Isaac Chan’s Reviews > An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > Status Update

Note n/n:

On a side note, I find it utterly fascinating that Epicurus (and his ancient Greek predecessors whom he inherited the atomistic theory from) knew about atoms thousands of years ago ...

Note 7/n:
we cannot aggregate the causes in the social world, we cannot aggregate the causes of the divine creation of the universe: how can we prove that the omnipotent designer had no other intentions, that we cannot comprehend, at play? The designer could be omnipotent, but he could have created a universe with the existence of evil for the purpose of allowing human agency.

Note 6/n:
effect was because it was not the ONLY cause - many other counteracting forces were at play, like the American economy's slump in aggregate demand, which made banks unwilling/ unable to lend even when the Fed flooded them with cash. When one theoretically aggregates ALL the causes, then they would correspond to the effect (mild inflation).

To that, I say: that does not refute my argument. Similar to how...

Note 5/n:
causes are already not always proportionate to their effects in the social world, then, when I enlarge my view to contemplate the metaphysical and the divine, the magnitudes of causes and their effects must surely work in more complex and non-linear ways.

Of course, one may object right away to my argument: the reason why the cause I used as an example (the Fed's GFC LSAPs) did not correspond to the ...

Note 4/n:
proportionate to its cause: perhaps in the natural world yes, but in the social and economic sphere - obviously not. If I observed the mild inflation in the decade that followed the Fed's rescue operations following the GFC, and, following the doctrine of proportioning the cause to the effect, deduced that the Fed's LSAPs must be likewise mild, I would be hugely mistaken. It is obvious to me that if ...

Note 3/n:
10g ball balancing on one scale - the conclusion should be there is another 10g weight on the opposite scale: certainly not a 10kg weight! Thus one cannot add multitudes of other divine qualities, like wisdom, loving-kindness, omnipotence etc, to the designer one imagines just from observing the order of the universe.

But I'd have to push back somewhat. To me, it does not follow that an effect is always...

Note 2/n:
the cause - that's perfectly fine. You observe a beautiful universe which seems extremely unlikely to not result from design, hence you deduce an ultimate designer. Fine. But you cannot then go from the cause that you have imagined, to return and imagine other effects that may result from that designer.
ii) The magnitude of the cause you deduce must proportion to the magnitude of the effect. I observe a ...

Note 1/n:
I agree with all of Hume's atheistic arguments. However, as a theist, I still find myself unable to change my mind on this matter, nor do I want to. I readily admit my biases, and this is a race which I have a horse in. But there are still some things I wish to query Hume on.

To recap, I largely agree with Hume's main points. They are very reasonable.
i) To the theist who works from the effect to find ...

Note n/n:

we are still trapped by black swan dangers.

The bottom line is that Hume still distinguishes between better and worse inductive inferences. Hume wasn't an absolute skeptic; he was a mitigated skeptic, and traders already live with this philosophy.

Note 4/n:
already largely see the world in probabilities. In the markets, probabilistic thinking certainly anchors our analyses and contains our biases, but we all know the hidden risk of probabilities in the markets - the risk of a black swan event.

Hume doesn't add much to resolve this conundrum, then! I am already skeptical of causation, and I don't know why he leaps to proposing thinking with probabilities - ...