Would Law of Averages Work in Determining the Truth?

[Jacob Samuelson]

Soviets sided with Hitler until Hitler attacked them (then they switched sides). Soviets have been a thorn in the side of the US since. The Rosenburgs (executed for giving nuke tech to Soviets--though innocent) had an uncle who gave the nuke secrets. Since then, Soviets have had both a cold war with the US, and physical (but limited) wars in various nations. China helped Soviets in North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Often the US fought to a parallel (line of latitude) and fought no further, for fear that it would escalate the war(s), which made a perpetual war to slow the spread of Communism.

Who won the war, you ask? So far, the war isn't really over. Soviets and Chinese have nukes, and the Chinese just fired mach 10 missiles over US ships as a warning to stay away from the China Sea (US only has mach 4). Soviets, responding to email hacking of Podesta (campaign manager of Hillary Clinton), moved their Satan II missiles to their borders as Hillary threatened nuclear war.

Apparently, Hitler's influence has not been purged (yet).

The US barely won WW II. I don't think that eking out a narrow victory counts as justification of average sentiment winning.

As long as the world is not free, the dictators have won.

I would agree and disagree with you to say there was a winner in war. Once the average in morality falls to death and destruction then death and destruction wins. Once the average in morality rises to peace and progress, than the average wins. Politics and people are proving this day by day and I don't think we are moving to the latter either, but I don't think we are lost either way. If we as a world do what is good for each other, no one has to die. For now, I would say Most people would agree with me, otherwise we would see more and more death.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

We should buy an empty lot under the unsteady hillside (we might gain a house).

Though it is possible for random guessing to occasionally produce truth, the law of averages doesn't always yield truth.

You can only say it until you prove it to be so.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct.

This will be good.

 

[Clara Tea]

I completely agree. I believe we could have all the truth come down from heaven in a tornado of fire and still be able to worship exactly the way we wish because we are the true captains of our soul. We decide where we want to be. No one or nothing can take that away. Still I think a lot of people would want to know.

Categorized Poetry by Pros--Life, and How We Live It

"I am the captain of my soul....I rule it with stern joy...Yet, I had more fun as a cabin boy" (by Keith Preston, 1884-1927).

Invictus | Poetry Out Loud

"It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul." (Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, 1849-1903)

Scramblling the letters of "captain of my soul" we get "complaisant" or "copulations." I wonder if God is trying to tell us something?

Adversity (tornadoes) can alter our beliefs and actions.

 

[firedragon]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct. This is based on thousands of years of data and hundreds of hours research on my end to come to this determination and no one can or will convince me otherwise.

That being said, How many of us have this statement in mind when talking to others about their beliefs? Does it really get us anywhere with anyone else? So how can we determine using only real facts and not just feelings and interpretations of Scripture or textbooks?

I was introduced a theory in my mind that perhaps there is a numerical way of determining which Faith is absolute truth or at least close enough to absolute.

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

Once you are able to ask every doctrinal point of every belief that exists from as many perspectives possible, you could compare which average coincides closest to a particular faith or belief. The true faith or belief would be the faith or belief that holds strongest to the averages in doctrine.

Although the questions would have to be psychologically diverse enough to allow an array of responses despite someone belonging to a particular faith already. For example, instead of asking how much do you believe in the First Pillar of Islam?, a better question would be Out of every commandment, How important is it to pray five times a day from 1-100. An average Muslim may recognize this as the first pillar question, but may not think it the most important item out of all commandments and therefore even as a Muslim may give a more subjective answer rather than an institutional one.

Theoretically, if the controls were made with psychologically sound questions and were given to an enormous sample, could we determine which faith would be the closest to absolute truth?

Let me know of any potential issues with either the operation or basis of this theory.

Is this your method of convincing yourself of your faith? Out of curiosity.

 

[ChristineM]

Though it is possible for random guessing to occasionally produce truth, the law of averages doesn't always yield truth.

Unfortunately truth has several definitions, i personally go by "that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality." In which case guessing, backed up by evidence could indeed yeald a result.

Another definition is "a belief that is accepted as true."

So assume the majority believed x is true when in fact x is in fact untrue then averaging cannot ever return truth but that majority would believe the result to be true

 

[Clara Tea]

You can only say it until you prove it to be so.

Stoichastic independent variables (x=position, p=momentum), according to the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle have a product of uncertainty (measured by standard deviation) of greater or equal to h/4pi (where h is Planck's constant).

So, the more you know about position, the less you know about momentum, and vice versa.

Uh oh....I might have inadvertantly proven your point.

Lets assume that the random numbers have a Gaussian bell PDF (probability density function). The convolution of both functions is another Gaussian bell, with a mean equal to the average of the two means of the other bells. So, the most common solution is the most likely one, I think. Yet, there is plenty of room for random variation.

We should also consider that the standard deviation gets bigger in convolution, so the random variation is even greater.

If we mix in random noise, the random noise in our sample should decrease (it is called dithering). That spreads noise throughout the frequency spectrum, thereby dropping noise in the signal band. We can also filter out the noise outside of the signal band.

 

[Revoltingest]

I did a research study a the local insane asylum in Revoltistan.
The results.....
68% believed they're Napoleon.
17% believed they're Jesus.
13% had no opinion.
2% believed they're God.

By the law of averages (as I'm to understand it),
everyone is Napoleon.

 

[Audie]

Answer: My mind is never fully fixed, it was satire. Regardless, I don't want this to change people's mind rather provide a truth based on science and mathematics. Whether I stay in my ways or everyone here does too, is not the point of this OP.

Try saying what you mean instead of something else.
Satire doesnt work online. Who even knows what
you are even satirizing.

And

Science does not do " truth": as for your math, I will leave it to the mathmaticians to shred that

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct. This is based on thousands of years of data and hundreds of hours research on my end to come to this determination and no one can or will convince me otherwise.

That being said, How many of us have this statement in mind when talking to others about their beliefs? Does it really get us anywhere with anyone else? So how can we determine using only real facts and not just feelings and interpretations of Scripture or textbooks?

I was introduced a theory in my mind that perhaps there is a numerical way of determining which Faith is absolute truth or at least close enough to absolute.

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

Once you are able to ask every doctrinal point of every belief that exists from as many perspectives possible, you could compare which average coincides closest to a particular faith or belief. The true faith or belief would be the faith or belief that holds strongest to the averages in doctrine.

Although the questions would have to be psychologically diverse enough to allow an array of responses despite someone belonging to a particular faith already. For example, instead of asking how much do you believe in the First Pillar of Islam?, a better question would be Out of every commandment, How important is it to pray five times a day from 1-100. An average Muslim may recognize this as the first pillar question, but may not think it the most important item out of all commandments and therefore even as a Muslim may give a more subjective answer rather than an institutional one.

Theoretically, if the controls were made with psychologically sound questions and were given to an enormous sample, could we determine which faith would be the closest to absolute truth?

Let me know of any potential issues with either the operation or basis of this theory.

Sounds like a reimagining of the T-Rex System:

T-Rex: Dudes!

T-Rex: There are a lot of friggin' religions!

T-Rex: And let's say you're a lady or fellow who thinks "Man, heaven sounds like okay times! I've GOT to get in on that action." But you're stymied, because which religion should you choose? There's like a billion different ones, and if you bet on the wrong horse then no heaven for you, chumpy!

T-Rex: My friends, I have the solution: The T-Rex system!

Utahraptor: Okay, I'll bite: what's the T-Rex system?

T-Rex: You overlap each and every religion in a Venn diagram!

T-Rex: THEN, you just look for the place of maximum overlap and follow the precepts there! Say you discover most religions say something like "Give to the poor": you know that by doing this, you're maximizing your Heaven Potential for HUNDREDS of religions at once! Plus, you're not wasting time on CRAZY and UNPOPULAR precepts.

Utahraptor [offscreen]: Um, what if the Judeo-Christian God exists and wants you to believe in no-one else but him?

T-Rex: Um, here's another hypothetical for you, Utahraptor: WHAT IF ALL GODS EXIST AND WHEN YOU DIE YOU COULD SPEND YOUR TIME IN LIKE 80 BILLION HEAVENS AT ONCE??

Dinosaur Comics!

 

[Left Coast]

Can a guess ever be truth?

Yes. But not reliably.

 

[Left Coast]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct.

