Another view of "Pascal's Wager"

[Gorgias]

One accepts either one of these, if one feels that these propositions are adequately established (even if the process to establish their veracity is totally different).

In other words, one engages his rationality and comes to a decision, to which he assents through his own volition.

Yes, you’re right. That’s why your “belief does not admit of volitionality” claim fails.

There is no “choice” involved if there is only one outcome. (Even MPat understood this.) If there is no “other” outcome, there is no way to evoke “volition” in accepting the inevitable final result.

There are always at least two choices: to believe or to not believe. And that choice is made volitionally.

 

[laylow]

Only if you throw a dice to make that decision.

That’s essentially what most people do, except they prefer to let someone else throw the die for them.

 

[Sophia]

In other words, one engages his rationality and comes to a decision, to which he assents through his own volition.

Not exactly. One engages one’s rationality and arrives at a conclusion (not a decision)! There is no “decision” involved in accepting one’s own rational conclusion. Now, it is possible that your usage of “belief” and “decision” follow some personal, esoteric definition, which has nothing to do with the common definition.

There are always at least two choices: to believe or to not believe. And that choice is made volitionally.

No matter how many times are you going to repeat this, it will not become true. It is impossible to reject the conclusion one reaches at the end of a rational line of thought. Maybe an idiot might do it, that I don’t know. But no rational person can say: “I experience the rain, but I will volitionally choose not to believe that it is raining.” Or the reverse: “I see no clouds in the sky, feel no wetness pouring down on me, see no lightning either, but I will volitionally decide that there is severe thunderstorm is underway”.

It is rather amusing that you try to argue both ways. Previously you said that it is irrational to expect that one can volitionally assent to a conclusion that is rejected by a rational line of thought. (Choose to believe something that you KNOW is incorrect). Now you argue the opposite, that one needs to engage volition to believe. Can’t you make up your mind?

 

[Gorgias]

It is impossible to reject the conclusion one reaches at the end of a rational line of thought. Maybe an idiot might do it, that I don’t know. But no rational person can say: “I experience the rain, but I will volitionally choose not to believe that it is raining.”

But that’s precisely what you’ve asked us to demonstrate, as if the question of volitionality depends on it – that we can choose something that we know not to be true! And yes, that’s why the response has been “that’s idiotic”!

Therefore, the response is – and remains – “asking for a square circle does not prove anything in this debate!”

 

[Bradskii]

I used to accept the case for Christianity. When I was relatively young. A rather facile interpretation of what God was, but it was a child’s view. As is the case with almost all Christians, I was brought up in the faith and accpeted it as I accepted everything that my parents told me.

Then as I grew older and more questioning (as all children do), I started an internal debate abojt what all these stories were meant to actually represent. When it came time for my confirmation (in the C of E) and there were some relatively serious conversations about what was expected of me, I cam to what was then an uncomfortable realisation that I was meant, not just to accept what I was being told, but to believe it as well.

Hence the start of my atheism. Because I realised, even when quite young, that I couldn’t believe something if I couldn’t accept the evidence for it.

The process one goes through to reach a belief in any proposition is firstly to be given the evidence for that proposition. You cannot believe in something without having knowledge of it. Pretty obvious I know, but it needs stating as the first step.

The second step is to decide whether the information is true. Now we can use our intellect to do this. We can compare it to information that puts forward the opposite case. We can accept it because we trust the source. However we do this it is an involuntary process. We cannot accept something as being false yet decide that it is true. Now our decision may be wrong. The source might be unreliable. Our intellect undeveloped. The information insufficent. Alternative information for the opposite case may be missing or from a source we don’t trust. Either way, depending on the information we have (and deciding which information we choose to investigate is a voluntary choice), the decision we reach as to the veracity of the information is involuntary. We cannot accept information we know to be false and cannot reject information we know to be true.

Believe is then the automatic result of that process.

 

[MPat]

I am using the word in the one and only correct meaning and context: “to accept the veracity of a proposition as true”.

It hasn’t been shown that that is “the one and only correct meaning and context”. But we can afford to accept it anyway. Especially given that this your definition has the word “accept” which indicates something for the will to do.

One accepts either one of these, if one feels that these propositions are adequately established (even if the process to establish their veracity is totally different).

And here we have a different word - “feels”. It hints at what might be your problem. It might be that by “belief” you mean the feeling of believing. And then yes, will has no direct control over it.

The difference can be seen after looking at any argument with “reductio ad absurdum”: we can “simulate” act of will and make a temporary assumption that is later shown to lead to contradiction. But we do not “simulate” the feeling of believing it.

Not exactly. One engages one’s rationality and arrives at a conclusion (not a decision)!

And how did you reach this very conclusion?

It is impossible to reject the conclusion one reaches at the end of a rational line of thought. Maybe an idiot might do it, that I don’t know.

Ah, but if it is possible for an idiot, then it is possible!

Which is what we are claiming.

And you here seem to be claiming that it is merely irrational to reject the conclusion. And here we do not claim otherwise.

Although accepting a conclusion of an argument (as opposed to the conclusion of a good argument) is not always a good idea. There are many sophisms. And one really shouldn’t just accept the conclusion of a sophism.

There is no “choice” involved if there is only one outcome. (Even MPat understood this.) If there is no “other” outcome, there is no way to evoke “volition” in accepting the inevitable final result.

Yes, if there is just one option, will doesn’t have much to do.

But you have yet to demonstrate that there can never be a second option. And that’s what you have to do. Instead, the atheist side offers some cases when only one option exists or is supposed to exist, while doing their best to avoid other examples (for example, P=NP).

St. Thomas Aquinas also points out that first principles are accepted without will doing much (“Summa Theologica”, First Part of the Second Part, Question 17, Article 6 - http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/FS/FS017.html#FSQ17A6THEP1): “If, therefore, that which the reason apprehends is such that it naturally assents thereto, e.g. the first principles, it is not in our power to assent or dissent to the like: assent follows naturally,”.

But he also affirms that there are other cases: “But some things which are apprehended do not convince the intellect to such an extent as not to leave it free to assent or dissent, or at least suspend its assent or dissent, on account of some cause or other;”.

 

[MPat]

The process one goes through to reach a belief in any proposition is firstly to be given the evidence for that proposition.

The second step is to decide whether the information is true.

Yep. And the part of mind that handles decisions is usually called “will”.

We cannot accept something as being false yet decide that it is true.

Sure, but that is a simple contradiction: “accept” is simply “to decide it is true”. Of course, one cannot both accept and reject the same proposition at the same time and in the same respect - that’s just an application of Law of Non-contradiction.

Which is why most “experiments” that are used to check if beliefs can be willed fail: they demand that one would both accept and reject the proposition, and that’s impossible.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

The process one goes through to reach a belief in any proposition is firstly to be given the evidence for that proposition.

The second step is to decide whether the information is true.

Yep. And the part of mind that handles decisions is usually called “will”.

We cannot accept something as being false yet decide that it is true.

Sure, but that is a simple contradiction: “accept” is simply “to decide it is true”. Of course, one cannot both accept and reject the same proposition at the same time and in the same respect - that’s just an application of Law of Non-contradiction.

Which is why most “experiments” that are used to check if beliefs can be willed fail: they demand that one would both accept and reject the proposition, and that’s impossible.

The part of the mind that handles conscious decisions is called the will. As in: Will I have a beer right now (yes, as it turns out). Do I believe it will be cold? Well, I need some information. My wife says she put the beer in the fridge an hour ago. That’s information from someone I trust so I will accept that as a fact. The fridge is cold. That’s information from experimentation (I just opened the door to check). So I will accept that as fact. And beer will transfer it’s heat to the the refrigerant being oumped through the fridge. I will accept that as a fact from previous experience.

Now all that information might be wrong. But having accepted the validity of each parcel of information - one could say I did so voluntarily, then the RESULT of that acceptance is a belief that the beer will be cold when I go to get it.

I have to make a conscious decision on whether to accept the information or discard it. But having accepted it, I have no choice but to believe it. That belief is entirely involuntary. Otherwise it could be said that if we accepted information as being true then we could consciously decide not to believe what it indicates.

Naturally, we all know that if you already believe something and then receive information that contradicts that belief, we can make a conscious decision to reject that evidence. For example, someone might say they overheard your wife booking a motel room with a work colleague. But you believe she’s faithful to you so you might reject it as being unreliable.

So accepting or rejecting information can be an act of the will, but the resulting belief is not.

 

[Sophia]

There are always at least two choices: to believe or to not believe. And that choice is made volitionally.

You keep on asserting that there are ALWAYS at least two choices. And when I show you that it is NOT true, that one cannot rationally choose something that is incorrect, you backpedal without admitting it. It is not my question that is irrational; what it is BASED upon is irrational.

Ah, but if it is possible for an idiot, then it is possible!

Are you going to base your argument on an idiot???

That reminds me of an old story in the zoo. An old spinster asks the zookeeper if the exhibited rhinoceros is a male or a female one. The zookeeper answers: “Ma’am, that question can only be relevance to another rhinoceros”.

 

[MPat]

The part of the mind that handles conscious decisions is called the will. As in: Will I have a beer right now (yes, as it turns out). Do I believe it will be cold? Well, I need some information. My wife says she put the beer in the fridge an hour ago. That’s information from someone I trust so I will accept that as a fact. The fridge is cold. That’s information from experimentation (I just opened the door to check). So I will accept that as fact. And beer will transfer it’s heat to the the refrigerant being oumped through the fridge. I will accept that as a fact from previous experience.

Now all that information might be wrong. But having accepted the validity of each parcel of information - one could say I did so voluntarily, then the RESULT of that acceptance is a belief that the beer will be cold when I go to get it.

I have to make a conscious decision on whether to accept the information or discard it. But having accepted it, I have no choice but to believe it. That belief is entirely involuntary. Otherwise it could be said that if we accepted information as being true then we could consciously decide not to believe what it indicates.

By analogy, one can also “prove” that raising a hand is not an act of will, for one can’t do that while weightlifting given that the weight is sufficient.

You have to show that choosing is always impossible, not only that sometimes it is too difficult.

Naturally, we all know that if you already believe something and then receive information that contradicts that belief, we can make a conscious decision to reject that evidence. For example, someone might say they overheard your wife booking a motel room with a work colleague. But you believe she’s faithful to you so you might reject it as being unreliable.

So accepting or rejecting information can be an act of the will, but the resulting belief is not.

And “accepting or rejecting information” is different from “accepting or rejecting belief” how exactly?

Anyway, it is a much better example - and we can see that here it is obvious that a decision is being made - however you want to call that.

Are you going to base your argument on an idiot???

And why shouldn’t I? It is an admitted counterexample to your position. I’m not that picky.

It is easy to see that it destroys your position from the fact that you have to try to “shame” me into not using it.

For that matter, are you completely sure there is any other kind of man?

 

[Bradskii]

You can’t choose belief. That is a result of you accepting or rejecting information.

Now choosing which information you want to consider is a matter of choice. If someone you don’t trust gives you information you can decide not to use it. If you consider it and it you choose to accept it as valid, then that might, but not necessarily, lead to belief. The weight of evidence will decide that. Information that you accept that backs up a proposition versus information that you accept which does the opposite.

At some point, the weight of evidence accepted for any given proposition will outweigh that accepted against it. Belief (involuntary) or lack of belief is the result.

Let’s face it, it’s a common enough system. We use it to determine guilt. Evidence is put forward for and against someone’s guilt and we consciously accept or reject it all until the balance of probabilities causes us to believe a person is innocent or guilty.

We cannot believe him to be guilty or innocent until the evidence is produced and we consciously accept or reject it. If we consciously accept the defence’s evidence and reject the prosecutor’s then WE HAVE NO CHOICE in determining his innocence.

Accepting information is voluntary. Either for or against a proposition. Once accepted or rejected, unless one is entirely perverse, one HAS TO believe or not as the case may be.

Decisions and beliefs are not the same.

 

[Gorgias]

You keep on asserting that there are ALWAYS at least two choices. And when I show you that it is NOT true, that one cannot rationally choose something that is incorrect, you backpedal without admitting it. It is not my question that is irrational; what it is BASED upon is irrational.

No, I’ve been pretty consistent in my assertion that the request “to choose something that is incorrect” is a red herring.

What I’m not saying is what you keep challenging me to say: that beliefs are chosen arbitrarily. They’re not. However, they’re chosen as the result of a process that involves thought, reason, and decision-making skills – that is, the result of a volitional process.

 

[Bradskii]

Your reason and your intellect is used to accept or reject information.

Look at belief like a stationary flywheel. It doesn’t spin one way or the other. Then information is given to you which you accept. Not strong info, but you accept it. And the wheel starts to spin toward you accepting a proposition. Then info is given to you which you also accept but which is stronger and tends towards you rejecting a proposition. That slows the flywheel and reverses its direction.

All the information you voluntarily accept will change the speed and direction of the wheel. You have no control over it other than to accept or reject info.

The faster the wheel spins, the greater your belief (or lack of it) and the more information you are going to need to reverse its direction. You cannot voluntarily change the speed or the direction of the flywheel. Only accepting or rejecting information can do that.

The two processes - the speed and direction of the flywheel and you making a conscious decision as to the veracity of information which will affect the speed and direction of the wheel, are entirely separate.

 

[MPat]

You can’t choose belief. That is a result of you accepting or rejecting information.

Now choosing which information you want to consider is a matter of choice. If someone you don’t trust gives you information you can decide not to use it. If you consider it and it you choose to accept it as valid, then that might, but not necessarily, lead to belief. The weight of evidence will decide that. Information that you accept that backs up a proposition versus information that you accept which does the opposite.

At some point, the weight of evidence accepted for any given proposition will outweigh that accepted against it. Belief (involuntary) or lack of belief is the result.

So, it looks like you are saying you cannot choose to believe or disbelieve in God, or in inerrancy of the Bible, but you can choose to accept Bible, or, perhaps, someone’s claim that, let’s say, Five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas work - and then belief in God would follow.

Good, that’s sufficient for Pascal’s Wager - it tells you that doing so would be a good idea.

Let’s face it, it’s a common enough system. We use it to determine guilt. Evidence is put forward for and against someone’s guilt and we consciously accept or reject it all until the balance of probabilities causes us to believe a person is innocent or guilty.

We cannot believe him to be guilty or innocent until the evidence is produced and we consciously accept or reject it. If we consciously accept the defence’s evidence and reject the prosecutor’s then WE HAVE NO CHOICE in determining his innocence.

I’m afraid that judges would not agree with you here…

Also, this account of court system does not seem to explain how one can possibly have different standards of evidence - “some evidence”, “preponderance of evidence”, “beyond reasonable doubt”, “beyond shadow of doubt” and so on (Wikipedia lists about 10: Burden of proof (law) - Wikipedia)…

But if the belief (perhaps the “official belief”) that defendant is guilty is chosen, having guidelines for this choice makes sense.

Accepting information is voluntary. Either for or against a proposition. Once accepted or rejected, unless one is entirely perverse, one HAS TO believe or not as the case may be.

And what makes you think that people are not “entirely perverse”?

Not to mention that you do not consider a possibility of a “tie”.

 

[Bradskii]

Pascal’s wager is just that. A wager. You bet on the fact that God exists and Pascal suggests that that would lead to belief. Well, it might. I’m pretty certain that it could. But to believe, to truly believe, you need to accept the evidence as being true.

Personally I have a problem in accepting something as a fact in advance (I bet that God exists) and then looking for information that would prove or disprove it. If I WANT it to be true, if I am betting that it is true, then it is entirely natural that I would look for and accept information that would back up what I would like to believe. And not delve too deeply into information that would do the opposite.

And what standard of evidence one would require is entirely personal. Some people need a lot of convincing. Some people are gullible. Some people are smart and some are stupid. Some are well informed and others less so. I know what I need and you know what you need.

And we can ignore perverse people. I think we’re on common ground if we discuss what reasonable people might do. Be they smart or stupid, informed or otherwise.

And a tie is just that. If the information you accept is inconclusive, then you neither believe or disbelieve. For example, my cousin is a well known movie star. Do you believe that or not? I’d suggest that if it was important enough to make a call, then you would say that you don’t know. You are yet to be given sufficiently credible info.

As regards a belief in God, something that would change literally everything a person might understand about existence, then we might need a lot of evidence. It’s a bloody big flywheel. It takes a lot to get it moving. And once it does, it takes a lot to make it change direction.

 

[MPat]

And what standard of evidence one would require is entirely personal. Some people need a lot of convincing. Some people are gullible. Some people are smart and some are stupid. Some are well informed and others less so. I know what I need and you know what you need.

That evades the question: how do you explain possibility of having different preset standards of evidence? The ones that depend on law and not on person?

And a tie is just that. If the information you accept is inconclusive, then you neither believe or disbelieve.

Isn’t it remarkable how you offer no evidence for such claims?

For example, my cousin is a well known movie star. Do you believe that or not? I’d suggest that if it was important enough to make a call, then you would say that you don’t know. You are yet to be given sufficiently credible info.

If one really has to make a call, then one has to make a call. In such case “I don’t know.” is useless.

Agnosticism might look nice on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.

