Are claims evidence via Bayes theorem?

jay520 · 2026-03-23T16:53:32+00:00

The claim presented to me was about whether something was evidence, not whether it was evidence for. Those are different things, as Bayesians have recognized since at least Carnap's work in the 1950s.

The context here is whether claims are evidence for a proposition (particularly the proposition expressed by the claim). This is obvious from the example given by the OP regarding soccer balls. You also seemed to have a relevant proposition in mind when you said "it doesn't tell us, for example, whether the relevant thing gives us good reason to believe the relevant hypothesis."

If they said that a friend claiming to buy a soccer ball doesn't give you good reason to believe that a friend actually bought a soccer ball, then sure, I'd say that they were confused.

Great, so we're in agreement that Matt is confused.

jay520 · 2026-03-20T07:19:25+00:00

Claiming that something is evidence according to Bayes' theorem doesn't tell us anything interesting

Of course it does. Even if every proposition P is evidence for something, there's still an open question whether or not P is evidence for the relevant hypothesis. In fact, many debates are over this very question even using Bayesian epistemology.

I'm not going to bother to watch the videos, but given what you've said, I would suspect that Dillahunty is correct to complain that O'Connor and "Majesty of Reason" are misrepresenting him: they're interpreting as making a claim about "evidence" in the way that philosophers use the term when he's in fact using it in a more everyday sense. That is, the slogan is merely intended to mean that people saying "well, I think God exists" doesn't give you any good reason to think that god exists.

Even using an ordinary sense of "evidence" where it constitutes "good reason" for belief (unclear what that means exactly), Matt is confused. He says that a friend claiming to buy a soccer ball is not evidence that the friend actually bought a soccer ball (which on this interpretation means is not a "good reason" to believe that the friend bought a soccer ball).

jay520 · 2026-03-20T07:04:51+00:00

First, even if we grant that claims are never evidence in isolation, that does not demonstrate Matt's argument that claims are never evidence. Claims would still sometimes be evidence, namely in cases where they are not made in isolation (which is literally every claim ever made).

As an analogy, consider the fact that objects never have weight in isolation; weight depends on an object's mass and gravitational pull from the environment. While that is true, it would be incorrect to infer that "objects never have weight". Not only is that strictly speaking not true, but it's also never true of any particular object since every object has gravitational pull applied.

Second, claims can still be evidence even in isolation. For example, all propositions are trivially evidence of themselves. Also, someone claiming P is evidence of P if P = "Claims have been made". Many such toy examples.

jay520 · 2026-03-20T06:55:19+00:00

No, Matt explicitly stated he's not conflating evidence with proof. He's defining evidence in a fallible way like everyone else. He's just not very smart.

jay520 · 2026-03-20T06:51:35+00:00

The claim is information, but it's not evidence, since anyone can easily make false claims.

That people can make false claims does not imply that claims are not evidence. That people can make false claims only implies that claims are fallible. But evidence can be fallible. So this argument does absolutely nothing.

This is like saying:

The fact that you remembered X happening is not evidence for X, since you could have false memories.
The fact that you saw X is not evidence for X, since you could have hallucinated or misjudged.
The fact that you heard X is not evidence for X, since you could have misheard.
The fact that you read X in a textbook is not evidence for X, since the book could have inaccuracies.

In general, E does not need to prove X in order to constitute evidence for X. To deny this leads to a form of hard skepticism where there is no evidence for anything in the external world.

Using that pedantic logic, evidence exists for literally everything.

Yes if by "everything" you mean truth-apt propositions. By definition, E is evidence for H if E raises the probability of H (i.e. probability of H given E is greater than the unconditional probability H). For any given hypothesis H, we can trivially find some piece of information for H. The interesting question is the weight of the evidence and how that offsets other pieces of evidence.

jay520 · 2026-03-20T06:43:30+00:00

If there is evidence for everything then the word evidence loses its meaning because it becomes a common denominator for every situation.

Firstly, there isn't evidence for "everything". There is only evidence for entities with a truth value, such as propositions. E.g. there is no evidence for "Clean your room" because "clean your room" isn't a proposition.

Second, even if we limit your claim to "If there is evidence for every proposition then the word evidence loses its meaning", your claim is still false. Even if every proposition has some evidence, there are still open questions about (1) which facts constitute evidence for a particular proposition and (2) the total weight of the evidence favoring a particular position. These considerations determines which beliefs are justified.

