[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Legend, Yes, etc


--- Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > wow, sorry - oops.  i was working on what i had
> thought was the previous
> > comment that had inspired the question; namely,
> the legitimacy of
> > prognosticating global events or things
> technological centuries in advance.
> 
> But you don't tie most of these things in with
> anything else, and the two times
> you do (Old Testament?), you're so broad as to be
> effectively meaningless.
> Were you saying that Leonardo's scientific work on
> aerodynamics is equivalent
> to biblical prophecy?  Orwell post-dates television.
>  I think you mean
> H. G. Welles's _When Sleeper Wakes_ (1899).  Anyway,
> I would make a strong
> distinction between these and what I would call
> "prophecy".  These sorts of
> things are extrapolations of known physical
> principles or perceived tendencies
> of society.  Leonardo wasn't even predicting the
> future; he was trying to get
> something to work in his present.  The key feature
> of biblical predictions that
> differentiates them from science fiction or just
> science is, simply, God.
> Prophecy is a divine gift to see something that will
> be brought about through
> God's providence or anger.  Looking around you and
> saying "if we keep going
> this way..."  and then writing _1984_ doesn't count
> as prophecy in the biblical
> sense.  It's extrapolation, and that's different.
> 
> Besides which, in this sort of thing, you *always*
> have to beware of a
> posteriori reasoning.  It is phenominally unlikely
> that any particular person
> will win the lottery, but it is of high probability
> that *someone* will.  You
> can't start out with what we have and look back for
> prophecies that foresaw
> them, because that will naturally lead you into what
> is called "confirmation
> bias", namely, you will tend to emphasize confirming
> evidence and ignore
> contradictory evidence.  If you have to sort through
> dozens of predictions that
> don't apply to find the one that does, it's bad
> logic to then hold up the one
> example and say "aha, prophecy fulfilled!"  On top
> of *that*, there is the
> specificity problem: many prophecies tend to be
> vague, which is the
> confirmation bias in reverse.  If you want to
> increase your chances of getting
> a "hit", you could make lots and lots of prophecies
> and/or make them
> sufficiently vague that you could apply them to lots
> and lots of different
> situations.  In evaluating a prediction, you always
> have to compare with the
> odds of getting the same result merely by guessing.
> 
> So you can't start with stuff now and go back
> looking for prophecies.  (The
> author of the Gospel of Matthew makes this mistake,
> and ends up altering
> Jesus's story to make it match his (incorrect)
> understanding of the prophecy.
> He thinks Zach. 9:9 is referring to two different
> animals: a colt and a donkey,
> and so he has Jesus ride two different animals
> simultaneously into Jerusalem,
> in "fulfillment" of the prophecy.  See Matt 21:1-7,
> and make sure you use a
> translation that doesn't correct the author's
> mistake, like the NIV does.  But
> I digress...)  You have to start with the
> prophecies, try to determine what the
> author was intending to say, and then see how well
> that applies to what turned
> out.  Go the other way and you will always find what
> you are looking for.
> 
> As I understood Peter's question, though, he was
> wondering which biblical texts
> could be construed as prophecying the things you
> mention, not whether or not
> prognostication in general was feasible.
> 
> Yours,
> -- 
> Don Smith                    

(I'm aware that Orwell post-dates t.v., was speaking
more to its (t.v.'s) proliferation subsequent to
Orwell).

You argue a very clear-cut boundary between "prophecy"
and "extrapolation."  I think that prophecy is what
happens when extrapolation is hidden behind the
curtain, so to speak.  Or when data has "vanished"
down the line of history.  Anyway, I think the
difference between prohecy and extrapolation is
qualitative in nature... as a physics person, it
probably isn't surprising that you might have the
opposite opinion.

In any event, it has to be a good week when you've
been judged to be "effectively meaningless" at least
once ;)

Bring on the weekend.

eg 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 
a year!  http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/MediaNation/OtR/
References: