Pascal's Wager

Value Collector said:

well I guess we have nothing to discuss, because that's not the definition of belief.

belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true.

I think your just changing the definition of belief to fit your argument.

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Perhaps we have nothing to discuss.

If the literal meaning of belief is taken and sincerity that cannot arise from the Pascal wager is cast iron required, there really is nothing to discuss.

However, in order to believe you have to have cognition at a sufficent level to truely have a capability to believe. That would exclude a few people: those who die too young to even say their first word, those who are mentally impaired from birth, those who acquired mental impairment after birth (senility etc), those who never heard of the concept of deities and certainly not ever had the opportunity to choose to sincerely believe because they were not offered choices, were not supernaturally capable enough to devine that they were following a false God and to know which the right God is, forced into a religion when young and held there by society...

I think there might possibly be a God that would let these people in depsite the lack of belief in Him. Maybe. All that is needed is the possibility.


Then we extract an objection from the strident athiest debunkers. They say that it should be reasonable to accept that good deeds, good conduct...as a price for passage. There is no need to believe in God whilst on the planet. Should God exist, then surely He will grant passage. Some notable athiests offer the concept of "not enough evidence, God" as the argument they will proffer if there should be a God, expecting that this serves as sufficient mitigation.

Hence, even the athiests and debunkers allow for the fact that literal belief is not needed for entry. That's the reason they feel safe in athiesm. They have a whopping, free, put option on heaven. Actions which are consistent with the dictates and values of God may be sufficient. That's all that is needed. In fact, there is a lower order argument that saying "how should I have known that you existed" is sufficient defense. Hence behaviours are taken to be acceptable whatever they may be because he couldn't have known any better.

Hence, belief is not even a requirement for entry, let alone sincere belief, in the arguments presented by athiests.


Then there are the religions that do not require a deity but operate via a code of conduct. Something like Bhuddism, say. In other words, there is no ethereal deity to believe in, but a code of conduct to follow.


All that is required is the possibility that any one of the above might be true. These things happen today. They are debated. They are practiced. They are quite mainstream.


From the above, and given the context, I think it is reasonable to take the concept of 'believe in God' to mean a suitable set of practices that will allow the possibility entry to some salvation. There is no certainty that a particular set of actions will result in entry, there is only the possibility. It is a belief in the existence of suitable behaviours. This is a much wider concept than a deist centered God which requires sincere and deliberate belief. Does any possible concept of God have to conform to this requirement? This may be your opinion. It is not actually a requirement for the set up. He just says "God". God can be a variety of things, not just of the type espoused in the major deist-centric religions. The people tearing down the wager allow for the fact that belief isn't even required.

We are not actually arguing about the narrow definition of 'belief'. We are arguing about what constitutes the definition of God. To you it is some deity up on high with a set of rules to gain entry including belief in Him. Who said that was right? Clearly there are many people who think otherwise and live their lives accordingly. All that is required is a -belief - that the possibility exists where they might be right. They believe that what they are doing is consistent with avoiding damnation. Their actions do not, ultimately, have to be right. They just have to be possibly right just before the truth is actually revealed.

If this is not acceptable and we must maintain a narrow definition which exlcudes sincerity if it arises from Pascal's logic but requires it for entry, this toy isn't even a toy. It's "you can't win" right out of the box. That would be incredibly boring and the wager would not be spoken of 400 years or so later if it were so - possibly. And that is all it takes.

Weatsop said:

Have a good hard look at the world.

If god exists, he's an ********.

If I believed, it would be to curse the idiot out.

If there really is a benevolent god, then he's set the universe up in a way that any decent, caring, rational being would be an atheist. Only atheists go to heaven, because god doesn't want to spend eternity with suckups, liars and idiots.

I call it Weatsop's wager.

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Pascal is going to have to take a back seat.

herzy said:

Ok RY, I see your point that we take this as an isolated exercise in logic.

If we look at it as a toy, in which only one concept of god is conceived, and we have a binary choice, and we assume that we can logically choose to believe in something we didn't previously - then yes, Pascal is right.

Thus the problem between theory and practice:
- there are many gods
- they conflict
- it's not a binary choice
- there are degrees of punishment, reward, and conflicting rules in the various religions
- we can't logic ourselves into belief. I bold this last one, because even if we analyse it only from Pascal's artificial parameters, it doesn't make sense.

For this reason I had always assumed Pascal - an intelligent man - had made this comment tongue-in-cheek.

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No argument there, for the most part. That was quick.

The whole set-up would be different given your move to 'practice' (how did you determine what practice was, BTW? ). There are various different set-ups that can take into account the sorts of things which you are raising. The conclusions necessarily differ because the nature of the problem has changed. In different versions, you can have much more choice than yes/no. What you have described is a different toy and has many more features. The Pascal-classic cannot handle that degree of parameterization.

A lot of objections to Pascal's wager have been made on the basis of what you have said. To me, this is like some pure maths thing like proving that a line passes through the edge of a circle or not. I am not invested in the religious elements or moral arguments. It's just a toy....which is used in game theory settings. It is also used by global warming protagonists, for example. Better not load up on Carbon because we might scorch the atmosphere..possibly.

If the conditions are known and set, the problem will have a solution which is internally consistent. Load it up with axioms like the circle only exists in the 9th dimension and a different set of proofs will be required. It doesn't make the first one wrong at all. This whole thing is an exercise in decision theory under a single scenario. Change the scenario...get different outcomes. If the nature of the problem involves the 9th dimension for you, then use a tool that suits purpose.

I too reckon that Pascal was just trying it on, or just using it to liven up a dinner conversation. This is tic-tac-toe. He's possibly in Heaven pissing himself right now. Or maybe not. It's hard to know.

Just a minor thing on the sincere belief part. Some would argue that the effort alone is worth it. That's just an argument which has been made. Alternatively, belief is not actually required. Why must a God actually require belief from His subjects? It isn't necessarily so. It's just we generally see the kind of religions that require it. We shouldn't generalize.

DeepState said:

No argument there, for the most part. That was quick.
The Pascal-classic cannot handle that degree of parameterization.

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Hence people not really seeing the point of the wager.

DeepState said:

A lot of objections to Pascal's wager have been made on the basis of what you have said.

It's just a toy....which is used in game theory settings.

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Understood

DeepState said:

It is also used by global warming protagonists, for example. Better not load up on Carbon because we might scorch the atmosphere..possibly.

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You sound like you're a sceptic? Wouldn't Pascal's wager support climate action? Even if the disbelieving 3% of scientist deniers happen to be right?

DeepState said:

If the conditions are known and set, the problem will have a solution which is internally consistent.

...

Just a minor thing on the sincere belief part. Some would argue that the effort alone is worth it. That's just an argument which has been made. Alternatively, belief is not actually required. Why must a God actually require belief from His subjects? It isn't necessarily so. It's just we generally see the kind of religions that require it. We shouldn't generalize.

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Now you're the one going beyond the bounds of Pascal's wager, which says that belief is necessary for the reward. As such, Pascal's wager is inherently inconsistent.

Pascal belonged to a type of Christianity that believes in the elect - that is (and this is pretty logical, really) that god already knows who is going to paradise and who isn't. God knows everything about you, and no act you can make will change his mind. Life is more about you coming to terms with god's decision, not about god waiting to see what you're like.

If you have faith, it's because god gave it to you. God creates the elect and the non-elect alike. It's not super-fair, but it does make a lot more sense than the free-will folk.

So from his point of view, faith was just something you "had", and thinking about it as per the Wager was more about whether you should reject that faith, or feel good about having it. It's more for potential apostates than people sitting on the sidelines.

...and of course, if you're in the elect you won't lose your faith, and if you're not in the elect nothing you do matters, so yeah, the Wager is more of a comforter for those who think they're the elect, than an attempt to convince anyone of anything.

That's also why he didn't consider the possibility of other gods. Obviously it's HIS god, or no-ones.

The Wager is an example of a smart dude thinking silly things on account of his god getting in the way.

herzy said:

Now you're the one going beyond the bounds of Pascal's wager, which says that belief is necessary for the reward. As such, Pascal's wager is inherently inconsistent.

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It might seem so based on what I cut and paste.

Please see entries #2 and #21.

Then, from Artist's post. Here is the actual proposition from Pascal. It doesn't actually use the word 'believe' that has attracted so much attention in this discussion....probably because the cut and paste I grabbed had the word in there. Wow...never would have guessed it would be so central.



Simply, God is or He is not. You must wager that He is. Wager does not necessarily require belief. A wager is a bet. It just means act in accordance with the fact that God exists. It is us that imposes the concept of 'belief'. That is a tighter definition that is not expressed. Nothing there excludes the possibility of believing in no ethereal deity like a Bhuddist. They still act in a way which is consistent with a wager that their system of beliefs ("God") exists. Moving in accordance with this set of beliefs has big consequences for a Bhuddist.

Further:



Again, the idea is wager. It does not exclusively require belief in a single deity.

Before getting further wrapped up in the semantics, this is a decision matrix and it is clear that this is about what to do when there are infinitely extreme outcomes associated with choices under deep uncertainty. It is this which Pascal's Wager is about. The most extreme outcomes imaginable happen to be eternal damnation or salvation. However, many things could substitute for that. He could have just said "Outcome A is really really really bad, so bad that I cannot measure it......you do not know what the chances are....therefore you must choose the left door". I hope you see the point. Pascal's wager is just a logic/game-theory problem wrapped up in religion because it gets a lot more attention that way. He was clearly right.

As mentioned, it can be applied to a range of settings like global warming. BTW I express no opinion in using that example and wonder how you can conclude that I am a skeptic or of any persuasion. But, yes, this is the type of situation where it can be argued that you have to take action because the risk of no action is possibly catastrophic. However, in reality, it then bumps up against the shortfalls of the Precautionary Principle. Don't get started on that one.

It is everywhere. That's why the "wager" is hardly debunked or inconsistent and survives to this day. Parsing it and dealing with semantics in a religious context is just how the wager generates conversation and gives stage time to Dawkins, Hitchens and their acolytes. Parsing it and arguing semantics is not what the problem is about. Stick it in a non-religious context and no-one has a problem with the basic concept. It is still Pascal's Wager, just dressed up differently. Damnation = Unacceptably Bad Outcome. God = Possible Defense Against Bad Outcome. Therefore, wager for God. Everywhere.

I stopped reading the wager when it said "reason can decide nothing here".


... just kidding.

Fair point. I see your point, and disagree with anything.

As to the climate change point, I misread 'protagonist' as propagandist, and inferred a negative connotation from that. My mistake.

I'm happy to get into precautionary principle lol because it seems that, when reduced to its elements, there's not really much to add regarding poor Pascal.

The Pope, who I might mention has a Certificate of Infallibility stamped by god, says that even atheists go to heaven.

So take that, Pascal