Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:07 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
No, there is no God. As a phenomenologist one can only postulate on such matters that are presented to them.
And phenomenology itself is just one approach to philosophy inspired by the subject-object problem, and as such is open to criticism. You can't reliably conclude nonexistence of God from rules of Husserlian phenomenological analysis given that those rules themselves are open to debate.
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4319 Location: Graceland
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:08 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
Quote:
I'm glad you admit it is an "assumption."
I also assumed there was a God when I was young, however, the evidence was severely lacking. If you don't postulate one will never come to a conclusion.
Greenworm, you can only speak to what makes sense to you, to the organization you have created from the chaos. Your beliefs are yours, they are not binding on anyone else.
You can cite laws of the physical world to support your argument, but no one else is bound by the conclusions you may reach.
When you try to impose your view of the world on others, however obvious and self-evident it may be to you, you are acting just as coercively as the evangelicals.
You are under the same illusion of absolute truth that they are.
"But I am right" you may say.
So do they.
"But I am really right" you may say.
So do they.
And so you have an impasse where both sides are certain they are right.
Banging your head against this wall can't be the best use of your time and energy.
Engage in the discussion, or try to be more realistic about how dogma is going to play on this stage--ANY dogma.
I may believe much as you do, but that doesn't give me license to proclaim my beliefs as absolute truth. Imagining I have such a license is only going to create conflict. _________________
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
a class is a collection of sets (or sometimes other mathematical objects) that can be unambiguously defined by a property that all its members share. The precise definition of "class" depends on foundational context.
So in other words a class is a set? A set is a collection of objects that can be unambiguously defined by a property.
What about the set of all sets? The class of all classes?
Set is the most general un-defined term for a collection of objects is it not? Using the word class is just a preference that people in various branches like to employ?
Now a fuzzy set by definition is a collection of objects having grades of membership. In the classic set you think of a value of one for the property boolean as in the set and zero as being not in the set. Fuzzy sets map membership to a variable on [0,1].
This works nice in multivariate settings on data. Suppose you have 20 variables that describe your sample. Every unique setting of the variables is a class. Your sample may have many people from any one class or none form some. To get the fuzzy set, fit a logit and transform to get the probability that a person in a particular class is in the set (all classes are defined by the independent variables.)
Of course then you would want to take into account the margin of error for the prediction too depending on how you were using the function.
1) If you have very large samples and intend to mass mail for example you can use the mean, because in the large (and unless the sample is grossly underperforming) you can use the mean to make good estimates.
2) Otherwise you might want a method that pays more attention to the nuances in the empirical distribution (a non-parametric method.)
3) Or you may wish to say that the only members in the set are those whose 95% score confidence interval contains .98 or some other arbitrary criterion. The concept being that those whose intervals are too low are probably not going to ever score high, as estimated by current data (that can change over time.)
4) Also the logit has sills. If you look at the s-curve, for certain situations you definitely do not want to count anything off the top sill as positive ID since the expected value changes so quickly near the middle that the margin of error leaves you very uncertain as to whether your probability is greater than .5 or less that .5, a fair coin toss. The goal of logistic regression is ussualy to improve your odds by taking into account other information.
5) Now some people use logits to simply increase the probability of getting a result no matter how small that result is. Nothing wrong with this as it is clear that random guesses are less information rich then likelihoods based upon large numbers of variables. When this approach is used in mass marketing it can sometimes increase revenue even from populations where the mean expectation is very small.
A few weaknesses of these approaches to classification are time dependence and heteroskedasticity.
Because humans cahnge over time, and their decisions are discrete in time and dependent on real time factors in their lives it is not easy to predict when a person will take a certain action unless you know them personally, and even then it is hard to be good at it. A good model however will take into account all aspects of randomness.
Another problem is when the margin of error for the mean is changing through time, or is dependent on any parameter. This means you can be very sure of the outcome for some members of the set, but quite unsure even for nearby points in the space of independent variables.
The most accurate models consider autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity when the are analytically important. Simplification is not always the best approach. Parsimony where it is meet.
I digress.
