Pascal's wager

Well... what country do you live in?

 

I found much of Pascal's writings, and perhaps even more so modern criticism of it,
extremely difficult to understand. OK, I'm neither a mathematician, logician, or
philosopher. This has lead me to believe that in Pascal's day, a time before universal
public education, few if any of the "common man" had any realization that concepts
such as the Wager existed, nevermind had the ability to understand whence it came and
what it purported to be. I would set my own Wager that few average folk who walk the
earth today can puzzle their way through a discussion of such deeply fundamental
religious issues and confidently claim a complete understanding. I for one cannot do so.

My coming to not intensely dislike Blaise Pascal and deeply mistrust anything that is
attributed to him was finding this summarization of the universal uncertainties that he
identified as confronting anyone who sets out to explore the boundary between reason
and faith:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Column 6	Column 7	Column 8
0	Category	Quotation(s)
1	Uncertainty in all	This is what I see	and what troubles me. I look on all sides	and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet.
2	Uncertainty in Man's purpose	For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity	all in relation to nothing	a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either.
3	Uncertainty in reason	There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
4	Uncertainty in science	There no doubt exist natural laws	but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted	it corrupted everything.
5	Uncertainty in religion	If I saw no signs of a divinity	I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator	I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him	and too little to assure me	I am in a pitiful state	and I would wish a hundred times that if a god sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity... We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others.
6	Uncertainty in skepticism	It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To me this means that there is always room to doubt, and perhaps more importantly,
there is always a reason to look behind statements, supposed facts, and beliefs, to
identify the uncertainties on which they are built or which were assumed away in a
representation that they wholly answer some thorny issue.

Monsieur Pascal, je vous adresse mes plus vifs remerciements.
(I send you my most sincere thanks.)

[Edit] NB: I do not speak French, I had to look that up. :redface:

 

Don't remind me
OK. We are free in spirit!



Is everyone cleared up about the wager so that we can get our pancakes already?

 

Nope.

African-Americans had Martin Luther King going the high road - no well-known secular equivalent.

 

Black history goes a little further than MLK.

 

I feel compelled to point out that Pascal's Wager may be a case of the logical fallacy of,

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false
choice, black-and-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of
logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered,
when in fact there are additional options (sometimes shades of grey between the
extremes)...

False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a
choice (such as, in some contexts, the assertion that "if you are not with us, you are
against us"). But the fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional
options rather than by deliberate deception…
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma]False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


If this is a false dilemma, there needs to be some other choice between god/no-god and
theist/atheist. (I see either one of these dichotomies as responsive to a fundamental
question of how to live a "good" life.)

There is an organization/union/community of people who aspire to live moral lives
without sole reliance on, or denial of, formal religious convictions:

The Ethical Societies have no creed of theology or metaphysics, no set doctrines
concerning the unknown mysteries of life. There is no claim to a belief in a
supernatural universe or Supreme Being, or to a belief in any one scripture as the
source of absolute truth or belief in an afterlife or another world. Nor is there any set
ritual or form of worship.

The basic viewpoint is one of freedom for the individual to work out one's own
personal formulation of one's attitude toward the unknown and the mysteries of life,
such questions as the nature of ultimate reality and death.
American Ethical Union

There are brick and mortar Ethical Societies/Unions in but a handful of US cities.
Not to worry, if pursuing this idea interests you, there is an Ethical Culture Without
Walls site on the Inter-web:
Ethical Society Without Walls

 

Missed the point - the Black community went beyond angry militants.

 

The poem does not presume a loving god, it does not even presume a just god. It considers the probability of god and on how one's actions in life influencing an infinite afterlife (or reincarnation process.). The vast majority of religions have some of those components, including many that predate Christianity. See the chart at The Big Religion Comparison Chart: Compare World Religions - ReligionFacts

Since very early humans, back to neanderthals, buried their dead with life-time tools/clothing, etc, it is reasonable to presume that even very early humans, before any formal religions, found a desire to believe in life after death. Most animals don't seem to burry their dead (though some chimps and elephants partially burry family members they don't add food or other elements for the afterlife).

It does not have to cover all religions, its about the ODDS. You are welcome to believe what you want, but the point of the poem is what is the risk/costs if you are wrong and choose ignore possibility of god and an infinite afterlife. If the universalist's are wrong and Hindu's are correct, then you loose. When playing in a game with uncertainty, the logical choice is not to does not just choose one and hope.

While some religions require belief, and others are just about what you do, the final point of the poem is that if the god of one's belief is just it cannot condem people just for the belief in the wrong religion. (And though the poem does not state it, if there is a god but god is not at least just, then following the rules does not insure anything. Since so many billions must be in the wrong religion, and god has not provided reasonable evidence for what is right, either there is no god, god is unjust or the "other religions are wrong" aspect of religion is an artifact of people and hence does not impact the afterlife.

I totally agree (and the poem addressees) that issues of fundamentalists putting down other religions, is about people trying to control other people.

I may not have reached enlightenment, but am enlightened enough to understand probability and the risks making an infinite error. And I'm enlightened enough to at least own a Volt;-)

 

Huh? You speak to the character of God of The Holy Bible all the time. The Bible tells us everything we need to know about the character of God. It is up to the reader to believe it (faith) or not. It all boils down to that D.

 

I must disagree on three levels:

First I did not compute an actual probability, I develop formulas and then consider possible bindings and outcomes. One can reason about possible outcomes based on such models and do a what-if analysis. The only needed facts are building a modle and then playing ASSUMING possible values. Doing what-if is, as you say, making them up, but it allows one to draw conclusions about possible outcomes. So one can draw lots of conclusions without hard data, just by doing a what-if analysis.

Second: I do not need to have first had knowledge to believe something. I've never been to China, yet I believe the wall exists because enough others have been there and said it does. I have never seen an electron, but believe they exist because models that "use them" allow many things I use to operate according to the prescribed theories. I've never see an moor and yet know I how the heather looks. From a Descartesian view, even my own experiences could all just be an illusion. In a more modern view, maybe we're all stuck in the matrix. But I choose to believe otherwise and my experiences have taught me that I can believe some aspects of what others relate, especially if there is a consistent model which can describe many different views.


Third: I also understand Gödel's incompleteness theorem and hence there are many things we cannot "prove" are either true or false within our limited logic system. The existence or non-existence of a god or an afterlife, and its finite or infinite, could easily be one limited by our logic. I believe there can be no proof, but that does not not stop me reasoning about possible outcomes, if true with probably p and if not true with probability (1-p).

I'll agree there are many possible models of "god", including capricious ones, loving one, just one, and even none, with many models in between. One can consider the god and afterlife of every major religion as a starting basis for analysis. And while there can be many others, the question is not how many god-models and afterlife-models can there be, but is there a life-path with better outcomes across most models. The poem was about my analysis of that. And with so many religions having an infinite afterlife model, with karma or justice effecting the outcome, if any of those models are correct, then taking a risk for a short-term finite gain (in a life of pleasure at the expense of others), vs an infinite loss is bad bet. The only way "no god" is a good bet is if I am absolutely 100% sure, i.e. the probably the existing religions are right must be exactly 0. I cannot prove that p=0, and hence consider it a risky bet. As I said in the poem, Infinity*p is still infinity.


I did not tell people what to believe, just discussed the analysis. I did not even say what i personally believe as that is irrelevant to anyone else but me. Pascal's wager does not need one to believe in a christian god, but simply in any religion that has an infinite afterlife. It could be Karma and not god that determines how one's next life is spent, but either way the infinite gain vs finite loss formula's still apply. Even if one follows Budda and its just Transmigration, its still repeat until you get it right (well at least in some subsects, maybe its just random).

 

Sure sounds like Pascal's Wager to me. We've been through this, Sisyphus.

And what's with the assumption that non-belief implies a life of pleasure at the expense of others?

My apologies for jumping on a typo - these sorts of things just seem to jump out at me - but I think maybe you meant to say 'discussed', rather than 'disused'. Totally different meaning.

 

Pascal's wager was based in a christian model, I was just pointing out that it applies to a much broader based of religion. I was also pointing out that any religion that condemns people for not believing their particular model suffers a problem as there are too many such religions for a just god to allow that, so either there is no just god or the "believe or burn" is model developed by people to exploit other people and grow their worldly power.


You don't have to presume non-beliefs a life of pleasure at the expense of others, but that is just the most extreme example. Taking advantage of others may provide more short term monetary gain, e.g. stealing to support a drug habit may make some people "happy" because it enables their drug use. Killing people and taking their positions can provide material gain. But one should ask at what cost? (Including, but not only including, the risk of getting caught.)

If your non-belief does not exploit/harm others then there is little material gain between that model and one consistent with good Karma, or christian living. Even in Pascal's original gambit, the idea is that if you are already that living that way is close to belief and may increase your eventual chance of true belief.

Thanks for pointing out the typo(fixed now). I'm blind to them.

 

The Holy Bible tells us what a group of men wanted to tell us; a group of editors, if I may use that term. They made decisions on what to keep in and what to cut out. How do we know they made the right choices? For example, one of my favorites, The Gospel of Thomas, was left on the cutting room floor.

After all of this human tampering, I'm not sure we can say that the Bible tells us everything we need to know abut the character of God.

Tom

 

if you believe we cannot know if there is a god, then it is improper to conjecture about its character, including to assert one cannot know its character. If someone has first-hand experiences they may be able to conclude both. Those of us lacking that have only beliefs and the character is no different than the existence.

It is not circular and more importantly, it was not what was stated.
The bet being a good bet hinges entirely on the infinite afterlife. If one's belief is seeking enlightenment to reach nirvana, there is no need for their to be a just god to reach the conclusion.

There is simply more evidence for the existence of china, but I have no first hand evidence of either. You and I have no first-hand evidence for the existence of god, others claim to have had conversations. I can say that is unlikely, but I cannot say it is no evidence. Even if I had a personal experience, I could dismiss it as hallucinations, so all evidence is only expected likelihood's of events. There is no evidence of black holes, yet I believe they exist too.

Not true. One can consider their likelihood of the assumptions being true, based on what ever weak evidence exists, and draw conclusions. You may say something has no evidence, but maybe others consider the same data as evidence.

No, reversing the assumptions does not reverse the odds. Reversing the assumptions only reverses odds if there are only two possible outcomes. When there are infinitely many outcomes,b as in this case, reversing assumptions may not change the outcomes. In formulas that include going to infinity, all the "finite" terms are ignorable, in the limit. Converting an assumption of infinity to finite does not reverse the odds.

If there is a "backwards god" exists, that has chosen not provided sufficient evidence to convince billions of people that is the correct model, then the backwards god can be considered capricious, and hence would provide only an inconsistent reward model.

Evidence exists in terms of people who believe. I can neither confirm nor refute the "evidence" the provide, but when many make the claim it lends increasing evidence to the belief. In taking a bet one can consider such "evidence" . The number of people that believe in your hypothetical reversed god are so small, there is greater evidence for an infinite non-reversed god as well as societal evidence for a non-interfering god but a process of reincarnation until enlightenment.
You can say the beliefs of billions are not evidence, but I would say its at least weak evidence in which one should try to find the common elements.

If you are 100% sure, then there are no odds to consider. For any other situation its about the odds of and cost of each outcome. There are many bets whose expected payout may be "0" and any bet that pays more than 0 is a "better bet". There can be many bets with a non-zero payoff which are equal or nearly equal.

If you try to find the common elements across the different beliefs, its not about if you believe, but how you behave and treat others. As I tried to analyze, it is more logical that the "believe or burn" is the outcome of people trying to gain power than the rules of any just god. So if you consider any of the religions that have a "just god", either a) they are wrong an there is not god at all, b)their god is not just enough to provide evidence to convince people from other religions, c) there is/are a god(s) shared consistent across many religions but members of that particular religion distorted their god(s)' wishes for personal power. (let me know if you see a 4th option).

You can then analyze possible outcomes for these.

We cannot know if we will win if one buys a lottery ticket. that does not make the wager worthless, just uncertain. The payoff in this case is only known after we are dead.


As i said you can clearly use logic to conclude things without direct evidence. Proof by contradiction does exactly that. In fact Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, is a great example. It proves there are things we cannot prove, but does not give evidence of what statements fall into that category of unprovable things.

 

I respectfully disagree. Many of the NT authors (the disciples) where eye-witnesses but yes many were also illiterate. That is why most of the text was written by scribes. I assume that is what you meant by "editors". This probably explains why things were not written down immediately after they happened. But passing on history by word of mouth was the practice of the day.

For the same reason anyone believes the Bible at all.

Timothy 3:16 -

emphasis added.

And please don't tell me that doesn't prove anything.

I read the book of Thomas and can't say there was anything in of worth (my POV). In fact I felt like I needed a shower afterwards.

Tampering? Even after many translations, the Bible's message remains intact as verified in part by the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Bible remains as it was for almost a couple thousand years, longer if you consider just the OT, and it will remain till the heavens and the earth pass-away. It is a guarantee from God... take it or leave it.