Pascal's Wager

[redhotrebel]

In this instance "Slavery w/ the empty promise of social security" vs. Self Reliance. The distinctions are not as clear cut. With Pascal’s Wager you might expect nearly everyone to register towards the God Option. In the Slavery Wager I’d expect a broad spread across the continuum of possibilities.

Pascal's wager is flawed. Because of the multitude of possible religions, if any faith is as likely as the other, the probability of the christian being right is P=1/n where n is the number of possible faiths. If we assume that there is an infinite amount of possible gods (i.e. ideas of gods), the probability of you being right is infinitely small.

Because Pascal's wager fails to tell us which god is likely to be the right one, you have a great probability that you picked the wrong religion and go to some other religion's version of hell. This is referred to as the "avoiding the wrong hell problem".

So you might as well become an Invisible Pink Unicorn follower and a socialist-pinko-commie, to be "on the safe side".

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_pink_unicorns

[Oleksandr]

Pascal's wager is flawed. Because of the multitude of possible religions . . .

Actually, no. If this was the main flaw of the wager it wouldn't be half as bad as it really is. It is pure pragmatism that works with numbers devoid of any connection to reality.

The real flaw of the wager is its outright rejection of principles and certainty.

1) Notice how it is only based on chance and probability.
2) It implicitly rejects the existence or our ability to arrive to truth, certainty about our conclusion.

[musashi]

In Pascal's defense he didn't read his advanced copy of The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics by David Harriman and Leonard Peikoff .

So what I wanna know is can the Invisible Flying Unicorn and the Invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster see each other?

[Oleksandr]

In Pascal's defense he didn't read his advanced copy of The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics by David Harriman and Leonard Peikoff.

One most certaintly does not need to know such an advanced piece of knowledge as theory of induction to know that we need principles to survive as human beings.

[musashi]

The real flaw of the wager is its outright rejection of principles and certainty.

1) Notice how it is only based on chance and probability.
2) It implicitly rejects the existence or our ability to arrive to truth, certainty about our conclusion.

What you state as a flaw, I consider to be an important advance in the rational thought process.

And the blame / credit (depending on your perspective) is not all Pascal’s. He lived in the mid 1600’s. What else was going on around the time?? Well..

• Galileo was being persecuted by the Church for theories that were based upon observation, theories that conflicted with dogma.
  
  Isaac Newton was figuring out calculus and how to predict the orbits of the planets, again based upon observation and calculation.

They lived in an era where the truth was dictated, unquestionable and absolute; and yet they found incongruities. They each arrived at dramatically more complete truths than their predecessors. I consider this era another germination of rational thought after a dark age. An extension of what the Egyptian’s, Greek’s, Roman’s and Persian’s were able to arrive at in the fundamental understanding of truth.

Pascal’s focus on chance and probability may have not arrived at an absolute truth, but his work laid a foundation for philosophers that followed after.

[redhotrebel]

Pascal’s focus on chance and probability may have not arrived at an absolute truth, but his work laid a foundation for philosophers that followed after.

I would have to disagree. Although Pascal may have been ahead of the game in probability and mathematics, his “wager” is far off base. Pascal begins with the premise that the existence or non-existence of God is not provable by human reason. And that is simply not true. And in my opinion tells people to “not think about it any further because you can never be certain anyway...” It gives license to stop thinking rather than to question it further.

His assertion that "If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing" is flawed as well as you lose the one thing you do have, which is your life. If there is no afterlife you’ve spent your life devoted to worship rather than pursuing your own happiness and self interest.

[musashi]

Pascal begins with the premise that the existence or non-existence of God is not provable by human reason. And that is simply not true.

ummmh… In these forums 350 years later, in a new world, we’ve discussed this very question at depth and reached the very same conclusion - the existence of GOD is not provable, nor disprovable. Of course most of us (Muslim Brotherhood excluded) have the advantage of being able to deny the existence of GOD. The heretical option was not available for Pascal.

….And in my opinion tells people to “not think about it any further because you can never be certain anyway...” It gives license to stop thinking rather than to question it further.

That is a fair choice. It’s a choice hundreds of thousands of people made, for thousands of years, as they looked to the heavens. “Why does the GOD Mars appear to go backwards in the night sky? Who the heck cares? The mystical way of GODS are beyond comprehension and certainly… Take license to stop thinking about it.

But the question burns for some folks. And if you figure out why Mars goes backwards.... you might discover probabilistic models for gravity. Those gravity models form foundation science to be used for the deployment of satellites. Get enough satellites and you can talk with a friend on the otherside of the world. On a cell phone, about how partial Probabilistic Truth is insignificant and we should always pursue Absolute Truth.

[musashi]

BTW could Pascal have framed the Wager as a cover, a beard of sorts? A cover to deceive the Inquisition that he was a loyal follower.

Some of the stuff he was working on and writing about could have easy been construed as witchcraft in his day.

[Oleksandr]

The heretical option was not available for Pascal.

Atheism did not exist before 1600s?

That option has been available since Plato's trial.

[musashi]

Atheism did not exist before 1600s?

The heretical option was not available for Pascal.

I’m pretty sure you know this already but there was this little ground swell that had started about 100 years earlier called the Roman, Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions. The ax was very much in full swing. To deny GOD in Pascal’s time would be a major suicidal gesture.

In today’s terms it might be like naming your stuffed animal toy Mohamed or spitting on the side walk in Singapore. Sure people have done those things for years… Do it right now you are inviting serious trouble.

[Oleksandr]

FYI, the topic here for me is the argument. I don't care if there was some psychological reasoning behind the original idea or not.

The fact of a matter is that this argument is still presented in _all_ philosophy classes today as something useful to argue about it when it is complete garbage.


P.S. If you wish to claim that nobody could raise their head during 1500-1700s against God, that's fine but I would split that again into a different thread.

[musashi]

…a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

The fact of a matter is that this argument is still presented in _all_ philosophy classes today as something useful to argue about it when it is complete garbage.

I’d say the wager is garbage under two conditions A) if there is no GOD AND B) if you drank the wrong Koolaid. Under that combination, a worshiper has wasted their tithe.

It is not garbage if A is true. If it turns out there is a GOD – well now you have a chance to suck up and get some type of reward (forget wings, I want the teleportation skill). But the hazard there is you might guess wrong and pick the wrong religion. But under this scenario at least you are in the lottery.

Then there is the winning proposition. If there is a GOD and you get lucky enough to be among the faithful then Pascal’s Wager is absolutely golden. Of course the wager is still assuming that GOD likes sycophants – but hey that is a universal tenant of all religions right?

But what about a seeds and fruit consideration. Does any good from the variety of Religio... Err dilutions around the world? I would say yes, good and bad social outcomes arrive as a result of religions. Could we change the wager (not that these are my judgments)?

In Buddhism you have more to gain and less to loose…
In Zoroastrianism you have less to gain and more to loose…
In Animism you have less to gain and more to loose…

Does this approach get us to local maxima and minima? Sort of the comparative benefits and harms of the various religions.

For the record I’m not Churchy (Olek knows that but others may not).

[Oleksandr]

It is not garbage if A is true.

This is the exactly what this kind of argument does to one's thinking - it tricks you into accepting the arbitrary.

Evil philosopher: "Now, let's consider what should one do if God exits or doesn't . . ."
Poor sap: "God exists?"
E: "He could."
P: "Based on what?"
E: "Doesn't matter, let's just move on"
P: But . . .
E: Don't think about it, our argument is what to do if he does or doesn't exit.
P: But I don't even know why you say he may exist . . .
E: He just may exist.
P: But . . .
E: It doesn't matter. Look do you want to hear the rest of the argument?
P: But what is the point if . . .
E: There is a point if he exists and you don't do act on that.
P: But we didn't even establish what facts of reality lead to a conclusion that . . .
E: I am a Professor!!! Accept the arbitrary now! Move on to the argument! Silence!

[musashi]

That was really funny.

Yep the first of the three possible outcomes is definately the most likely senario.

[HoraceFriendly]

I think the underlying flaw in the wager, as was stated above, is that you would need an infinite data set (e.g. infinite religions, infinite lives) in order for the wager to have any statistical value whatsoever.

For instance using the Monte Carlo method allows one to arrive at the truth by emulating any of the physical possibilities in a given problem an astronomical number of times (e.g. modeling of particle deposition in radiation patients). Without having the boundaries of the problem, and ALL of the possibilities, statistics become meaningless.

Also, I have to agree with the above statement that you DO have something to loose if God does not exist. For instance if Pascale was referencing the Mormon or Catholic religion, he would loose 10% of his income per month which he would have needed to feed his large family.

Finally, I think you could extend his wager to other more tangible life decisions and see how little value it actually has. For instance, "Should I buy the lottery ticket?"

I believe the extension of his wager to this problem would be yes because I would have 'everything to gain and nothing to loose'. In reality calculating two dollars per week, 52 weeks a year, for 10 years (note this is much less than 10% of most peoples income) at 5% interest compounded monthly you would yield $1400 which could pay the co payment for the heart surgery you can't afford for your aging relative. Conversely, the odds of you winning anything are so low that you would have better odds of getting struck by lighting twice ...which are still MUCH better than choosing the correct religion, it being true, DIEING, and benefiting from it.

[musashi]

You can't win if you don't play

I think the underlying flaw in the wager, as was stated above, is that you would need an infinite data set (e.g. infinite religions, infinite lives) in order for the wager to have any statistical value whatsoever.

To me the wager is sort of an early statement of L'Hopital's Rule. This description in Wikipedia focuses on infinity/ a constant. But L'Hopital also considered infinity divided by infinity.

To me the wager is a contrast in two infinitely remove possibilities.
The numerator the existence of God.
The denominator a combination of factors that need to occur for success (religion, tithe, worship, proselytizing, persecution of the infidel, GOD's acceptance of the worshiper, the list goes on and on).

So in the simple form we have Infinity / Infinity (each approaching zero of course).

Notice how L'Hopital even skirted by this issue? The theorem starts with both functions must exist. Its almost like he knew the theorem would cause a storm.

[RoarkRangor]

I also see a problem with Pascal's assumption that hell would be infinitely bad. If the utility of going to hell is not minus infinity but some other finite number (it can still be extremely large) then his argument falls apart. Is it possible to have something happen to you that you experience as infinitely bad?

Another problem is time-discounting. Money I get next year is worth less than money I get right now. The same goes for pain. Over very large time horizons, say after your death, you could claim that stuff that happens after your death is worth to you infinitely less than stuff that happens to you before your death. So even if hell is infinitely bad, you still wouldn’t want to believe in god.

The human mind also has problems grasping very small probabilities and infinity. Even if I can’t prove that god doesn’t exist. The probability that god does exist might (in my mind) approach 0. It is so close to 0 that, for my mind, it is 0. I don’t know about Pascal, but I generally treat stuff that happens to me with a probability of 1/10^99 as it would have a probability of 0. Instead of considering the actual probability (say p), I would consider the limit of p going to 0 and this times infinity. Which would still be 0.

This together with some of the posts above is, in my opinion, enough not to believe in god for statistical reasons.

[Oleksandr]

The human mind also has problems grasping very small probabilities and infinity. Even if I can’t prove that god doesn’t exist. The probability that god does exist might (in my mind) approach 0. It is so close to 0 that, for my mind, it is 0. I don’t know about Pascal, but I generally treat stuff that happens to me with a probability of 1/10^99 as it would have a probability of 0. Instead of considering the actual probability (say p), I would consider the limit of p going to 0 and this times infinity. Which would still be 0.

This is a good example of how absurd the wager really is. The amout of weird stuff and extra variables you can come up with here is only limited by your imagination.