Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 04:32 PM

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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

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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.

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.

Well, what did you mean by referring to all my options between 0 and 100, and then to scrapping them as impossible? You were the one who dreamt up the idea of a scale of values running from 100 to 0 and then on to -100, with various intermediates. If you are now scrapping all those intermediates as impossible, why did you introduce them in the first place?

In order to introduce a grey scaling into something which in the cut-down version is basically either black or white. Start with the cut-down:

(+100) "The evidence item is historically genuine and authentic."
(-0--) null statement
(-100) "The evidence item is historically ingenuine and inauthentic."

In order to allow for a grey scale we introduce another pair of mutually exclusive antithetical hypotheses as follows:

(+100) "The evidence item is historically genuine and authentic."
(+050) "The evidence item is at least 50% historically genuine and authentic."
(-0--) null statement
(-050) "The evidence item is at least 50% historically ingenuine and inauthentic."
(-100) "The evidence item is historically ingenuine and inauthentic."

NOTE:

(1) The hypothesis that "The evidence item is at least 50% historically genuine and authentic." is a positive comment about authenticity and genuineness and says absolutely nothing about any assessment of ingenuiness or inauthenticity in the evidence item at all. We cannot presume to further analyse this position and say because the investigator has selected only 50% authenticity then the investigator also thinks that the other 50% is necessarily inauthentic, because this is not stated. This option represents the hypothesis of those investigators who cannot reconstruct an absolute certainty that the evidence item is genuine. They think there is a reasonable chance that iit is genuine, but they cannot say and DO NOT SAY ANYTHING about the other 50% - it is UNKNOWN.

(2) Conversely the hypothesis that "The evidence item is at least 50% historically ingenuine and inauthentic" is a negative comment about inauthenticity and ingenuineness and says absolutely nothing about any assessment of genuiness or authenticity in the evidence item at all. We cannot presume to further analyse this position and say because the investigator has selected only 50% inauthenticity then the investigator also thinks that the other 50% is necessarily authentic, because this is not stated. This option represents the hypothesis of those investigators who cannot reconstruct an absolute certainty that the evidence item is ingenuine. They think there is a reasonable chance that it is ingenuine, but they cannot say and DO NOT SAY ANYTHING about the other 50% - it is UNKNOWN.

(3) The null statement is reserved for Schultz "I know nothing!" Postulates which say "The evidence item may be either genuine and authentic or ingenuine and inauthentic must decide to say nothing or select the black and white. It is for the benefit of the grey-scale positions that logical additional mutually exclusive and antithetical hypotheses may be constructed.

A graduated grey scale can therefore be devised by adding further mutually exclusive pairs of antithetical hypotheses.

My position is that such a scale can be envisaged to exist at the foundational level of the hypotheses and postulates that related to all evidence items that underly all the historical theories of christian origins.

A list of conclusions reflecting the use of a scale of postulates

nb:

1) the numeric allocations are for example only
2) the options are not antithetical pairs

3) the relationship between the hypotheses and the conclusions is remarkable.

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Originally Posted by R.G PRICE

SOURCE = Jesus Myth Spectrum

A Spectrum of Historical Possibilities ...

+100

(1) The Gospels are inerrant and absolutely historically true. Jesus is the Son of God who was predicted by the Hebrew scriptures, who came to earth in human form, was born of a virgin, preached, and was crucified by Pilate, then rose from the dead and now sits on the right hand of God. The Gospels are historical eyewitness accounts or based on solid eyewitness accounts.

+80

(2) The Gospels are generally true but somewhat exaggerated accounts of a real Jesus who had a following of people who thought he was the Son of God. He wasn't born of a virgin and didn't walk on water or perform miracles or rise from the dead, but the Gospels reflect his true teachings and the basic events of his life, and he was crucified by Pilate. The Gospels come from eye witness accounts mixed with a little legend.

+45

(3) The Gospels are generally true but somewhat exaggerated accounts of a real Jesus who was influential in the region. He may or may not have really been crucified by Pilate. He was later mythologized and elevated in status. The Gospels come from eye witness accounts mixed with legend.

+22

(4) The Gospels are mostly fabricated stories inspired by a real Jesus. The Gospels come almost entirely from legends and scriptures, but are still loosely based on the actions of a real Jesus whom we don't know very much about.

000 ZERO ==============

-22

(5) The Gospels are mostly fabricated stories inspired by a real person or persons from a spectrum of time, perhaps from events as far back as 200 years before the supposed life of Jesus. Over time stories were put together that cobbled various political events and persons into a single "Jesus Christ" figure. The events and teachings in the Gospels are mythologized, but based on real-life events that took place over time and were done by a person or various people. The Gospels come almost entirely from legends and scriptures, but are still based on the actions of some real people, without which the story of Jesus would never have come into existence.

