Perhaps it would help if you were to explain.
Here’s the explanation given in the link:
In contemporary decision analysis one can proceed in two ways:
- to examine possible gains and losses for various options, in the absence of known probabilities, and to choose that option which would correspond (psychologically or economically) to a preferred strategy:
- to use known or estimated probabilities for various outcomes and to choose the option with the maximum expected value (see below). Let’s first assume that probabilities aren’t known, and see what considerations might be involved in choosing an option. Here is the example:
investing 10,000 units (pounds in the UK, dollars in the US) in 1) a savings account at 2% interest; 2) a conservative stock portfolio paying 6% in a good market, and losing 10% in a bad market; 3) a sure thing—an unreported diamond mine in Northern Scotland that your Uncle Angus has told you about—you’ll double your investment. The table below summarizes the possible outcomes; the columns represent “state of nature”, that is “good” outcome for a particular option and “bad” outcome ( a – sign means a loss), the rows, the different options.
If you’re an optimist, you would of course choose the diamond mine. If you are a pessimist or risk-averse, you would choose the option with the least possible loss, the Savings Account (you would follow what is called the mini-max principle in decision analysis, choosing the option with minimum possible loss).
Now suppose Uncle Angus was right about the diamond mine—you’d berate yourself for not having invested in it. This regret is quantified in a decision analysis scenario and used to justify a “mini-max regret” approach 10 for decision making. For each state of nature (column) you subtract the best outcome to give a negative figure for “regret”. You then list the worst (that is most negative) regret for each row (option) and choose that option with the least negative worst regret, as shown in the following table:
OPTION \\ REGRET FOR GOOD \\ REGRET FOR BAD \\ WORST REGRET
Savings \\\ 200-20,000=-19,800 \\\ 200-200 =0 \\ -19,800
Cons.stock \\ 600-20,000=-19,400 \\ -1000-200= =-1200 \\ -19,400
Mine \\ 20,000-20,000 =0 \\ -10000-200=-10200 \\ -10,200
**Best Result \\ 20,000 \\\ 200
**
The option with with the least negative worst regret is the diamond mine, so if you were to follow a mini-max regret approach you would choose that option. Clearly this is the restatement, in contemporary decision analytic terms, of Pascal’s choice for belief, absent a known probability for the existence of God. Put as a table one would have, symbolically:
OPTION \\ REGRET (God exists) \\ REGRET (God doesn’t exist) \\ WORST REGRET
Belief \\ X-X =0 \\ -Y-Z \\ -Y-Z
Non-Belief \\ Z-X (negative) \\ Z-Z=0 \\ Z-X(most negative)
**Best Result \\ X (belief, very large) \\ Z(non-belief, not so large)
**
There aren’t numbers here, but clearly the value for belief in the existence of God (and the afterlife), X, is much greater than Y (the loss -Y one sustains by belief) or Z (the gain of a possibly hedonistic life that one sustains by unbelief), so the minimum worst regret (least negative) is that for belief in God.
However, it is clear there is an assumption and the confirmed atheist will never credit that X, benefits from belief, are much greater than Z (benefits from non-belief).
Which is why I say the argument is rational, but rationality isn’t a mechanism to enhance a zero belief in God.
I apologize for the messy appearance—tables don’t copy and it seems to be impossible to make a table in a response.