At any rate I often hear and see the term 'class' used in computer science by programmers, and by people who work with really abstract mathematics. The rest of us mortals seem to get by with the term 'set.' _________________ I return to you now at the turning of the tide.
Last edited by Gandalf_the_White on Fri May 16, 2008 12:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
Quote:
I may believe much as you do, but that doesn't give me license to proclaim my beliefs as absolute truth.
When belief is based on empirical evidence I find it represents truth.
I am sure that you do believe an awful lot of things for which you personally have little or no direct empirical evidence. Most of history, for example.
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
Quote:
At any rate I often here and see the term 'class' used in computer science by programmers, and by people who work with really abstract mathematics. The rest of us mortals seem to get by with the term 'set.'
Java is completely based on it, I noticed in college when we entered the object oriented phase of programming, alot of people dropped out.
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
Quote:
I'm glad you admit it is an "assumption."
I also assumed there was a God when I was young, however, the evidence was severely lacking. If you don't postulate one will never come to a conclusion.
Spinoza conjectured that with out the tacit assumption of truth comprehension is impossible. I always suggest to people to consider the claims of the Bible as if they were true. The difficulty is three-fold. One the Bible is a big book and without a good teacher it is hard to know where to look. Some of the terms are archane by todays standards so it requires a little acculturation for some listeners. The third is the biggy.
'No man can come to Me unless my Father in heaven draws him.'
Jesus speaking in John chapter 6.
If a person is not even willing to listen to the gospel things are pretty hopeless. How can they believe what they refuse to hear? But even if they do there is no guarantee they will get it. That is between them and God.
God's word accomplishes what He intends it to and He has predestined many things based upon His foreknowledge. We can barely scratch the surface of a perspective like that.
For instance the Bible says God knows everything and understands everything. That's one powerful mind. Very impressive.
All Christians can do is live it, preach it, pray it, and watch as God's Spirit brings forth the fruit.
God does exist, He is the same , yesterday, today and forever, Jesus Christ. _________________ I return to you now at the turning of the tide.
Last edited by Gandalf_the_White on Fri May 16, 2008 12:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4319 Location: Graceland
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
Quote:
I may believe much as you do, but that doesn't give me license to proclaim my beliefs as absolute truth.
When belief is based on empirical evidence I find it represents truth.
That's a fallacy, though, if you apply it to anyone but yourself. First, you are assuming that the evidence is, indeed, empirical; second, that the evidence leads to the conclusion you believe it does; and third, that the meaning you attach to your conclusion is universal.
A bulletproof argument from your perspective still does not become absolute truth to anyone but you and others who share your beliefs and perspective.
The best you can do is make your argument and ask the person you are talking to if they have reached the same conclusions as you, and have interpreted the conclusions in the same manner.
Anything stronger than this approach is coercive, and if you have the power, fine, you can declare it to be truth, but that is a different matter from discussing an issue to resolution. _________________
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:33 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
Quote:
Most of history, for example.
True, I have to take the word of someone else's empirical evidence which can be skewed. For instance, I thought the white man made most of the advances in astronomy until I studied the Mayan and who knows if somebody predates them.
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:35 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
Quote:
At any rate I often here and see the term 'class' used in computer science by programmers, and by people who work with really abstract mathematics. The rest of us mortals seem to get by with the term 'set.'
Java is completely based on it, I noticed in college when we entered the object oriented phase of programming, alot of people dropped out.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that. In programming a class is sort of like a template. It's almost platonic, in that you define the class as the ideal, the one which defines all others, with the properties and methods. Then you create specific instances of it. Each is a particular example of that class. So the rule that defines the class is the class object. The flexibility of that construct is profound. _________________ I return to you now at the turning of the tide.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:36 pm Post subject: Re: Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil
greenworm wrote:
True, I have to take the word of someone else's empirical evidence which can be skewed. For instance, I thought the white man made most of the advances in astronomy until I studied the Mayan and who knows if somebody predates them.
Similarly, there are people (mystics) who claim direct experience of "God", and it is a question of belief or interpretation whether one takes their claims seriously or not.
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