Can the strength of human beliefs be precisely represented in a mathematical / logical way?
Yes
No
It doesn’t make sense to talk about "strength of human beliefs"
0voters
Mathematics is nice and simple. Every proposition is either True or False; that’s it.
The world might not be so simple. If there is true randomness in the universe, propositions in the language of physics might only have truth values expressible as numbers between 0 and 1. For example, “electron E will be in position P at time T” wouldn’t be True or False; rather, it would be 0.2. We would assign the PROBABILITY that the proposition is true to be its actual truth value.
But how about humans? What we believe can almost never be called True or False. “I’ll still have my job tomorrow morning” is something I believe very strongly, but I am not 100% certain it is true. “Fine,” you say, “we’ll take the physics route. The truth values for human beliefs are numbers between 0 and 1.”
But it isn’t clear whether or not that really works. What exactly is the expectation that I’ll still have my job tomorrow? 98.5%? Is that EXACTLY the expectation, or just a reasonable quick approximation? In fact, how would one possibly argue that the true value is a particular number, as opposed to that number + 0.00001? Such a minuscule difference is impossible to differentiate for us mere humans.
So the question, then, is this. Are there ANY ways of precisely representing the confidence humans have in a given proposition, or is the strength of our belief FUNDAMENTALLY UNREPRESENTABLE? Or is it even incorrect, for some reason, to even TALK about the “strength of our belief”?
If there’s true randomness in the universe then probability cannot be calculated. One needs to know the total array of possibilities in order to calculate the probability of any particular possibility or group of possibilities.
It’s like having to know everything to know what any particular something is not - an issue that goes back to Plato (and probably further).
You’re illustrating the difference between quality and quantity. Human belief is a quality, and as such it cannot be represented “precisely” using mathematics, which is a tool for measuring quantity.
Human beliefs are part of the subjective mind, and cannot be “objectified” mathematically. We are back to the mind-body problem, aren’t we?
“Can the strength of human beliefs be precisely represented in a mathematical / logical way?”
It depends on what you mean by precisely. We could make mathematical representations of strength and representations of beleif and run some number etc. but what is a belief!? How can it be quantified? Beliefs are relative and are not the same frmo one person to the next. For me to say I believe in God and you to say you believe in God isn’t ‘precisely’ the same thing. Though, when turned into words, it appears identicle: I believe in God=You believe in God.
I didn’t answer yes no or the other option but I kind of think quantifying belief is completely arbitrary to what rules you set up. What is the strength of your belief that your beliefs can be precisely represented in syntax?
