Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 11-21-2011, 06:49 PM

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

The historian selecting the first postulate pronounces authenticity and in the selection of the second postulate denounces inauthenticity. The historian may choose either postulate but not both, or choose to select neither postulate by selecting the zero position (no statement, null statement). These three postulates are such that they are MUTUALLY exclusive.

The absence of a statement is not a statement.

Are you sure? What's a rest in music?
Silence is sometimes quite eloquent.

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Adopting no postulate is not adopting a postulate.

The NULL postulate is valid and may be adopted. It is adopting the postulate that nothing can be said about the truth or the falsity of the issues about the evidence in this instance, and is a valid conclusion in some investigations.

J-D · 11-21-2011, 07:22 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

My point is that the evidence itself cannot tell us one way or the other

You contradict yourself. If it can't tell us anything, then it's not evidence; if it's evidence, then it can tell us something.

There is no contradiction in my statement. You appear to have made the fallacy of confusing evidence and postulates about the evidence. Read the following and meditate upon the notion that Carrier is using the term theories as a synonym for the word hypotheses (and thus postulates). The evidence is mute. We author postulates of our own invention. These postulates are just basic statements about the silent evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Carrier

The Fallacy of Confusing Evidence with Theories:

A single example will suffice: William Lane Craig frequently argues that historians need to explain the evidence of the empty tomb. But in a Bayesian equation, the evidence is not the discovery of an empty tomb, but the production of a story about the discovery of an empty tomb. That there was an actual empty tomb is only a theory (a hypothesis, i.e. h) to explain the production of the story (which is an element of e). But this theory must be compared with other possible explanations of why that story came to exist (= ~h, or = h2, h3, etc.), and these must be compared on a total examination of the evidence (all elements of e, in conjunction with b and the resulting prior probabilities).

Hence a common mistake is to confuse actual hypotheses about the evidence, with the actual evidence itself (which should be tangible physical facts, i.e. actual surviving artifacts, documents, etc., and straightforward generalizations therefrom).

Carrier does not say that the evidence is mute. He takes issue with Craig about what precisely is the evidence in the case he refers to. In particular, he says that the existence of an empty tomb is not evidence, but that the existence of stories about an empty tomb is evidence. He is correct. But the existence of stories about an empty tomb can tell us something; just as I said, if it can't tell us anything, it's not evidence. The question is what it tells us or, equivalently, what it is evidence for. What Carrier says does not support your position.

J-D · 11-21-2011, 07:41 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

You have made clear that you intend the two descriptions to be exclusive possibilities but you have not made clear whether you also intend them to be exhaustive.

What I have proposed is a postulate reserved for the expression of an assessment of historical authenticity. In respect of this attribute the descriptions are exhaustive in the simple case.

If X and Y are exclusive and exhaustive possibilities,

No. They are MUTUALLY exclusive and exhaustive possibilties.

If X and Y are MUTUALLY exclusive and exhaustive possibilities, then by definition their probabilities are not independent because by definition they must sum to 100%,

By definition only one is 100% correct.

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and the tabulation you should get might be something like this (instead of the hopelessly misconceived pig’s breakfast you produced):

(100%) X is definitely the case....................Y is definitely not the case (0%)
(95%) X is very highly likely to be the case....................There is little or no chance that Y is the case (5%)
(75%) X is probably the case....................Y is probably not the case (25%)
(55%) X is more likely than not to be the case....................It is more likely than not that Y is not the case (45%)
(50%) The chances that X is the case are about even....................The chances that Y is the case are about even (50%)
(45%) It is more likely than not that X is not the case....................Y is more likely than not to be the case (55%)
(25%) X is probably not the case....................Y is probably the case (75%)
(5%) There is little or no chance that X is the case....................Y is very highly likely to be the case (95%)
(0%) X is definitely not the case....................Y is definitely the case(100%)

An item of evidence can be ULTIMATELY considered to be either historically genuine or historically ingenuine (i.e. fabricated). It cannot be both at the same time. Therefore all your options between 0 and 100 can be scrapped as impossible, and you are left with the postulates labelled 100% and 0%. which is exactly the same as the CUT-DOWN version I provided somewhere above, with these two options listed together with the NULL option.

It is not clear whether you are talking about possibilities for what is the case or possibilities for what can be known/assumed. You are wrong in either case, but there are two different ways you might be in error.

