Enough of the Infalliblity Nonsense

[ChinoCoug]

hey Pelagius, show us the link to the graphical representation again.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

An interesting aspect of your model is that the more intelligent, knowledgeable, spiritual you are, the less sense it makes to always follow the prophet, or put another way, your gains are less.

Possibly but I don't know what it means to call someone a prophet if I don't believe on average he has better spiritual judgment than me. There might be more conditional cases where the probability swings in your favor .. but the model wasn't trying to illustrate that idea.

[MikeWaters]

Also, wouldn't a Bayesian approach require that we examine the prophets' past history and accuracy?

(of course, most of us do this. We look at things like blacks and the priesthood, men on Mars, etc. and use this in our determination).

And is it accurate to consider all prophets as emanating from the same base? Or put another way, each prophet has his own level of accuracy and ability, which is hard to determine when he does not actually provide new predictions or statements.

In other words we are able to tell less about a prophet who says "be nice" versus a prophet who says if you are white and you marry a black person, you are going to hell.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Possibly but I don't know what it means to call someone a prophet if I don't believe on average he has better spiritual judgment than me. There might be more conditional cases where the probability swings in your favor .. but the model wasn't trying to illustrate that idea.

And this is why people say "Yeah, that was great advice from the prophet for the members of the church, but it doesn't apply to me because my circumstance is unique."

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Most of the stuff attacking the more conservative or orthodox posters in my view is a bit unfair. Sure, you can find Mormons who believe in something close to infallibility but it is strikes me as a complete straw man of most of the conservative posters positions on the board.

It is very easy to construct a rationale for why someone should act as if the prophet is infallible even if in reality you know he is far from it. Suppose you believe the prophet is fallible and makes mistakes. Suppose on average you think he is right 60% of the time and you believe that you are right only 50% (this example comes from another fellow economist). Then it is perfectly rational to behave as if the prophet is infallible even if you believe like in this example that he is far from it. I suspect in reality this is much closer to the reasoning of many orthodox members. They don't really believe that the prophet is infallible they just think that on average deferring to the prophets advice given some previous signal about the prophets spiritual judgment will give them better results on average (but far from perfect results).

Note also that one can have serious doubts and it still make sense to employ this decision rule. Suppose you believe there is 51% chance that the President of the Church is a prophet. Also, suppose that if he is a prophet then there is a 70% chance he is correct, but if he is not there is only a 40% probability he is correct. If this is the case, then your subjective probability that the prophet is correct is 0.51*0.7 + 0.49*0.4 = 55.3%. In this example you have serious doubts but it still may be optimal to follow the decision rule to behave as if the prophet was infallible.

Now one can argue that in certain situations based on a set of covariates the probabilities change. I'm fine with that. I think one might be able to make a reasonable argument in that regard. But please be fair to more conservative posters, their willingness to follow the prophet fairly unconditionally may be very far removed from some notion of infallibility and may in a very thoughtful was allow for serious doubts.

I don't doubt that many people in the church feel the way you just described, but I would hardly think they are a majority of the active members. If you were to pose a question to most Mormons about what percentage of the time the prophet is correct, what percent would you guess they come up with? Do you really think it may be as low as 60%?

If you were to phrase the question more specifically, such as "what percent of the time is the prophet correct on spiritual matters," I bet you get a response of 100% a majority of the time. If you ask "what percent of the time is the prophet correct when he speaks in General Conference," I also bet you hear 100% a majority of the time.

Mormons may, in the back of their mind, believe that the prophet can sometimes state a personal opinion that isn't factual, but when pressed for examples most won't come up with any, and when asked if the prophet can lead the church astray, most will say "no."

The church leaders themselves have stated many things that strongly suggest the prophet is infallible (and not just "more likely than the average human to get it right").

While your analysis may be correct for some, and even possibly for a majority on CG, I certainly don't think it is close to representative of the feelings of most active church members.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Also, wouldn't a Bayesian approach require that we examine the prophets' past history and accuracy?

Of course that's were the hypothetical 50% and 60% come from. They are the Bayesian unconditional priors ... Given a lot of data the posterior should not change very much so updating would only cause small changes.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

Mormons may, in the back of their mind, believe that the prophet can sometimes state a personal opinion that isn't factual, but when pressed for examples most won't come up with any, and when asked if the prophet can lead the church astray, most will say "no."

Those are two very different things. As to the 2nd, is that really all that surprising given that prophet after prophet after prophet has said it?

What are the relative odds of any given member, orthodox or not, disagreeing with a doctrine that has been repeated by multiple prophets over decades of church leadership?

[FMCoug]

There is a spiritual aspect to this that is missing in this discussion. I for one coudn't care less what % of the time the prophet is right/wrong. I believe that I will be blessed for following his counsel, regardless. And I would apply this to other leaders as well. Obedience brings blessings.

But then maybe I'm a mullah.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Of course that's were the hypothetical 50% and 60% come from. They are the Bayesian unconditional priors ... Given a lot of data the posterior should not change very much so updating would only cause small changes.

I think, it can be argued, that many members believe the data line to heaven has changed from Joseph Smith to Thomas Monson.

That is, they might have more confidence that something unsettling from JS was true, while less certain that something TM said was true.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by FMCoug

There is a spiritual aspect to this that is missing in this discussion. I for one coudn't care less what % of the time the prophet is right/wrong. I believe that I will be blessed for following his counsel, regardless. And I would apply this to other leaders as well. Obedience brings blessings.

But then maybe I'm a mullah.

Most of the time.

But in a lot of the most contentious or controversial cases, it is when a member is asked to obey a local church leader.

For example, I believe the men that followed their leaders during the MMM, eventually came to deeply regret that decision. I don't think they felt blessed at all.

So I have big-time problems with the idea that one should just obey and not consider whether it is wise to accept the counsel.