But then Sunday comes and even an agnostic has to make a decision: is he going to Mass?

And we can ignore perverse people. I think we’re on common ground if we discuss what reasonable people might do. Be they smart or stupid, informed or otherwise.

That assumes that such “reasonable people” exist and you (and, presumably, me, since you’re addressing this post to me) are one of them. What evidence have you looked at in order to reach such conclusion?

For this is a suspiciously pleasant and convenient claim.

For example, with such a perfection (for any imperfection in “reasonableness” invalidates your reasoning here) one could be perfectly sure that one never has to recheck one’s beliefs or reasoning. One would be completely immune to any wishful thinking. Wouldn’t that be great?

In fact, too great to be true?

And let’s note the complete lack of evidence you presented for this claim that such “reasonable people” exist. For now it looks like a belief being held by a pure act of will…

As regards a belief in God, something that would change literally everything a person might understand about existence, then we might need a lot of evidence. It’s a bloody big flywheel. It takes a lot to get it moving. And once it does, it takes a lot to make it change direction.

Or, in other words, you simply do not want to change your mind. No surprise here.

And, of course, “want” points towards will.

 

[Bradskii]

Whether we accept evidence or not is always a personal decision. Whether it can be presented in some cases, such as legal matters is different. But we leach make the call whether it is acceptable or not and whether it is valid or not ourselves. Nobody makes these calls for us.

If you neither accept or reject evidence, then it is by definition inconclusive. The extremely limited information about my cousin I would suggest Is inconclusive. The evidence about alien life I class as inconclusive. The evidence for the multiverse likewise. Your mileage may vary. We make these calls individually. Every time someone says ‘I don’t know’, they are telling you that the evidence with which they have been supplied is inconclusive.

Unreasonable people exist. They may well believe, erroneously and unreasonably, that they can accept evidence as being valid as to a particular proposition’s validity yet still choose not to believe it. Neither of us think that is reasonable so let’s ignore it.

As regards to not wanting to change my mind, you are missing the point. If the matter is important enough (large flywheel) and enough evidence has been presented and accepted so that a strong belief is formed (it’s spinning quite fast) then if you are prepared to change your mind then a much larger body of evidence is going to need to be accepted to reverse the spin.

 

[Entwhistler]

Hey, long time no see.

[Says the philosophical lurker]

 

[IWantGod]

I used to accept the case for Christianity. When I was relatively young. A rather facile interpretation of what God was, but it was a child’s view. As is the case with almost all Christians, I was brought up in the faith and accpeted it as I accepted everything that my parents told me.

Then as I grew older and more questioning (as all children do), I started an internal debate abojt what all these stories were meant to actually represent. When it came time for my confirmation (in the C of E) and there were some relatively serious conversations about what was expected of me, I cam to what was then an uncomfortable realisation that I was meant, not just to accept what I was being told, but to believe it as well.

Hence the start of my atheism. Because I realised, even when quite young, that I couldn’t believe something if I couldn’t accept the evidence for it.

The process one goes through to reach a belief in any proposition is firstly to be given the evidence for that proposition. You cannot believe in something without having knowledge of it. Pretty obvious I know, but it needs stating as the first step.

The second step is to decide whether the information is true. Now we can use our intellect to do this. We can compare it to information that puts forward the opposite case. We can accept it because we trust the source. However we do this it is an involuntary process. We cannot accept something as being false yet decide that it is true. Now our decision may be wrong. The source might be unreliable. Our intellect undeveloped. The information insufficent. Alternative information for the opposite case may be missing or from a source we don’t trust. Either way, depending on the information we have (and deciding which information we choose to investigate is a voluntary choice), the decision we reach as to the veracity of the information is involuntary. We cannot accept information we know to be false and cannot reject information we know to be true.

Believe is then the automatic result of that process.

You should have just said that you don’t want to have faith (in other-words, no religious idea, or being, will ever be important enough for you to just have faith even if your sense of moral worth/dignity and meaning metaphysically depended on it being true,), and you want to have scientific evidence.if you are expected to believe in the Christian concept of reality.

Isn’t that the bottom line for you?

 

[Bradskii]

You seem not to be reading what I am writing. I explained that I had no choice. The evidence that was presented was not sufficient for me to take a position that the Christian God of the bible existed. I did not choose that position nor did I specifically want it.

Be presented with the evidence. Accept it or reject it. Belief or non belief will automatically follow.