John wrote:
>
> Those "probabilities" multiply, of course. Assume only two text variants,
> 24 "interesting numbers," and, say, 20 "interesting mathematical
> transformations." The probability of finding two of those numbers under
> those circumstances is already fairly high. Add to that the concept that
> "if not Gen 1 then perhaps Lev 1, etc. and the odds drop to almost
> certainty.
OK, let's do the calculation.
The agreement with the "interesting number" was to five places of decimals,
so the odds of any given number on any particular text variant with any
particular mathematical transformation is 1e-5.
We want to compute the probability of not getting a "hit" ( five place
agreement) for any combination of number, text variant and mathematical
transformation.
Probability any one case is not a hit is 1 - 1e-5 = 0.99999.
Number of possiblilities, given your figures, is 2 (variants) x 20
(transformations) x 24 (interesting numbers) = 960.
Therefore the chance of not getting a hit is 0.99999^(960) = 0.99044.
So you are 99% certain not to get a hit, or have less than 1% chance of
getting a hit.
So to find two numbers, one for each verse the chance is (1-0.99044)^2 =
9.13x10^-5. or roughly 1 chance in 10,000. I would not call that a "fairly
high" probability, and that's using 24 numbers and trying 20 different
mathematical functions. You seem to imply that it only takes a few more
relaxations to make it virtually certain that you will have a hit. But on
your figures it's virtually certain you won't have a hit.
How many extra functions/numbers etc would you need to make it virtually
certain that you'd get a hit.
Well if (functions) x (numbers) x (variants) = 500,000, then I grant you
that the probability of a hit is 0.993262, e.g. if you had 50 functions,
100 text variants and 100 "interesting numbers".
The real figures are 1 function (we specified it had to be the same function
on John as on Genesis), approximately 2 text variants (one of which, I
dispute, over the iota subscript), and a maximum of around 10 numbers (in
reality e and pi are the most relevant).
Additionally, we only took Gen 1:1 and John 1:1 because they have strong
textual parallels, being about "the beginning". Lev 1:1 would not match
John 1:1 in a textual sense.
So I don't see how you can claim it's virtually certain that we would find
something.
Best,
Iain.
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