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KeenEmpire
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Post by KeenEmpire »

Djaser wrote:So you're saying that you collective knowledge only works when you give people a limited amount of choices...how do you apply this on wikipedia?
Actually, my choice set was less limited than yours'. As I said, the application to wikipedia is only an imperfect analogy, but I wrote my take on it two posts ago (in the part you did not quote).
I believe there was an investigation with this outcome. I couldn't give you a source and my word on this is worthless but it's my firm believe that the majority of the people are stupid.
Hard to believe (and a google search didn't turn up anything) but as I pointed out, even if this was true, the treatment of the survey is flawed. Even if a person was only partially sure of the knowledge (say, only 60%), he would have been forced to answer yes or no. Although the total effect of this flaw is unknown, it is not hard to believe that far fewer people are certain of a "yes" answer than would be certain of a "no" answer.
True, true. But given how much people live in cities I doubt that the outcome of rural areas would make much difference to end result.
That is the case with your (flawed) survey, but might not be with the probabilistic survey I was talking about. If, hypothetically, rural people knew the answer was no, and are more certain that the answer was no than urban people, then their answers would be weighted more.
Right but if you ask people to guess the weight of a cow the end result comes only close to reality, it will never be exact. So we can easily apply this on this religion based question. 84% is closer to 100% than 0%. Conclusion: god exists, your theory proved it.
There is a big difference between probabilistic truth and absolute truth. The survival rate of a drug being 84% is not really the same as if it were 100%.
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Djaser
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Post by Djaser »

I believe there was an investigation with this outcome. I couldn't give you a source and my word on this is worthless but it's my firm believe that the majority of the people are stupid.
Hard to believe (and a google search didn't turn up anything) but as I pointed out, even if this was true, the treatment of the survey is flawed. Even if a person was only partially sure of the knowledge (say, only 60%), he would have been forced to answer yes or no. Although the total effect of this flaw is unknown, it is not hard to believe that far fewer people are certain of a "yes" answer than would be certain of a "no" answer.
Now you're assuming wrong things:
1. It's unlikely the survey was executed in English
2. The survey was definetly not executed the way we are discussing. I took this as an example that majority of people isn't smart. Flawed or not if the majority of people think brown cows give chocalate milk than there's something wrong with your claim of common knowledge.

True, true. But given how much people live in cities I doubt that the outcome of rural areas would make much difference to end result.
That is the case with your (flawed) survey, but might not be with the probabilistic survey I was talking about. If, hypothetically, rural people knew the answer was no, and are more certain that the answer was no than urban people, then their answers would be weighted more.
You keep coming up with new conditions! Now if you weight the answers of 'expert' who are certain of their answer a lot more than others that you'll sure get a realistic ending result. But how can you call this common knowledge?

There is a big difference between probabilistic truth and absolute truth. The survival rate of a drug being 84% is not really the same as if it were 100%.
Now you're just ignoring my point. Again: accoring to your common knowledge theory there is like a 84% chance that there is a god.
84% is a lot closser to 100% than 0%, leading to the conclusion that it's very likely that there is a god. Now would you agree that there is a god or would you rather say that common knowledge isn't always as good as it should be?
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KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

As long as the majority says so it's going to have its effect, so it's just the same whether there exist none, one, or more. :dopekeen
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KeenEmpire
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Post by KeenEmpire »

Djaser wrote: Now you're assuming wrong things:
1. It's unlikely the survey was executed in English
Does this matter? (Honest question.)
2. The survey was definetly not executed the way we are discussing.

...I took this as an example that majority of people isn't smart. Flawed or not if the majority of people think brown cows give chocalate milk than there's something wrong with your claim of common knowledge.
Okay, then how was it executed?

(You realize your claims of people being stupid are invalid until we know the context of how those claims were made. I could say "this survey concluded that females are smarter than males" but until you find out how my survey got those conclusions, possibly via a stupid analysis, it's kind of meaningless.)
You keep coming up with new conditions!
Actually, no. This is the same condition I've had for two posts now: a probabilistic survey choice. If someone's not so sure about the brown cows, they might vote like 60%. If someone's very sure, they might vote 0% or 100%. I bet you that we will see far fewer 100%s than we will 60%s and 0%s.
Now you're just ignoring my point. Again: accoring to your common knowledge theory there is like a 84% chance that there is a god. 84% is a lot closser to 100% than 0%, leading to the conclusion that it's very likely that there is a god. Now would you agree that there is probably a god or would you rather say that common knowledge isn't always as good as it should be?
Corrected.

