[MD] Probability

[Case]

[Case]
Some previously unknown process at the heart of the sun could result in the
sun going Nova. At miniature black hole traveling at near light speed could
collide with the sun. An asteroid could strike the earth so as to stop the
earth's rotation.

[Peter]
Don't you accept that these examples would not happen during one day; a
sufficiently sized asteroid, for example, would be spotted months before it
struck Earth and there would come a day when we would say 'The sun will not
rise tommorrow'. I wish you well but the aneurysm wouldn't get you off the
hook either because then you could not say 'The sun will not rise tommorrow'
for you would be dead.

[Case]
At light speed the Sun is only a few minutes away. An event significant
enough to destroy the sun could happen almost instantly and depending on the
size and speed of an asteroid it could just pop in one day and stop the
earth's spin and not be detected with our present instrumentation. 

Or you could just say that if God got mad at us... Poof! Or if the clever
demons got bored or careless they could pull the plug.

As for the sunrise surviving me death, I would agree with you but there are
those who would do not so I threw that one in for their benefit. The point
is that although it is highly likely there is not guarantee that the sun
will rise tomorrow and this is not just a matter of Quantum uncertainty.

[Peter}
It is only in philosphy forums that people talk about having faith that the
sun will rise tommorrow; in any other situation it is never  considered, it
is an arificial use of language. I expect the sun will rise tommorrow but I
don't have faith that it will. Faith always stinks of religion to me. Having
faith in something is a waste of energy. Better to gather your information
and then make a considered guess about the future.

[Case]
Actually people of religious faith are among the murkiest on the meaning of
the term. Faith even in purely religious terms seems to imply a conscious
choice to believe something for which there is no direct evidence. It is
Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" that moves me out of solipsism. It pulls me
brain from the vat, exorcises my clever demons and lets me speak about
substance in a world of objects.  If we are seeking to unite facts and
values perhaps a bit of cross pollination of terms is not such a bad thing.
After all that is what Pirsig was trying to do with the terms Value and
Quality.

[Peter]
'Uncertainty destroys Trust, just as Trust destroys Uncertainty'; OK , sort
of, but: Quality destroys Trust, just as Trust destroys Quality, I don't
think so.

[Case]
Thanks for pointing this out. What I have been saying all along is that
Uncertainty equates with DQ and Certainty equates with SQ. Quality in my
view is actually the Harmony of the pair in balance.

When you are dealing with people like Platt who seems to think there is
Absolute Truth and Ham who seems to espouse a kind of predestination it is a
struggle just to get the concepts across. I got a bit overzealous in my
attempt to show that so much of the language we use is shaped by the
uncertainty we take for granted every day.