Were you raised LDS, or did you convert?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct. This is based on thousands of years of data and hundreds of hours research on my end to come to this determination and no one can or will convince me otherwise.

That being said, How many of us have this statement in mind when talking to others about their beliefs? Does it really get us anywhere with anyone else? So how can we determine using only real facts and not just feelings and interpretations of Scripture or textbooks?

I was introduced a theory in my mind that perhaps there is a numerical way of determining which Faith is absolute truth or at least close enough to absolute.

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

Once you are able to ask every doctrinal point of every belief that exists from as many perspectives possible, you could compare which average coincides closest to a particular faith or belief. The true faith or belief would be the faith or belief that holds strongest to the averages in doctrine.

Although the questions would have to be psychologically diverse enough to allow an array of responses despite someone belonging to a particular faith already. For example, instead of asking how much do you believe in the First Pillar of Islam?, a better question would be Out of every commandment, How important is it to pray five times a day from 1-100. An average Muslim may recognize this as the first pillar question, but may not think it the most important item out of all commandments and therefore even as a Muslim may give a more subjective answer rather than an institutional one.

Theoretically, if the controls were made with psychologically sound questions and were given to an enormous sample, could we determine which faith would be the closest to absolute truth?

Let me know of any potential issues with either the operation or basis of this theory.

If we are talking about human perception of God - or anything else, for that matter - your idea has some validity. The method would be effective at determining which theological concepts best described man’s relationship with his creator.

But they would not necessarily be of much help in describing the creator Himself. God as an infinite and immutable, objective entity existing beyond time and space, must be unknowable and incomprehensible. However we try to define Him in human terms, we are constrained by the reality that we cannot measure a thing without limits, not conceptualise the dimensions of the infinite.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

IIRC, this idea of the average of a group's estimate being more accurate than any of the individual estimates came from a mathematician looking at the results from a contest at a fair where people tried to guess the weight of a cow.

There are a few important differences between examples like this (or guessing gumballs) and religious beliefs:

- apparently, there's no overall bias when estimating cow weight or gumballs, but there is when it comes to religious beliefs. If everyone's shooting high, the average of all the shots won't be a bullseye.

- estimating things like number of gumballs or the weight of a cow is skill-based. Maybe the skills of any one individual aren't that well-developed, but anyone guessing the number of gumballs in a jar is using skills that they've developed over time and - most importantly - have developed in response to feedback. Religious beliefs don't have the same sort of verification through feedback.

Religious beliefs are memes in the original sense of the term: they're beliefs that don't depend on being true to be spread. This means we can't infer how true they are by how prevalent they are.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct. This is based on thousands of years of data and hundreds of hours research on my end to come to this determination and no one can or will convince me otherwise.

That being said, How many of us have this statement in mind when talking to others about their beliefs? Does it really get us anywhere with anyone else? So how can we determine using only real facts and not just feelings and interpretations of Scripture or textbooks?

I was introduced a theory in my mind that perhaps there is a numerical way of determining which Faith is absolute truth or at least close enough to absolute.

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

Once you are able to ask every doctrinal point of every belief that exists from as many perspectives possible, you could compare which average coincides closest to a particular faith or belief. The true faith or belief would be the faith or belief that holds strongest to the averages in doctrine.

Although the questions would have to be psychologically diverse enough to allow an array of responses despite someone belonging to a particular faith already. For example, instead of asking how much do you believe in the First Pillar of Islam?, a better question would be Out of every commandment, How important is it to pray five times a day from 1-100. An average Muslim may recognize this as the first pillar question, but may not think it the most important item out of all commandments and therefore even as a Muslim may give a more subjective answer rather than an institutional one.

Theoretically, if the controls were made with psychologically sound questions and were given to an enormous sample, could we determine which faith would be the closest to absolute truth?

Let me know of any potential issues with either the operation or basis of this theory.

This whole thing sounds like an argument ad populum in disguise, tbh

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This whole thing sounds like an argument ad populum in disguise, tbh

It works for gumballs... but the reason it works for gumballs is that we each have a lifetime of experience of going "looks like there are 10 cookies left in the bag" but then finding out there were 12 (or 9, or whatever).

We get real feedback that improves our estimating skills for stuff like that. The only feedback we get on religious beliefs is pareidolia, so religious beliefs don't improve over time.

