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Considerations for choosing the correct hypothesis

שו”תCategory: philosophyConsiderations for choosing the correct hypothesis
asked 8 years ago

Shalom Rabbi, fasting is beneficial and easy.
I wanted to ask the rabbi how one chooses the most correct hypothesis.
 
For example, I see a machine that pulls out a red ball from a million black balls.
I don’t know if the machine is operating randomly or not. Is there a formula to calculate what I should do regarding the nature of the machine?
(NB: There is no more than one attempt…)
 
 
 


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
This is too general a question. You’re basically asking to study probability and hypothesis testing on one foot. If the machine drew one red ball out of a million black ones in a single attempt, I’d bet it wasn’t “fair.” Like a die that would land on a 5 a hundred times in a row. One-legged hypothesis testing: The criterion is probabilistic. You calculate probabilities for your two hypotheses, and choose the more probable one. Of course, you need to define the possible hypotheses before the discussion begins (and this is usually not done using probabilistic tools but rather based on knowledge of the circumstances and common sense).

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ידידיה replied 8 years ago

How do you calculate the probability for each?
Let's say the probability that I assume a machine is random is 80% and the probability that it is designed is 20%.
The probability of getting a black ball is 10^-6
Is there some formula to calculate what I should choose?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Assuming that the machine is designed to choose a red ball with certainty (there are other possibilities, of course), then you must calculate a conditional probability.
A – A machine is designed.
B – Not designed.
You have given the basic probabilities:
P(A), P(B)
: The conditional probabilities for the event that a red ball is drawn are:
P(X/A) = 1
P(X/B) = 1/1000000
Now you must calculate, using Bayes' complete probability formula, the inverse conditional probabilities:
P(A/X), P(B/X)
, and comparing them gives you the answer.

Here it is clear even without calculation that it is designed with a very high probability.

ידידיה replied 8 years ago

I don't know the formula but I put it according to Wikipedia and that's how I did it
(0.8/1000000 + 0.2 ) / 0.2
The result is 0.999996 and according to the second one it came out 0.00000399

Does that make sense?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Absolutely. That's exactly the result.

ידידיה replied 8 years ago

So on the side that the universe has a universe and dualism is distilled to explain.
The chance that such a universe will come about randomly (according to the Stanford Encyclopedia) is 229-^10

The chance that such a universe will come about programmed is 1

As long as you see the hypothesis that there is a God as more possible and plausible than 9.9*10^-228 you should assume that there is a God in 99%
 x/(x+(1-x)/​(1e+229))=0.99
X=9.9*10^-228
Am I right?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Beyond the numbers, which are nonsense of course, the argument is correct. This is called the physico-theological evidence and I have expanded on it in my notebooks here on the site.

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