Infinite Cardinalities, Measuring Knowledge, and Probabilities in Fine-Tuning Arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Choi
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Principle ◽  
Physical Constant ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Knowledge Level ◽  
Epistemic Probability ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Subset Principle ◽  
Infinite Sets ◽  
The One

This chapter deals with two different problems in which infinity plays a central role. It first responds to a claim that infinity renders counting knowledge-level beliefs an infeasible approach to measuring and comparing how much we know. There are two methods of comparing sizes of infinite sets, using the one-to-one correspondence principle or the subset principle, and it argues that we should use the subset principle for measuring knowledge. The chapter then turns to the normalizability and coarse tuning objections to fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God or a multiverse. These objections center on the difficulty of talking about the epistemic probability of a physical constant falling within a finite life-permitting range when the possible range of that constant is infinite. Applying the lessons learned regarding infinity and the measurement of knowledge, the chapter hopes to blunt much of the force of these objections to fine-tuning arguments.

Arguments for the Existence of God

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Oppy
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Pascal’S Wager ◽  
The One

Philosophical discussion of arguments for the existence of God appeared to have become extinct during the heyday of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. However, since the mid-1960s, there has been a resurgence of interest in these arguments. Much of the discussion has focused on Kant’s “big three” arguments: ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and teleological arguments. Discussion of ontological arguments has been primarily concerned with (a) Anselm’s ontological argument; (b) modal ontological arguments, particularly as developed by Alvin Plantinga; and (c) higher-order ontological arguments, particularly Gödel’s ontological argument. Each of these kinds of arguments has found supporters, although few regard these as the strongest arguments that can be given for the existence of God. Discussion of cosmological arguments has been focused on (a) kalām cosmological arguments (defended, in particular, by William Lane Craig); (b) cosmological arguments from sufficient reason (defended, in particular, by Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss); and (c) cosmological arguments from contingency (defended, in particular, by Robert Koons and Timothy O’Connor). Discussion of teleological arguments has, in recent times, been partly driven by the emergence of the intelligent design movement in the United States. On the one hand, there has been a huge revival of enthusiasm for Paley’s biological argument for design. On the other hand, there has also been the development of fine-tuning teleological arguments driven primarily by results from very recent cosmological investigation of our universe. Moreover, new kinds of teleological arguments have also emerged—for example, Alvin Plantinga’s arguments for the incompatibility of metaphysical naturalism with evolutionary theory and Michael Rea’s arguments for the incompatibility of the rejection of intelligent design with materialism, realism about material objects, and realism about other minds. Other (“minor”) arguments for the existence of God that have received serious discussion in recent times include moral arguments, arguments from religious experience, arguments from miracles, arguments from consciousness, arguments from reason, and aesthetic arguments. Of course, there is also a host of “lesser” arguments that are mainly viewed as fodder for undergraduate dissection. Further topics that are germane to any discussion of arguments for the existence of God include (a) the appropriate goals at which these arguments should aim and the standards that they should meet, (b) the prospects for “cumulative” arguments (e.g., of the kind developed by Richard Swinburne), and (c) the prospects for prudential arguments that appeal to our desires rather than to our beliefs (e.g., Pascal’s wager).

LEARNING TO ROLL WITH THE ONE-TWO PUNCH OF FIRE AND DEBRIS FLOW: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE JANUARY 2018 DEBRIS-FLOW DISASTER IN MONTECITO, CA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason W. Kean ◽  
◽  
Dennis M. Staley ◽  
Jeremy T. Lancaster ◽  
Francis K. Rengers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Debris Flow ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The One ◽  
Debris Flow Disaster

Psychic Phenomena and the Existence of God

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Fantl
Keyword(s):  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Phenomenal Conservatism ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Meta Analyses

This chapter applies the conclusions of the previous chapters to two cases of controversial belief: atheistic belief and the denial of psychic phenomena (psi). In both cases, in line with so-called “phenomenal conservatism,” the felt obviousness—to the denier—of the non-existence of what they’re denying figures large in their knowledge, if they have it. In both cases, the deniers’ knowledge runs up counterarguments—for example, the fine tuning argument or meta-analyses of a number of controlled studies that purport to demonstrate the existence of psychic phenomena. But these arguments need not destroy knowledge, even if the atheist or psi-denier can’t figure out what’s wrong with those arguments. Knowledge can survive precisely because some atheists and psi-deniers lack sufficient methodological expertise, though it’s crucial that there is no consensus of trustworthy experts offering testimony that the counterarguments are sound.

Misapprehensions about the Fine-Tuning Argument

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 133-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hawthorne ◽  
Yoaav Isaacs
Keyword(s):  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Fundamental Physics

AbstractThe fine-tuning argument purports to show that particular aspects of fundamental physics provide evidence for the existence of God. This argument is legitimate, yet there are numerous doubts about its legitimacy. There are various misgivings about the fine-tuning argument which are based on misunderstandings. In this paper we will go over several major misapprehensions (from both popular and philosophical sources), and explain why they do not undermine the basic cogency of the fine-tuning argument.

scholarly journals E O VERBO FEZ-SE CARNE: A EUCARISTIA ENQUANTO ATO INSTITUINTE DO SER

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (18) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Mauro Meireles
Keyword(s):  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Title Page ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Anthropology Of Religion ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The One ◽  
Physical Phenomena

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>A eucaristia é um rito católico que visa reafirmar a fé cristã. O presente texto ocupa-se, portanto, da eucaristia enquanto ato instituinte do ser e busca pensar o referido rito a partir da perspectiva de Mikhail Bakhtin. Desta feita e a partir do enfoque da antropologia, se ancora em certas sínteses na medida em que, a validade daquilo que se pressupõe verdade, do ponto de vista da cognição, não depende do fato desta ser ou não ser conhecida por alguém. Pois, é o homem que une fé e rito, que une verdades da ciência e fenômenos físicos. Desta feita, tem-se então que, quando postulamos a existência de Deus a partir de certos escritos canônicos – e o reafirmamos no rito eucarístico – lhe conferimos existência e tangibilidade. Sobretudo, defende- se no decorrer do texto que a eucaristia, seja enquanto ato instituinte, seja enquanto rito, nada mais é do que uma enunciação de si sobre si que só tem significado, manifesto em seu conteúdo- sentido, se enunciado por aquele que experimenta e executa o ato.</p></div></div><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>P</span><span>ALAVRAS</span><span>-C</span><span>HAVE</span><span>: </span><span>Eucaristia. Rito Eucarístico. Mikhail Bakhtin. Rito e Fé. Antropologia da Religião. </span></p><p><span>A</span><span>BSTRACT </span></p><p><span>Eucharist is a Catholic rite that aims to reaffirm the Christian faith. This paper analyzes the Eucharist rite as instituted act of being and aims think that rite in the Mikhail Bakhtin ́s perspective. So, from an anthropology's approach, it is based in some perspectives that recognize validity in of what is assumed true, in a cognition point of view, depends on whether this is or is not known to anyone. That is because the man is the one who unites faith and rite, truths of science and physical phenomena. Therefore, when we postulate the existence of God from certain canonical writings - and reaffirm the Eucharistic rite, we give him existence and tangibility. Most of all, this text argued that the Eucharist is as instituted act or a rite, is nothing more than a statement of itself that only has meaning, manifest in their content-sense, if enunciated by one who experience and performs the act. </span></p><p><span>K</span><span>EYWORDS</span><span>: </span><span>Eucharist. Eucharistic rite. Mikhail Bakhtin. Ritual and faith. Anthropology of Religion </span></p></div></div></div>

scholarly journals An Analytic Theologian Stance on the Existence of God

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Paul Göcke
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
The One

The existence of God is once again the focus of vivid philosophical discussion. From the point of view of analytic theology, however, people often talk past each other when they debate about the putative existence or non- existence of God. In the worst case, for instance, atheists deny the existence of a God, which no theists ever claimed to exist. In order to avoid confusions like this we need to be clear about the function of the term ‘God’ in its different contexts of use. In what follows, I distinguish between the functions of ‘God’ in philosophical contexts on the one hand and in theological contexts on the other in order to provide a schema, which helps to avoid confusion in the debate on the existence or non-existence of God.