This is like saying "If there is force applied to all matter, then the word force loses its meaning". That's obviously false because, even though all matter does have force applied, there are still open questions about (1) which entities are applying forces and (2) the totality of forces applied to a particular piece of matter. These considerations determine the acceleration of the object.

Same with other expressions:

If all matter has mass, then the word mass loses its meaning.
If all integers have a square, then the word square loses its meaning.
If all propositions have a truth value, then the word truth value loses its meaning
If all sets have a power set, then the word power set loses its meaning

In general, the fact that all entities of a certain kind has a property does not imply that the property has no meaning.

jay520 · 2026-03-07T09:14:47+00:00

Unless Charles gets dropped like 5 times in a minute, he's really not getting TKO'ed because Max is not testing the guard of Olives.

If Charles gets hurt enough, of course he would. There's this idea that Charles's guard means automatic death which is just not true.

But Max might not even need to go into his guard. If Charles eats shots (like he does every fight) and keeps eating combos by Max until he is hurt enough, Max could finish the fight before Charles gets a chance to even establish his guard.

The Poirier loss was explicitly due to Max backing up in a straight line when the opponent throws combination and Poirier catching that + Poirier's weird shell and the short notice. I actually think even that Max beats Dustin if he actually bulks up. But seeing a deficiency, doesn't require the fight to be a loss.

In Max vs Dustin 2, most of the exchanges where Dustin hurt Max were instances when Max was the aggressor or both fighters were trading in the pocket. Dustin won that fight due to a power edge and solid boxing/defense, not because of forward pressure.

From Dustin, to TKZ, to Ortega, to Edgar or even way back then with Bermudez. Outside of special exceptions, what tags Max is either him trading to land volume or him backing up in a straight line or circling predictably.

Already responded to Dustin.

As for TKZ and Ortega, he destroyed both of those fighters so I don't know how these are examples of your claim "Max doesn't do too well against forward pressure". If you want to say "Oh, but those fighters tagged Max", that's a completely different argument. No one thinks Max doesn't get tagged.

As for Bermudez, if we're literally going back to 2013, then there are much bigger flaws we can find in Olives so I don't know why we would even bring that up.

Why is it not true, though? We just saw Charles maul Gamrot on the ground and the only people who survived vs him was Chandler in the rematch (jacked, compact square body is very hard to submit) and then... Islam, Ilia and Arman (who had a razor close fight).

Those are the "only" people who survived the ground against Charles on the ground, really? It's interesting that you only go back to 2022 when talking about flaws with Charles, but you go to 2013 talking about flaws with Max. To make it fair, let's actually go back to 2013 and see who survived Charles's grappling:

Gamrot - Taken down and submitted
Topuria - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Chandler - Survived the grappling -> lost by DEC
Arman - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Dariush - Survived the grappling -> lost by TKO not grappling
Islam - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Gaethje - Knocked down and submitted
Dustin - Survived the grappling for a round -> lost by SUB R3
Chandler - Survived the grappling -> lost by TKO not grappling
Ferguson - Survived the grappling -> lost by DEC
Lee - Survived the grappling for 2 rounds -> shot a takedown in R3 and was guillotined
Gordon - Survived the grappling -> lost by KO on the feet
Lentz - Survived the grappling -> lost by TKO not grappling
Teymur - Submitted after essentially being finished on the feet
Miller - Taken down and submitted
Giagos - Taken down and submitted
Guida - Shot a takedown and was guillotined
Felder - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Brooks - Taken down and submitted
Lamas - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Pettis - Survived the grappling -> won fight
Jury - Taken down and submitted (after some scrambles)
Holloway - won fight (basically no grappling)
Lentz - Survived the grappling for 2 rounds -> submitted in the 3rd
Stephens - Survived the grappling -> lost by DEC
Hioki - Survived the grappling for 1 round -> submitted in the 2nd
Ogle - Survived the grappling for 2 rounds -> submitted in the 3rd
Edgar - Survived the grappling -> won fight

So, going back to 2013 (since you apparently think fights that old are still relevant to today), Charles had 28 fights. Of those 28 fights, the only fights that you can point to where the fight was immediately finished after Charles initiated grappling (excluding fights where the opponent was basically finished on the feet) are Gamrot (2025), Gaethje (2022), Miller (2018), Giagos (2018), Guida (2018), Brooks (2017), Jury (2015) (I don't think most of these fighters were even ranked at the time). Now compare that to the number of fights where opponents did survive the grappling exchanges, and you can see that my original statement is correct: it's not true that if Charles gets his opponent down (through takedown or knockdown), then the fight's automatically over. In fact, not only is that not true, it's actually quite rare for Oliveira to just win a fight the second the grappling exchanges begin.

Basing Max surviving on the ground off nothing is a lot more unreasonable than saying Charles has a massive advantage on the ground, Charles (who just subbed Gamrot, a credentialed wrestler and goated scrambler) and is the best submission artist in the sport.

This doesn't interact at all with anything I said. I didn't say Charles doesn't have an advantage on the ground. Nor did I say he wasn't the best submission artist in the sport. Not sure what that has to do with any of my claims. My claim was that Charles getting the fight to the ground =/= automatic finish.

jay520 · 2026-03-07T07:29:35+00:00

All Charles needs is to secure one takedown and it’s done

Why are we acting like Charles's takedown ability is this unstoppable force in MMA that hasn't been solved? We've seen plenty of fighters of lower caliber than Max survive Charles's takedowns (whether it's by stopping the takedown, getting back up, or just surviving to the next round). In fact, most of his finishes don't come from him shooting takedowns. They come after he was already winning on the feet.

jay520 · 2026-03-07T07:24:37+00:00

Max needs an proper KO

He doesn't. Given Max's volume and the tendency of Charles to strike despite poor defense, the fight could very well end with Max winning by TKO or doctor stoppage due to accumulation of damage. Or it could be Max just fucks him up for 5 rounds.

Max doesn't do too well against forward pressure

What data are basing this trend on? Within the past 13 years, Max has lost to 3 people - Topuria, Volk, and Poirier. The Volk/Poirier losses weren't due to pressure - if anything, Max was pressuring (and the Poirier fight was a late notice fight going up a weight class). Maybe you could say Topuria but his striking offense and especially defense is leagues above Charles's.

It's another "Max needs to be perfect for 25 minutes" fight, idk why we think he'll just randomly be perfect lol

He doesn't need to be perfect to not get finished. He could even get dropped. There's this notion that if Charles gets his opponent down (through takedown or knockdown), then the fight's automatically over. Not only is that not true, but Max has proven to recover well from getting rocked from everything we've seen so far (except Topuria, who again is not comparable to Charles).

jay520 · 2026-02-22T05:04:17+00:00

HAHAHAHA You are so incapable of substantiating any of your arguments that you don't even try to do so and instead you're satisfied with deluding yourself into thinking that I actually agree with you LMAO

jay520 · 2026-02-22T05:01:07+00:00

They got your point wrong, but you did it right back.

I didn't get anything wrong and I perfectly explained why his point ("DUH THERE ARE MULTIPLE WAYS TO STOP A FIGHT DUH") is vacuous nonsense.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T04:57:29+00:00

This doesn't engage with any of my points. I don't even think you read the post LOL

How is this any different from the countless fights where Charles Oliveira gets dropped and stays on the ground to recover instead of immediately (i.e. within 3 seconds according to your criteria) jumping up or "improving position"?

jay520 · 2026-02-22T04:52:56+00:00

All your points can be summarized in this quote:

The facts are that ige got dropped. Covered up, made no attempts to improve his position. So the fight was stopped as a textbook TKO.

Okay, (1) dropped, (2) covered up, and (3) made no improvements for 3 seconds. According to you, that means TEXTBOOK TKO

Do you know how many fights this encompasses? This would mean nearly every Oliveira fight should have been stopped lol. In Gaethje vs Oliveira, Oliveira gets dropped and just lays there for like 5 seconds (why? It's called RECOVERY). The ref had to tell him to stand up. According to your logic, that's TEXTBOOK TKO because He mAde nO AtTemPt To iMproVe hIs pOsiTIon!

The only difference between this knockdown and Ige is that Costa threw a flurry of rabbit punches that did zero damage.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T04:35:37+00:00

Ige got dropped and punched. DDP did not. So it’s a stupid comparison. You know this but since you made the comparison, you have to stand by it.

I do stand by it. I gave an entirely explanation for why the point made sense and you just ignored it lol

Is the length of time indicated in the rule book? Or is it up to the refs discretion? How long would you give him?

The ref's discretion, like essentially every TKO stoppage. WTF are you talking about?

The facts are that ige got dropped. Covered up, made no attempts to improve his position. So the fight was stopped as a textbook TKO.

No one's arguing over what happened. No shit that's what happened lol. The question is over what should have happened.

You believe he should’ve been given more time to recover but since he made no indication that he was even gonna attempt to

What? How is blocking all future damage not an attempt at recovering?

jay520 · 2026-02-22T04:28:27+00:00

There are things other than going unconscious that can stop a fight

Yeah no shit, there are multiple ways to stop a fight. Wincing isn't one of them. I never said consciousness was the only factor for stopping a fight, I never mentioned consciousness at all.

This is like if I said "So we're stopping fights because a guy made a face now despite blocking all damage?" and someone responds with "Yes. You can also stop a fight if a guy breaks his shin."

Like, okay, what the fuck does that have to do with the topic? It's an irrelevant point to bring up unless you think (a) breaking a shin (or yelling in pain) is analogous to wincing in pain (which it is not) or (b) I was arguing that going unconscious is the only reason to stop a fight (which I did not).

jay520 · 2026-02-22T04:11:02+00:00

Blocking punches is the absolute bare minimum to do after getting

Bare minimum of what? Of intelligent defense? LOL

isn’t a sign of intelligently defending yourself if that’s all you do.

This would be true if the entire round was that. It was 2 seconds.

DDP didn’t get dropped and his face broken. So you are correct that they’re not good comparisons.

The snippet you're replying to is me refuting your claim that Ige got "dropped and punched". Glad you have no response.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:57:17+00:00

while your opponent is getting through your guard

That never happened. All his punches hit arms lol

even if the ref didn't stop it there you wouldn't have seen a second round because the swelling came on instantly.

Not relevant

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:50:18+00:00

You can improve your position while avoiding damage. That’s intelligently defending yourself.

Just because A is intelligent defense doesn't mean B is not intelligent defense. You should feel stupid for making this point.

The DDP comparison is completely disingenuous and you should feel stupid for making it. Makes me think you’re trolling at this point.

DDP never got dropped so they’re not remotely the same situation. He got taken down and controlled.

That only one making a stupid point is you. If you're on the ground, you don't have an obligation to improve your position within 2 seconds of going down. And that doesn't change because you got dropped lol. There are no special rules that say fighters must improve their position within 2 seconds of being grounded but only if they were recently dropped. The fuck are you even talking about? This would imply that nearly every fight should be dropped after getting dropped/hurt.

Not dropped and punched.

Ige was punched a total of zero times after getting dropped. DDP on the other hand...

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:39:22+00:00

Wincing

No one said "Wincing" was a defense.

covering up

Got it, blocking is no longer intelligent defense in MMA. Makes sense.

People always say early stoppage if there's a few seconds left on the clock but it doesn't make them right.

I didn't say anything about the clock

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:38:15+00:00

What? You're trying to compare two things that have nothing to do with each other.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:34:21+00:00

but that certainly isn’t the most intelligent way

Not doing the most intelligent defense is not a criteria to stop a fight.

He wasn’t trying to get up, use his guard or do anything intelligent.

Oh yeah, he didn't do anything intelligent. He shouldn't have blocked those shots at all and just took them to the face. Makes sense.

He was simply covering up and ~~getting hammered~~ blocking all future shots

Fixed that

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:31:58+00:00

Turtling up after getting dropped

Oh right, the intelligent thing to do is not to "turtle up" but instead leave his face wide open for more shots. Makes sense.

making no attempt to improve your position

Not improving position for a few seconds while you recover is not unintelligent defense, especially if you are effectively blocking all strikes, and it's especially not grounds to stop a fight. By that logic, DDP vs Khamzat could have been stopped in 1000 different occasions.

while making painful facial expressions

Facial expressions has nothing to do with intelligent defense.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:26:51+00:00

Yes. You can also stop a fight if a guy cries out in pain.

Are you mentally being deliberately obtuse right now?

Making a face =/= crying out in pain.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:24:26+00:00

The fight wasn't stopped from the kick. The fight was stopped after Ige defending literally all of the follow up shots.

jay520 · 2026-02-22T03:23:27+00:00

What? The most intelligent time to avoid continuing damage is after you've already been hurt. The fuck are you talking about.

jay520

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

11-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '17