Re: Small probabilities

Iain Strachan wrote:

> I'll reply to a three posts to avoid replying several times.
>
> Randy wrote:
>
> By all means, probabilities and statistics are vital in scientific
> methodology, particularly in the areas you cite. I would suggest that
> this is quite different from determining whether a unique event was
> 'intelligently designed." In this particular case, we know that many
> surprising coincidences can occur and, in my opinion, we are not
> justified in jumping to a conclusion of a deliberate supernatural
> message being conveyed.
> --------------------
>
> Let's take a step back from Vernon's claim that this is a supernatural
> message that is being conveyed & just try to establish whether the
> patterns are intentional, or just a "surprising coincidence". I
> maintain that you CAN use small probabilities under certain
> circumstances to determine if some pattern was intentional, and this
> is the essence, as I understand it of "specified complexity" - the
> pattern has to be sufficiently pre-specified (ie you can't just say
> it's any old deal of bridge cards, but you have to predict what the
> next deal happens - though both events have the same probability, the
> predicted one is surprising because it was pre-specified). Similarly
> a pattern that is sufficiently simple doesn't merit a "designed"
> designation because there is in all probability a simple explanation.
>
> I'll use arrangements of pieces on a chess board as an example.

[snip]

> Jim wrote (in part);
>
>
> Aside from my own skepticism as to the nature of the orderly
> derivations
> you present, just as a practical matter, the geometries and rationales
> you offer are sufficiently arcane for very few to even follow,
> much less
> accept on that basis as the evidence you offer.
>
>
> I'm a little surprised that you should say the geometries are arcane
> and difficult to follow. Triangular numbers are not a difficult
> concept. In my kids' school in the maths classrooms, I've seen
> pictures of triangular and square numbers that look much the same as
> the diagrams on Vernon's web-site, geometric arrays of coloured
> circles etc. If it's presented in math classes to kids, I can't see
> how you justify calling it "arcane". It is but a short step to take
> an equilateral triangle and superimpose its inversion on itself to
> give a six-pointed star, and note that the intersection of the two
> gives a hexagon. (Everyone knows you get a six-pointed star by two
> triangles). These three figures (hexagon, star, and triangle) form
> the backbone of Vernon's geometries, and I really can't see why
> something that is little further on from something taught to 12 year
> olds as part of basic math education can be seen as arcane.
>
JimA writes anew:
Point well taken. Sloppy wording. The geometries per se aren't in
principal that difficult. However, the extent of Vernon's derivations
and the rationales for their connection to authentication of Scripture
are just not easy to follow for most folks in an average Bible study
class. I've taught enough to have a sense of what would cause most
folks' (70%?) eyes to glaze over ["I don't understand this, and I don't
need this sort of evidence anyhow!"]. Aside from the few remaining who
might be able to follow (generous 10%?), the remainder (20%?) might get
swept up in the articulation and illustration and accept the conclusion
offered on the basis of impression, but not analysis. I think the ASA
responders would fall in that (10%?).

I think the pattern generation IS tantalizing and thought provoking
initially. But I have trouble going straight to the same significance
that Vernon sees., for several reasons, of which this one I described is
one.

>
> Jim also wrote:
>
> In the present discussion, it seems to me that the act of introducing
> even a relatively small amount of structure into the letters/words of
> the basic Genesis 1:1 scripture in consideration of numerical
> equivalences and significances in Hebrew might alone be quite capable
> of creating a great deal of collateral order and systematic structure
> in other representations, such as those discovered by Vernon. I am not
> enough of a mathematician or analyst to sort out whether this is in
> fact the case, but it sure seems plausible. Just playing with that
> Sierpinski triangle algorithm the first time is a mind-boggler. The
> Julia set is remarkable in its aesthetic appeal (when graphed). Why
> should that even be? The idea of mapping the mathematics into a visual
> representation is sort of incidental to the underlying mathematics,
> but it is that (collateral) visual representation that captures our
> interest.
>
> My sense is that Vernon's gematrial discoveries could easily be
> another example of unintended but beautiful collateral consequence
> that flows from a relatively small amount of intentional gematrial
> ordering of the textual elements of Genesis 1:1.
>
>
> Me:
>
> I believe I may have addressed this earlier. There is of course a
> large amount of structure in written text, which allows probabilistic
> models to be built that form the basis of speech recognition systems
> (Hidden Markov Models). But these models exploit the temporal
> coherence of the letters, e.g. that a 'q' is almost always followed by
> a 'u', etc. Higher order models can be built up by e.g. computing the
> probability distribution of the letter that follows every possible
> two-letter combination (digram), or three-letter combination
> (tri-gram). It is then possible to use these models in a "generative"
> fashion to generate synthetic text using a random number generator.
> Such examples are found, I believe, in Claude Shannon's original 1948
> paper on Information Theory. The higher order models produce outputs
> that are (of course) gibberish, but looking more like english text
> (because of patterns of letters that we are familiar with) cropping up
> repeatedly. However, these models are completely different from
> adding up ALL the letters in a word, having assigned numerical values
> to them according to the (apparently arbitrary) ordering of the
> letters in the alphabet. Structure in the text arises, therfore from
> the sequence, not the sum of the entire sequence, and there is no
> reason to suppose that the entire sequence would give rise to the
> closely-knit set of multiples of 37 that Vernon has observed.

JimA continues:
My point has nothing to do with randomness, or ordering that comes out
of the statistics of normal text usage. Instead, it relates to the
gematrial structure that was certainly embodied in the Genesis texts by
the author(s) and possibly by subsequent scribal imbellishment in light
of gematrial considerations. Those nuances are mathematical and
relational in nature. I'm suggesting that those changes in the text for
those reasons may in themselves comprise enough constraints/rules to
account for a surprising amount of collateral ordering and patterning -
cause and effect. I'm suggesting that all of the derivative patterns
(such as those discoveries of Vernon and others) didn't (necessarily)
happen because of some God-idiosyncratic influence on the writers and
texts, but are more the natural derivative consequence of the writers'
gematrial introductions. In other words, that initial ordering put into
place certain foundational patterning from which other relationships and
patterns just naturally grow, and these in particular grew with the
specific gematrial content of early Genesis without the need of further
God-induced complexity.

Somehow I am suspicious overall of this approach to "proof" for those
few who can produce or comprehend it when God can otherwise speak
directly to the heart of any man.

>
> Incidentally 37 isn't a Vernon "discovery", the gematrial sum of the
> Greek for Jesus as 888 = 37x24 was known about in the first century
> AD). 37 has a long history of fascination for mathematicians and
> philosophers throughout history (Plato was reportedly fascinated by
> it). The properties of it are probably due to the fact that 37x3 = 111.
>
And finally:

Someone on the web pointed out that WWW=6+6+6=life. Something else to
ponder...maybe. JimA

> Best,
> Iain
>
>
>
> --
> -----------
> After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
>
> - Italian Proverb
> -----------
Received on Sun Jan 15 02:14:02 2006