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You're so basically confused about how to think it's hard to set you straight. No, 51% is not very sure, it's barely past maybe. No, 89% sure is not the same as 51% sure. 89 does not equal 51. "More probable than not" is the opposite of sure. 51% means you're not sure, to everyone but you.
While you're driving down the freeway with your family, be happy that when the engineer chose the design speed for the highway, he or she didn't choose one that was only 51% likely to be high enough for the expected range of vehicle speeds.
And when the outcome doesn't matter too much, there's nothing wrong with that. If I'm trying to decide between the pancakes or the French Toast for breakfast, sure, 50%+ certainty is fine. Heck, even 33%+ certainty would do when I'm choosing between the bacon, sausage or ham to go with it.
But being 51% certain and being 89% certain are not the same thing. We have to consider not only our degree of certainty, but also the consequences of our decision. Consider that I present you with a medication that has a 51% chance of working, and a 49% chance of failing. Would you take that medication? Before you answer consider that what this medication does is cure your acne. It has a 51% chance of curing your acne, and a 49% chance of killing you. I realize that this is so obvious that it is absurd. But lets us consider less obvious decisions. Let’s say it has a 51% chance of curing your cancer, and a 49% chance of killing you instantly. You might take this medicine, or you might not. Without the medicine you still might live years before the cancer kills you, is it worth the risk? You can understand why someone might decide not to take the medicine even though it has a 51% chance of curing their cancer. But what if it had a 99% chance of curing your cancer and only a 1% chance of killing you. The degree of certainty makes a difference.
If “God” appeared to you and commanded that you fight against slavery or injustice, that you strive to help people, to protect innocent lives, then you would likey do it. In this case you would only need to be 51% sure it was “God”, who knows you might even decide to do it even if you didn’t think it was “God” speaking to you but still though it was a good idea and “God” would approve. But if “God” command you to kill innocent people, including children and infants, you would – in your own words – ask “God” to “show me at least as much as you showed Israel 3300 years ago”. Why? Because obviously in the case of killing innocent people you would need to be more certain. 51% would not be enough, you would need to be at least 80 or 90% sure that it really was “God’s command”.
I'm not saying there's no difference between 89% and 50%+, I'm saying that if the higher percentage favors B, then B is the right option, whether the percentage is 89% or 50%. I'm saying that to make a decision, all one needs is a 50%+ of option A being correct as opposed to option B. Sure, 99% would be nice but when that is unavailable, a higher percentage is always better.
As I said above, closer to 100% is better, but all that is required to have reasonable confidence that the decision is correct is 50%+
The problem with your scenarios is that you don't give probability of what happens if I don't take the medication. For instance, in the first one...acne isn't going to kill you. So why take a risk where you will die if you're not going to die in the first place.fantôme profane;1622901 said:
The reason why is not because I'd need a higher degree of certainty. The reason why is, I believe that I am commanded not to murder because of the fact that I believe that 3300 years ago God told the Jews to tell the world "Do not murder."
In this single, unrealistic, hypothetical example, sure, 52% certainty works... but specifically because of the range of possible outcomes you stated.
Exactly - the possible outcomes matter when we're deciding how certain we need to be.
Not really, because "murder" is illegal killing. If God is the Law-Giver, then presumably, any killing commanded by God would be legal, no?
No, 51% certainty is what they call "the preponderance of the evidence", which is the test for civil trials. "Beyond all reasonable doubt" is a much stricter standard.
In this case, you would be perfectly logical in not taking the medicine. I'm not saying it's wrong if you do, but it's certainly not stupid if you don't. Did the doctor tell you what would happen if you did have the infection and didn't take the medicine?
Not the possible outcomes, but the probability of the outcomes. You can't give me the circumstances of one outcome if there are 7. You have to look at the probability of each.
We're not talking about whether it would be OK for God to command. We're talking about knowing whether or not He did. I said, I would need at least as much as God showed Israel 3300 years ago to make the decision to murder someone. Why? Because my current belief that I shouldn't murder is based on the fact that 3300 years ago God said not to. If He says that I should now, then He'd be making a change, and to do that He'd need to do at least as much as He did 3300 years ago when He told me the first time. Otherwise the probability of my actually knowing is much much less then the probability of my not knowing.
Tell me something. If beyond a reasonable doubt is not 51%, then what is a reasonable doubt?
Luckily, I'll almost always be not wanted on a jury (because of my involvement with law enforcement). I hate the jury system anyways.
Not specifically, but I assume that if I delayed treatment and really did have an infection, I'd need stronger antibiotics with worse side effects. I suppose if I never got it treated at all, it could lead to serious health problems.
Both, actually. In statistics, they talk about the "expected value": the magnitude of an outcome multiplied by the probability that it will occur.
That's my point: if you go by the Bible, it's not a change. In the Old Testament, God frequently commands people to kill others (e.g. the genocide of the Amalekites that we've been talking about) and this killing isn't considered murder. The commandment against murder never forbade anyone from following God's command to kill someone, which He did with some regularity.
It's a judgement, not a specific number, and I doubt it's usually quantifiable.
In that case, you could have taken the medicine or not taken it.
Again, I'm not talking about God the morality of listening to God when He asks you to kill. I'm talking about knowing that it is God who is telling you. In every case that He told someone to kill, He did a number of things beforehand which would increase the probabillity of it being Him that told the person.
Yes... but my point was that I didn't have to be anywhere near certain that I had an infection before I would decide to take antibiotics. AFAIK, the chances of me actually having one were probably somewhere around 5% - 10%, but because the outcome of taking them ranged from very good to negligible, and the outcome of not taking them would have ranged from negligible to very bad, a low level of certainty was enough to convince me that taking them was the right thing to do.
Not even that. They run on a "truth as best as we can figure it out" system. Sometimes what actually happened is complex.
This case doesn't exactly relate to our topic because the situations are different. This is a case where, no matter what you did, you would have been relatively OK.
They try to do that. Unfortunately, it works a lot differently than the ideal.
Okay then, go with one of the other examples I gave: how much of a load do you think you should hoist with your crane? Is it okay to hoist a load if you're only 51% certain that the crane can handle it?
I was going to re-jig the scenario, but I suddenly realized it's not worth the bother. I don't think we're even operating with the same definitions for the key terms here. Personally, I don't see 51% sure as "certain". I don't think anyone else here does. By the language you're using, I don't think you mean the same thing I do when you say "certain".