A Study of the Influence of Data Complexity and Similarity on Soft Biometrics Classification Performance in a Transfer Learning Scenario

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-65
Author(s):  
Marcelo Romero ◽  
◽  
Matheus Gutoski ◽  
Leandro Takeshi Hattori ◽  
Manassés Ribeiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Learning ◽  
Classification Performance ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Similarity Metrics ◽  
Soft Biometrics ◽  
Final Layer ◽  
The One ◽  
Fully Connected ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fine Tune

Transfer learning is a paradigm that consists in training and testing classifiers with datasets drawn from distinct distributions. This technique allows to solve a particular problem using a model that was trained for another purpose. In the recent years, this practice has become very popular due to the increase of public available pre-trained models that can be fine-tuned to be applied in different scenarios. However, the relationship between the datasets used for training the model and the test data is usually not addressed, specially where the fine-tuning process is done only for the fully connected layers of a Convolutional Neural Network with pre-trained weights. This work presents a study regarding the relationship between the datasets used in a transfer learning process in terms of the performance achieved by models complexities and similarities. For this purpose, we fine-tune the final layer of Convolutional Neural Networks with pre-trained weights using diverse soft biometrics datasets. An evaluation of the performances of the models, when tested with datasets that are different from the one used for training the model, is presented. Complexity and similarity metrics are also used to perform the evaluation.

Designing Interactive Architecture

2011 ◽  
pp. 166-178
Author(s):  
Mikael Wiberg
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Design ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Interactive Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Interactive Architecture ◽  
Interactive Environment ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
The One ◽  
Ongoing Project ◽  
Design Challenges

Interactive architecture bridges in itself two design traditions, i.e. design of interactive systems on the one hand, and architecture as the tradition of designing our built environment on the other hand. This article reports from our ongoing project focused on the design and implementation of an interactive environment for public use. The article describes the project, reviews and outlines the main design challenges as pinpointed in the literature on interactive architecture, and describes the practical challenges identified in this particular project. This article then presents the participatory design approach adopted in this project to overcome these challenges, and describes and analysis the methodological implications from this project. These implications include the lessons learned from the coordination of a geographically distributed design team, “role gliding” as the reinterpretation of the designers as users in the participatory design process, and a shift from communities of practices to mixtures of professions.

God

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Martin Lin
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Third ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter offers reconstructions of Spinoza’s four arguments for the existence of God. Among the lessons learned from these reconstructions is that, although Spinoza’s first argument is often described as ontological, it relies on many substantive premises that go beyond the definition of God and it is not vulnerable to standard objections to ontological arguments. Additionally, the second argument introduces Spinoza’s Principle of Sufficient Reason, and seeing how Spinoza applies it to the existence of God sheds light on how he understands both the PSR and causation and explanation more generally. The chapter concludes by arguing that the third and fourth arguments pave the way for Spinoza’s claim that, besides God, no substance can be or be conceived and consideration of them shows why Spinoza’s argument for monism does not beg the question against the orthodox Cartesian.

Ontological commitment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jubien
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Comparative Assessment ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Question ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Occam’S Razor ◽  
The One ◽  
Occam's Razor

A person may believe in the existence of God, or numbers or ghosts. Such beliefs may be asserted, perhaps in a theory. Assertions of the existence of specific entities or kinds of entities are the intuitive source of the notion of ontological commitment, for it is natural to think of a person who makes such an assertion as being ‘committed’ to an ‘ontology’ that includes such entities. So ontological commitment appears to be a relation that holds between persons or existence assertions (including theories), on the one hand, and specific entities or kinds of entities (or ontologies), on the other. Ontological commitment is thus a very rich notion – one in which logical, metaphysical, linguistic and epistemic elements are intermingled. The main philosophical problem concerning commitment is whether there is a precise criterion for detecting commitments in accordance with intuition. It once seemed extremely important to find a criterion, for it promised to serve as a vital tool in the comparative assessment of theories. Many different criteria have been proposed and a variety of problems have beset these efforts. W.V. Quine has been the central figure in the discussion and we will consider two of his formulations below. Many important philosophical topics are closely connected with ontological commitment. These include: the nature of theories and their interpretation; interpretations of quantification; the nature of kinds; the question of the existence of merely possible entities; extensionality and intensionality; the general question of the nature of modality; and the significance of Occam’s razor.

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