-45

(6) The Gospels are completely fabricated stories based on scripture, legends, and the mystical beliefs of existing Jewish cults. There is no human figure at the center of the Gospel stories at all. The Gospels were generally written in the same manner that most scholars claim, during the late 1st century to early 2nd century, but there is no person at the core of them, whether all of the writers themselves knew it or not.

-77

(7) The Gospels are completely fabricated stories based on pagan myths about figures such as Dionysus and Mithras. The Gospels were written by directly mixing Jewish and non-Jewish religions and beliefs into stories that borrow from both traditions. The meaning of the Gospels has been largely lost and generally has little to do with Judaism.

-100

(8) Pious Forgery
"The Gospels are completely fabricated stories that were intentionally crafted to deceive people, and there is no historical person at their core. The Gospels were really written anywhere from the 2nd century to the 4th century and much of early Christian history has been fabricated. The writers of the Gospels knew that there was no Jesus and the whole crafting of the religion was part of a political tool by Roman Emperors or others of a similar kind.

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 04:43 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

I've read Carrier, and I know what he is talking about.

Do you really? That's a last resort appeal to authority if I ever heard one.

Why dont you ask him to make a comment since I have cited his opinion in support of my own?

J-D · 11-22-2011, 04:59 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Toto

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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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?

The exchange covers posts # 85, 87, 90, 91, 94, 95 and 100.

In the final post #100:

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Originally Posted by Toto

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When you write of the possibility that someone forged the letters of Paul above, you seem to treat Paul as an historical person. When I write of the possibility that "Paul" was forged, I do not necessarily assume that "Paul" was historical. I will allow as a possible postulate that "Paul" was just a fabricated name upon which to hang a host of epistles - that "Paul" may not have been a figure of history at all.

That is a third possibility -- that someone wrote letters and attributed them to a non-existent person.

All these possibilities are essentially possible postulates that people can make about one item of evidence - the pauline letters (nb: some people can examine each verse of these letters as separate items of evidence). There are obviously many more possibilities. Shesh adds one below.

You did not respond to this. You seem to be taking the position that these "possibilities" are NOT postulates, and I disagree with that position.

I think it is probably more nearly accurate to say that Toto is saying that those possibilities are not, in your words, 'essentially' postulates.

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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My main postulate was that human psychology operated about the same in the Biblical period as it does today.

That is a general postulate related to the conceptual framework, and you are entitled to make as many of these as you like. However it is MANDATORY that you also make postulates in regard to each and every item of evidence.

It is not mandatory. It is optional, and generally undesirable.

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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I do not think that the existence of Paul is a suitable subject for a postulate.

Why ever not?

For considerations of parsimony. Postulates should be minimised, which means they should be as generalised as possible.

Methodological parsimony might itself be considered a postulate; note how generalised it is.

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Originally Posted by mountainman

Is the existence (or non-existence) of Paul special in some way?

Doug presents a postulate for Paul at post # 217.

He does not present it as a postulate.

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Originally Posted by mountainman

Is this unsuitable?

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Originally Posted by Doug

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.

J-D · 11-22-2011, 06:43 PM

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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

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

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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.

It follows therefore, that if you were presented with the choice of using one of the following two hypotheses you would provisionally select the first:

Hypothesis (1): "Paul was a genuine and authentic historical character".

Hypothesis (-1): "Paul was NOT a genuine and authentic historical character"

It must therefore also follow that you would provisionally reject the second.

If you agree with the above, then it must follow that in your judgement the first hypothesis provisionally underlies the most parsimonious accounting of all the extant evidence relevant to the provenance of the documents generally referred to as the Pauline Corpus.

If you think it more likely that Paul really existed than that he did not exist, then your (provisional) postulate is simply and explicitly Hypothesis (1): "Paul was a genuine and authentic historical character".

The hypothesis that "Paul really existed more than that he did not exist" is far too vague. If all your hypotheses are vague, what is the point and what is the nature of the conclusion. BTW please do not think I am saying your hypothesis is wrong. I dont know!

I am not really concerned with estimating the truth value of the hypotheses, rather I am concerned with the precision and explicit nature and formulation of the statements that are to represent our hypotheses. I am interested in what you see your hypotheses are, and whether or not they are explicit, and whether they can be simplified, etc.

I think it is correct to say that Doug Shaver has provisionally accepted that Paul really did exist but not as a postulate.

J-D · 11-22-2011, 06:49 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by J-D

The flaw in your reasoning is that ...

It is not a flaw.

It does not surprise me that you do not regard lack of sufficient definitional clarity as a flaw, but you're wrong about that.

Toto · 11-22-2011, 07:27 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Toto

I've read Carrier, and I know what he is talking about.

Do you really? That's a last resort appeal to authority if I ever heard one.

Why dont you ask him to make a comment since I have cited his opinion in support of my own?

What appeal to authority?

Perhaps I wrote too quickly. Let me expand: I have read Richard Carrier's writing, and he is clear and cogent. He makes a good point about not confusing the theory that there was an empty tomb with the actual fact of an empty tomb.

Nothing that he wrote supports you. You have written generalities about postulates that might be hypotheses, but you haven't made a clear point about any piece of evidence. You haven't shown how your schema adds anything to the discussion, or clarifies any issue.

I would not want Carrier to waste his time on what you have presented here. He's trying to get two books to press, after all. And I don't much feel like wasting any more of my time on this thread.

J-D · 11-22-2011, 08:37 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

You are bringing in more detail to the question, which originally treated the "Pauline Letters" as one item of evidence. This is cool.

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you have not established what you are referring to when you use the name 'Paul'. Are you talking about a Paul who wrote 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians, but did not write Colossians, Ephesians, Hebrews, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus? Or are you talking about a Paul who wrote Colossians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians, but did not write Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus? Or are you talking about a Paul who wrote Colossians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus but did not write Hebrews? Or are you talking about a Paul who wrote Colossians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Hebrews, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus? Or what?

This is an excellent point. We have previously discussed the "Pauline Epistles" as one item of evidence, and this has led to a discussion on the various postulates related to the historical authenticity of "Paul". Of course, "Paul" is a second item of evidence, presumed to be related to the Pauline Letters.

There is absolutely nothing to prevent anyone introducing a set of 14 items of evidence that represent the 14 individual letters of "Paul: as they appear in the canon. Postulates will then have to made about each of these 14 items. The postulates could all be of the same nature, or they could vary from letter to letter.

Likewise there is also nothing to prevent anyone from citing each verse in every one of the Pauline letters as separate items of evidence. I dont know how many verses there are in the Pauline corpus, but it does not matter. One would need to make postulates about each one of these verses. The postulates could all be of the same nature, or they could vary from verse to verse. It may be that some people are prepared to argue that one or more such verses are not genuine in the letter, but represent a later interpolation, or a fabrication.

However many millions of evidence items are to be addressed is immaterial. The basic principle of examining an evidence item and formulating statements to be used as hypothetical truths for the sake of determining theoretical conclusions about the totality of the evidence items is the same process underlying all evidence.

There is no necessity about it. It is not necessary to make separate postulates about each item of evidence. It is not even desirable. The reverse, in fact.

J-D · 11-22-2011, 08:41 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 J-D

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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.

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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?

The investigator, obviously: why do you ask?

The fact that an investigator makes hypotheses does not mean that the evidence tells us nothing; to the contrary, when an investigator makes hypotheses, they are precisely hypotheses about what the evidence tells us.

Get 100 investigators and one item of evidence and we do not necessarily get one hypotheses, we sometimes get far more than a hundred.

Sometimes, possibly.

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Originally Posted by mountainman

If therefore the evidence is not mute, and is in direct communication with each investigator then it may obviously be saying entirely different statements to each of them.

Perhaps. But if the evidence tells different people different things, that is not the same as the evidence telling us nothing.

J-D · 11-22-2011, 08:43 PM

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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.

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.

Well, what did you mean by referring to all my options between 0 and 100, and then to scrapping them as impossible? You were the one who dreamt up the idea of a scale of values running from 100 to 0 and then on to -100, with various intermediates. If you are now scrapping all those intermediates as impossible, why did you introduce them in the first place?

In order to introduce a grey scaling into something which in the cut-down version is basically either black or white.

That doesn't answer my question. If the intermediates are impossible, why did you ever introduce them? If they are not, why did you say they were?

mountainman · 11-22-2011, 08:49 PM

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Originally Posted by J-D

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Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Toto

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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?

The exchange covers posts # 85, 87, 90, 91, 94, 95 and 100.

In the final post #100:

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Originally Posted by Toto

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When you write of the possibility that someone forged the letters of Paul above, you seem to treat Paul as an historical person. When I write of the possibility that "Paul" was forged, I do not necessarily assume that "Paul" was historical. I will allow as a possible postulate that "Paul" was just a fabricated name upon which to hang a host of epistles - that "Paul" may not have been a figure of history at all.

That is a third possibility -- that someone wrote letters and attributed them to a non-existent person.

All these possibilities are essentially possible postulates that people can make about one item of evidence - the pauline letters (nb: some people can examine each verse of these letters as separate items of evidence). There are obviously many more possibilities. Shesh adds one below.

You did not respond to this. You seem to be taking the position that these "possibilities" are NOT postulates, and I disagree with that position.

I think it is probably more nearly accurate to say that Toto is saying that those possibilities are not, in your words, 'essentially' postulates.

If "these possibilities" are not postulates or hypotheses then what are they?

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