 

[Ella S.]

This just sounds like an Argumentum ad Populum with extra steps to me.

Our current best approximation of truth, which has come out of thousands of years of debating epistemology, is the scientific method; inductive logic with empirically-verifiable premises to arrive at conclusions that have a high likelihood of being accurate. To me, this really is the only way to arrive at any truth.

ETA: Also, this is a misunderstanding of the Law of Averages. The Law of Averages states that the longer something occurs the closer the average of all of its occurrences gets to the truth.

The big issue here is that there are a lot of exceptions to this rule. In this specific instance, bias will skew the results greatly. Nobody has a religion telling them how many candies they should guess are in a jar. This is not the case for faith-based beliefs.

Aside from that, all you would be measuring here is the occurrence of belief. That's very different from the occurrence of a measurable event, which is specifically what the Law of Averages applies to.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Our current best approximation of truth, which has come out of thousands of years of debating epistemology, is the scientific method; inductive logic with empirically-verifiable premises to arrive at conclusions that have a high likelihood of being accurate. To me, this really is the only way to arrive at any truth.

ETA: Also, this is a misunderstanding of the Law of Averages. The Law of Averages states that the longer something occurs the closer the average of all of its occurrences gets to the truth.

And then, I guess, humans are horrible at predicating averages once you stack qualities, hence the conjunction fallacy. Looking at the op's gumball example, what if you were to have different qualities with the gumballs? The blue ones are filled with sugar, the green ones chocolate, and the red ones something else etc. And maybe they only sometimes had those qualities, and a floating 3rd quality, and the qualities are all more random than they appear. Well if I understand the conjunction fallacy, people are going to want to predict things they can't, about the stacked qualities in the gumballs

So then, that would make a religion less probable to exist, with each quality you stacked onto it. Even if you asked questions to a group of people, that led them to stack qualities onto it

 

[savagewind]

Can a guess ever be truth?

Probably. I shall guess, yes!

 

[blü 2]

I'm going to break the ice for everyone and say I absolutely know that my beliefs are the most correct. This is based on thousands of years of data and hundreds of hours research on my end to come to this determination and no one can or will convince me otherwise.

That being said, How many of us have this statement in mind when talking to others about their beliefs? Does it really get us anywhere with anyone else? So how can we determine using only real facts and not just feelings and interpretations of Scripture or textbooks?

I was introduced a theory in my mind that perhaps there is a numerical way of determining which Faith is absolute truth or at least close enough to absolute.

The Law of Averages came to mind. How I understand the Law of averages is that if we were to take the sum total of every guess that people have about a particular thing and take the average of all of the guesses, the actual answer would eventually appear dependent of course on the sample size.

For example if I were to have a gumball machine filled to the brim and I were to ask 1000 people how many they thought were in there. If I take the average of everyones answers I would probably be off by only 2 or 3 gumballs.

Would there be a way to calculate this as a belief system? Like if I asked a 1000 people, How possible is there to be only one God 0 to 100 percent? I would imagine I would get an array of numerical data and the average would confirm a doctrinal point that belongs to a specific Religious organization or group.

Once you are able to ask every doctrinal point of every belief that exists from as many perspectives possible, you could compare which average coincides closest to a particular faith or belief. The true faith or belief would be the faith or belief that holds strongest to the averages in doctrine.

Although the questions would have to be psychologically diverse enough to allow an array of responses despite someone belonging to a particular faith already. For example, instead of asking how much do you believe in the First Pillar of Islam?, a better question would be Out of every commandment, How important is it to pray five times a day from 1-100. An average Muslim may recognize this as the first pillar question, but may not think it the most important item out of all commandments and therefore even as a Muslim may give a more subjective answer rather than an institutional one.

Theoretically, if the controls were made with psychologically sound questions and were given to an enormous sample, could we determine which faith would be the closest to absolute truth?

Let me know of any potential issues with either the operation or basis of this theory.

As a generality, each believer holds that her or his religion is the 'true' one, and that the others are not 'true' religions. (Religion appears to have always been part of tribal identity going way back, so that's not so surprising.)

So I fear that a logical result of your experiment may be to promote that disbelief in other religions to disbelief in all religions.