J-D · 11-21-2011, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The historian selecting the first postulate pronounces authenticity and in the selection of the second postulate denounces inauthenticity. The historian may choose either postulate but not both, or choose to select neither postulate by selecting the zero position (no statement, null statement). These three postulates are such that they are MUTUALLY exclusive.

The absence of a statement is not a statement.

Are you sure?

Yes, I'm sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What's a rest in music?
Silence is sometimes quite eloquent.

The absence of sound is not a sound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

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Adopting no postulate is not adopting a postulate.

The NULL postulate is valid and may be adopted. It is adopting the postulate that nothing can be said about the truth or the falsity of the issues about the evidence in this instance, and is a valid conclusion in some investigations.

You are confusing two different things: starting an investigation with no assumptions, and finishing an investigation with no conclusions.

Toto · 11-21-2011, 10:13 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Toto

Everyone who has disagreed with you has been very specific.

At the same time they have also been quite vague on specific issues in question, namely the choice underlying the selection and formulation of postulatory statement that are to serve in representing the evidence items themselves in discussion. For example, the postulates you provided above for the issue related to the authenticity of "Paul", were shown to be vague and to be reduceable to the postulate "Paul was either a genuine historical character or maybe he wasn't." What do you expect to learn by employing this specific postulate aside from exercising vagueness?

Would you like to point out where I labeled that statement a postulate?

My main postulate was that human psychology operated about the same in the Biblical period as it does today. I do not think that the existence of Paul is a suitable subject for a postulate.

Doug Shaver · 11-22-2011, 01:25 AM

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

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Originally Posted by J-D

I gather that you are suggesting that, in the case of the documents under discussion, the most probable reason for attributing their authorship to a 'Paul' is that, in the context in which the attribution was made, there was a well-known 'Paul' whose name would be taken as adding weight to any document attributed to his authorship.

Is that what you are saying? If so, then I have not yet seen you give a reason why you think this explanation more probable than any alternatives.

Yes, that is what I'm saying. My reason for assessing its probability as I do is that is it known to have happened in several other cases. Documents are known to have been written by obscure people claiming to be famous people, and the actual existence of those famous people is in most cases uncontested. I regard that as sufficient to establish Paul's existence as the default inference from the existence of documents attributed to him. Any alternative hypothesis, I would argue, requires additional evidence sufficient to undermine the default, i.e. we need some positive reason to think it unlikely that Paul existed notwithstanding that somebody used his name to add credibility to his writings.

I don't deny that Paul could have been a figment of early Christian imagination, but I have yet to see, from anybody in this forum or anywhere else, a cogent argument taking that proposition from "it's possible" to "it's probable."

From examples I know of, there are a number of reasons why people put names on texts.

And I have not disputed that.

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Originally Posted by J-D

Sometimes it’s done with the intention of identifying the author accurately, and this includes both cases where the identification is accurate and cases where a misunderstanding or garbling in transmission has produced a false attribution.

In such cases, the attributor -- the person making the identification -- must believe that the alleged author really existed. In those cases, if you claim there was no such person, then you must explain why the attributor thought there was.

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Originally Posted by J-D

Sometimes it’s done to create false associations, such as giving the text an unmerited air of authority, and this includes both cases where the person named as author really exists (or existed) and cases where the person named never really existed but is the subject of a widespread accepted belief (or, at least, acceptance of the belief was sufficiently widespread before the attribution was made for the attribution to have some effect).

Then all you have to explain is how, in Paul's case, he came to be regarded as authoritative without having actually existed.

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Originally Posted by J-D

Sometimes it’s done to disguise the identity of the author or some specific personal information (for example, gender).

We have some documents. Somebody had to write them. I'm not wedded to the proposition that Paul was his real name, but until somebody comes up with a better ID for the author, I don't see a problem with referring to him by the name he chose to use. It certainly does not commit me to believing even one word of anything that the author of Acts wrote about him.

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Originally Posted by J-D

Sometimes it’s done as a literary conceit (as, for example, in the case of the description of part of the first Sherlock Holmes story as an extract from the reminiscences of Dr Watson, in which case nobody intended or expected any reader to suppose that the Dr Watson referred to was a real person or that anybody thought he was).

That's an OK scenario for works of fiction. However, while I believe very little of what is in the Pauline corpus, I would not classify it as fiction.

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Originally Posted by J-D

There may be others I haven’t thought of, but in any case in what you have written here so far I don’t see sufficient evaluation of alternatives to support a conclusion about what the most likely explanation is in this case.

