Re: Universes...ad infinitum
- From: Jeffrey Goldberg <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:27:48 -0600
In <1i8a9ov.5f2v8hi41hfaN%pashby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Peter Ashby wrote:
Whoops! I think I may have had an optical hallucination there. I wouldThe probability that you flipped the coins in some way
that made them much more likely to come up the same way each
time, or that you're just fibbing, is clearly much higher.
So, sorry, I think there's something more going on with your
story than you're letting on.
On the other hand Jeffrey, the probability does not prohibit it. Neither
does it say that you have to wait those thousands of years to get that
result.
(Jeffrey?)
swear in court I was replying to Jeffrey. Hmmm.
Well, in that case, I (Jeffrey) had better jump in. I agree with Garath.
I have to follow Hume's maxim about identifying miracles:
'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the
testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more
miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish....'
But we do need to keep in mind that there are ways of doing coin flips that aren't at all fair, even with a fair coin. When I was a teenage in into magic, I could flip a US Quarter my intended way about 80% of the time, and that was only after a couple afternoon's practice. It was easier with an even larger coin (half dollar), but the flips didn't look natural.
Getting into a rhythm of flipping could lead to the otherwise extraordinary sequence reported here. Testimony of a miracle may be false without there being dishonesty behind it.
This doesn't take away from the fact that existence is full of extremely unlikely events. Unlikely events are happening all the time. Flip a coin (fairly) 100 times and the sequence of heads and tails that you get is will be extremely unlikely, whatever it is. At the same time it is certain that you will get one of those extremely unlikely sequences.
But we shouldn't take the banality of unlikely events as reason to accept certain predescribed ones. Just because someone will will win the lottery don't mean that it's a good bet to buy a ticket.
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read top-posted, over-quoting or HTML postings.
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