possible configurations are under consideration here, so at least some of them will have brains (in some cases, Boltzman brains; in other cases, brains with bodies and whole civilisations around them). However, since every possible random configuration is permitted, it would seem to me that a highly ordered set of particles, like a brain, must be relatively rare.
So, P(Brain | no God) seems like it should be fairly low.
Now, let us consider P(Brain | God). This time, we do not have to consider every possible universe; only those universes that could exist in the presence of an omniscient, omnipotent being. It seems likely that such a being will adjust any universe to His liking, and possibly create one if one does not exist.
It also seems quite probable, to me, that if a single intelligent being exists, then that being is quite likely to realise that he (or she) would like a conversation with someone else. Being omnipotent, it seems likely that God would create someone to talk with, and thus create brains.
So, it seems likely that P(Brains | God) is high.
Putting a high value for P(Brains | God) and a low value for P(Brains | no God) into the equation from earlier:
P(God | Brains) = P(Brains | God)P(God)/[P(Brains | God)P(God)+P(Brains | no God)*P(no God)]
...will produce the result that P(God | Brains) > P(God). This seems to be a fairly major effect.
Do you have any figures for the likelihood of such a brain malfunction? Or any form of data at all to back up this assertion?
Yes. That is quite a lot of bits of information; since it eliminates all but one of the people throughout all of history who thought they were Napoleon.
It’s a bit like the difference between asking “what are the odds of getting a six on a fair die roll?” and “what are the odds that I got a six on the fair die I rolled on Thursday 10 April 2014 at 21:10?”—though the difference is a bit more pronounced, as I’m sure there were more than six people throughout history who claimed to be Napoleon.