Good Question For Catholics and Others

[MMMMMM]

...of course I haven't followed all of them

This seems like kinda a non-question to me. How would you feel about the Pope if he killed a hobo? There's numerous hypothetical things the Pope could do that'd make people feel such and such, he hasn't done those things though.

[MMMMMM]

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This seems like kinda a non-question to me. How would you feel about the Pope if he killed a hobo? There's numerous hypothetical things the Pope could do that'd make people feel such and such, he hasn't done those things though.

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It's a good question because in order to answer it, you must consider:

A) the chance such "real miracles" are possible

B) the chance that a very strange conjunction of physical conditions might have taken place, resulting in an extreme freak occurrence (such as an incident of unexplained "spontaneous combustion", if such incidents exist, or something very bizarre but still within the realm of physics)

C) the chance that some very rare sort of psychokinetic powers do exist (not a "miracle"; but rather, something along the lines of enhanced ESP or telekinesis)

D) the chance that the Pope is a major charlatan capable of performing a truly outstanding magic trick

E) the chance that it was, in fact, a trick of the Devil, and the Pope is possessed

F) the chance that some other possible explanation might exist which is not outlined above

Next, assign rough probabilities to each of the above scenarios (I'll bet they don't sum to 100% ) Next, assign proportional probabilities to each of those scenarios, i.e., since the raw probabilities assigned probably won't sum to 100%, do it instead like: "the chance of possibility A is ten times that of possibility E, and the chance of possibility E is twice that of possibility D; or whatever ratios you see fit; do this for all the choices, and you will be well on your way to answering David's question.

The question is essentially just 'do you trust the Pope?'. If you do, you can assume divine intervention, if you don't you arrive at trickery. The point I was making is that you could say, 'what would you think if the Pope turned into yoghurt carton?'. It has little meaning because you can take any hypothetical thing that hasn't happened and draw conclusions based on that thing that are the antithesis of what you already believe. Anyone to whom that doesn't apply has no flexibility or credibility. I'd believe that I could fly if I suddenly found myself flying, and I'd be right to do so. That fact does not in any way challenge or discredit my current belief that I can't fly.

As an aside, I was amused by DS not including 'absolutely positive' as an option [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[imported_luckyme]

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I'd believe that I could fly if I suddenly found myself flying, and I'd be right to do so. That fact does not in any way challenge or discredit my current belief that I can't fly.

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There's a line in "A Beautiful Mind" where he states about his hallucinations .."They're not aging". If a person is in a full-blown hallucinating experience, it can strike them in two ways 1) the experience is totally real but they 'know' it's an hallucination . 2) the experience is totally real and 'at the time' they can't do anything but believe it's actually happening.

Hallucinating flying may fall in either of those, the test is whether one believes it next week or reason returns and a version of "they're not aging" decides the issue. I'm always amazed with how much we're aware about the ease of hallucination, false memory and other tricks our mind has in it's bag, that people put such credence is "well, it happened to me."

Sometimes it's even in other ! peoples experiences.. "My wife had this amazing experince so now I believe xyz.." Yet, experiences occur inside the mind, not outside. Even discounting false memory ( which is very common), the best we can say about an experience is that we experienced it.

Whether it 'happened' is a matter to be resolved as best we can - outside of the direct experience.

luckyme

[imported_luckyme]

Essentially this is a "Gap" belief in a nutshell. The pope's or my inability to explain something does not mean it doesn't have a natural one .. classic gap.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Arthur C. Clarke

Every civilization has some technology and/or natural events that are beyond their current understanding. Because of that fact, there is no 'magic' that would make me say' "ok, god did it". That would be the same as claiming omniscience for myself.

This especially includes my personal experinces - visions - emotions - events I believed happend but show no evidence.

luckyme,
my mind would change, if it thought I was wrong

[hmkpoker]

I don't know, I guess it depends on the situation.

I would probably feel it was all fake, though. Probably the same way I feel about David Blane

[David Sklansky]

Why is almost everyone ignoring my question? I am simply asking whether you would believe a respected Pope who claimed he did a miracle given the feat could be duplicated by non miraculous, albeit very sophisticated, means.

[chezlaw]

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Why is almost everyone ignoring my question? I am simply asking whether you would believe a respected Pope who claimed he did a miracle given the feat could be duplicated by non miraculous, albeit very sophisticated, means.

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I didn't ignore it, I gave you my answer so perhaps you'd return the favour. What is your answer before Randi's intervention?

chez

[maurile]

The answer is E, obviously. It's just a simple Bayes' Theorem problem.