Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 111.  October 12, 2020 continued . . . .

  The Probability of God

   Degrees of Belief

 Since the notion of God is not fully supported by physical evidence, due to the plausible alternative of an eternal physical Multiverse, Unwin decided to break the maybe/maybe-not deadlock by resorting to a metaphysical argument, based on the concept of degrees of belief. This is only feasible since Quantum Theory exchanged a fuzzy indeterminate probabilistic foundation for the universe, in place of Newton’s deterministic system. However, in his role as a risk calculator, he understood that important decisions shouldn’t be made on the basis of a statistically simple 50/50 coin-flip. Instead of that numerical “frequentist” method, the Bayesian interpretation of fuzzy fields of probabilities is expressed in percentages. This is appropriate in science, and in jurisprudence, because the early evidence is seldom comprehensive, so preliminary beliefs may need to be updated as more data becomes available. Anyway, Unwin takes advantage of the implicit authority of numbers to add weight to his personal opinions, presented as evidence for faith in the Bible God.

Unwin is not deterred by the lack of hard facts on the god-question. Instead, he proudly states that, “in the Bayesian world, a probability is an expression of degrees of belief”. Of course, empirical scientists are used to dealing with “hard facts”. But, due to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, quantum “facts”  consist almost entirely of “soft” statistical averages and approximations. Therefore, the author asserts his opinion that, “the beauty of casting degrees of belief in this probabilistic framework is that probability theory then dictates strict, math-ematical means of deriving quantitative probabilities based on the evidence that is available”. However, for both quantum theorists and god-theorists, their incomplete evidence must be supplemented by intuition, or a leap of faith. Yet, Unwin is confident that his reasons for using math to prove debatable existence, “gives the impression of academic rigor”.

The first step in applying the Bayesian method, is to analyze the evidence down to a few preliminary guesses, “a spectrum of optional beliefs”, from which to select the best of the best. So the initial hurdle is to define the subject in un-biased terms. This means eliminating unwarranted assumptions. For example, we must establish that the possible existence of God is a rational idea, or simply take it as an un-provable axiom. Then, we can deal with the various definitions of the god-concept. As Unwin admitted, “not all people of faith agree on the specific characteristics and preferences of the person God”. So, rather than using specific sectarian doctrines, he limits his evidences to mostly general and abstract notions, such as : 1. Goodness, 2. Moral Evil, 3. Natural Evil, 4. Intra-natural Miracles, 5. Extra-natural Miracles, and 6. Religious Experiences. But, in his appendix spreadsheet, he leaves space for other personal beliefs and circumstantial evidences pointing to divine existence. Ironically, he omits perhaps the most obvious sign of creation by a super-natural agent : the existence of our world, which faithless scientists have traced back to a seemingly miraculous creative act : the Big Bang. Yet, he concludes that “this piece of master evidence — our physical universe — is a wash”6.

                  Post 111 continued . . . click Next

What’s your percentage of  Faith?

6. The Miracle of Existence
   For me personally, existence per se is the only miraculous evidence of an outside agency. Once the world exists, all else is simple scientific cause & effect. So, the First Cause of our being remains the biggest mystery of Philosophy, Religion, and yes, Science. To be or not to be  . . . That is the crucial question of creation. What is the source of the power-to-be, and to become?

The Probability of God
A Simple Calculation
That Proves the
Ultimate Truth

Steven D. Unwin
Physicist, Risk Management

“Since the existence of God is the ultimate uncertainty, and probabilistic analysis is the means of addressing uncertainties  . . .
The probability of God
begs to be computed ”