You now have my evaluation of the ones you did think of.

Doug Shaver · 11-22-2011, 01:37 AM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

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Originally Posted by mountainman

For example, is the following a fair summary?

I have no idea, because I cannot discern your intended meaning.

The intended meaning was to be able to uniquely specify your own preferred formulation of your own hypothesis (related to whether Paul is to be considered a genuine and authentic historical character) in a manner which is explicit when set alongside other competing hypotheses of other posters, theorists and investigators.

I think it more likely that Paul really existed than that he did not exist. That hypothesis, in my judgment, underlies the most parsimonious accounting of all the extant evidence relevant to the provenance of the documents generally referred to as the Pauline Corpus.

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

You appear to have made the fallacy of confusing evidence and postulates about the evidence. Read the following and meditate upon the notion that Carrier is using the term theories as a synonym for the word hypotheses (and thus postulates). The evidence is mute. We author postulates of our own invention. These postulates are just basic statements about the silent evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Carrier

The Fallacy of Confusing Evidence with Theories:

A single example will suffice: William Lane Craig frequently argues that historians need to explain the evidence of the empty tomb. But in a Bayesian equation, the evidence is not the discovery of an empty tomb, but the production of a story about the discovery of an empty tomb. That there was an actual empty tomb is only a theory (a hypothesis, i.e. h) to explain the production of the story (which is an element of e). But this theory must be compared with other possible explanations of why that story came to exist (= ~h, or = h2, h3, etc.), and these must be compared on a total examination of the evidence (all elements of e, in conjunction with b and the resulting prior probabilities).

Hence a common mistake is to confuse actual hypotheses about the evidence, with the actual evidence itself (which should be tangible physical facts, i.e. actual surviving artifacts, documents, etc., and straightforward generalizations therefrom).

Carrier does not say that the evidence is mute.

Who makes the hypotheses (i.e h) about the evidence; the evidence or the investigator?

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

You have made clear that you intend the two descriptions to be exclusive possibilities but you have not made clear whether you also intend them to be exhaustive.

What I have proposed is a postulate reserved for the expression of an assessment of historical authenticity. In respect of this attribute the descriptions are exhaustive in the simple case.

If X and Y are exclusive and exhaustive possibilities,

No. They are MUTUALLY exclusive and exhaustive possibilties.

If X and Y are MUTUALLY exclusive and exhaustive possibilities, then by definition their probabilities are not independent because by definition they must sum to 100%,

By definition only one is 100% correct.

Quote:

and the tabulation you should get might be something like this (instead of the hopelessly misconceived pig’s breakfast you produced):

(100%) X is definitely the case....................Y is definitely not the case (0%)
(95%) X is very highly likely to be the case....................There is little or no chance that Y is the case (5%)
(75%) X is probably the case....................Y is probably not the case (25%)
(55%) X is more likely than not to be the case....................It is more likely than not that Y is not the case (45%)
(50%) The chances that X is the case are about even....................The chances that Y is the case are about even (50%)
(45%) It is more likely than not that X is not the case....................Y is more likely than not to be the case (55%)
(25%) X is probably not the case....................Y is probably the case (75%)
(5%) There is little or no chance that X is the case....................Y is very highly likely to be the case (95%)
(0%) X is definitely not the case....................Y is definitely the case(100%)

An item of evidence can be ULTIMATELY considered to be either historically genuine or historically ingenuine (i.e. fabricated). It cannot be both at the same time. Therefore all your options between 0 and 100 can be scrapped as impossible, and you are left with the postulates labelled 100% and 0%. which is exactly the same as the CUT-DOWN version I provided somewhere above, with these two options listed together with the NULL option.

It is not clear whether you are talking about possibilities for what is the case or possibilities for what can be known/assumed.

I dont know what you mean with this question - you may need to paraphrase it.
But I'll take a guess at what you mean and answer with - both.

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Adopting no postulate is not adopting a postulate.

The NULL postulate is valid and may be adopted. It is adopting the postulate that nothing can be said about the truth or the falsity of the issues about the evidence in this instance, and is a valid conclusion in some investigations.

You are confusing two different things: starting an investigation with no assumptions, and finishing an investigation with no conclusions.

The schematic disambiguates between postulates (assumptions) and conclusions. You are confusing two different things: the null postulate and the null conclusion.

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