If I were adopting your naive view, I would say that there is probably a God. (Certainly not "certainly a God".) However, as I've repeatedly pointed out, your treatment of the survey is flawed.
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Djaser
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Post by Djaser »

KeenEmpire wrote:
Djaser wrote: Now you're assuming wrong things:
1. It's unlikely the survey was executed in English
Does this matter? (Honest question.)[/quote[
Yes, but only for your google results.
2. The survey was definetly not executed the way we are discussing.

...I took this as an example that majority of people isn't smart. Flawed or not if the majority of people think brown cows give chocalate milk than there's something wrong with your claim of common knowledge.
Okay, then how was it executed?
I've no idea.
(You realize your claims of people being stupid are invalid until we know the context of how those claims were made. I could say "this survey concluded that females are smarter than males" but until you find out how my survey got those conclusions, possibly via a stupid analysis, it's kind of meaningless.)
My claim that the majority of all people are stupid is just my opinion I threw in it's a bigger subject than we are debating. I'm pretty sure the survey of the brown cows does exist, if I search google on it shows a lot related results. However I pointed out myself that I knew without a source I know this claim isn’t worth anything.
You keep coming up with new conditions!
Actually, no. This is the same condition I've had for two posts now: a probabilistic survey choice. If someone's not so sure about the brown cows, they might vote like 60%. If someone's very sure, they might vote 0% or 100%. I bet you that we will see far fewer 100%s than we will 60%s and 0%s.[/quote]
Definetly not in your first post. I can't argue against this only that it's hard to call this common knowdlegde. Because you give value to the people who know the answer and less or no value at all to the people who don't know or are not sure.
Now you're just ignoring my point. Again: accoring to your common knowledge theory there is like a 84% chance that there is a god. 84% is a lot closser to 100% than 0%, leading to the conclusion that it's very likely that there is a god. Now would you agree that there is probably a god or would you rather say that common knowledge isn't always as good as it should be?
Corrected.

If I were adopting your naive view, I would say that there is probably a God. (Certainly not "certainly a God".) However, as I've repeatedly pointed out, your treatment of the survey is flawed.
Flawed because people can't vote for a half god? Or 27,8% god? Hardly. If this choise was allowed the majority of people would still vote that they are 75% or more certain that there is a god. How about the atheists? Are they 0% certain that there is no god. And let's not forget the agnosts. So even if the survey was executed you're way it's questionable if the results
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Commander Spleen
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Post by Commander Spleen »

What is the probability of someone who's 32% sure brown cows give chocolate milk is going to contribute that information to Wikipedia? And given that scenario, what is the likelihood of one who's 100% sure they don't leaving it there?
KeenEmpire
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Post by KeenEmpire »

I don't necessarily have a problem with you not having the source. It's not like we're being peer-reviewed or anything. But if the survey was conducted in a way that's not obvious, and you can't explain how it was conducted, then we might (as you see) have a problem.
Definetly not in your first post. I can't argue against this only that it's hard to call this common knowdlegde. Because you give value to the people who know the answer and less or no value at all to the people who don't know or are not sure.
Actually, it's making me wonder whether or not the two surveys (cow weights vs brown cows/god) are equivalent. I'm not sure myself. It seems to me the problem with a binary outcome is that it forces people to approximate, similarly to them only being given two choices, 0 and 3000lb, for the cow's weight. It's very difficult to get my intuition around it, though.
Flawed because people can't vote for a half god? Or 27,8% god? Hardly. If this choise was allowed the majority of people would still vote that they are 75% or more certain that there is a god.
I doubt there is a good basis for that claim.
How about the atheists? Are they 0% certain that there is no god. And let's not forget the agnosts.
It depends on which athetistic framework is being used. I have no doubt there are many who would vote something very low. Isn't an agnostic one who acknowledges a nonzero probability of God, but also believes the probability is too low to take a stance? (Then again, it probably depends as well.) It is difficult to tell without carrying out the actual survey.

---

Spleen is right, though. Ultimately, this analogy is flawed.
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entropicdecay
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Post by entropicdecay »

KeenEmpire wrote: Isn't an agnostic one who acknowledges a nonzero probability of God, but also believes the probability is too low to take a stance? (Then again, it probably depends as well.)
I think agnostic is where you believe that either nobody knows if there's a god or gods or that it's impossible to know.
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Post by KeenRush »

Indeed, that's correct. And funny how every debate in PCKF leads to this. :D
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Post by Shadow Master »

And I wanted to comment on how funny that reference to Doom is.
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Djaser
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Post by Djaser »


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