Pascal's Wager Argument

[hecd2]

It seems to me you are wondering which is the basis for the other: PW or the speculative arguments.

Not at all. I think they are arguments for different propositions and neither is the basis for the other.

From the wager’s perspective, it is obviously the tipping point of belief. It assumes that the mind is not persuaded either way. It finds the arguments “possibly true, yet unconvincing.” Pascal would then say, why not therefore bend your will towards belief in these “possibly true” propositions? What have you to lose? What have you to gain?

I understand that that is the argument - but since it starts from agnosticism, which means that one finds the propositions possibly true, my question was how do you use the arguments for the proposition as a logical part of the PW. How do you refer to them within PW?

It would be like this. Say I had a son away at war, and I saw something on the news about a bombing where he was stationed. Naturally, I would begin to wonder whether or not he had died. Having not heard from him, I would be uncertain either way. Though I certainly had reasons for thinking he died – there was a bombing in his camp, after all – I also would lack actual certainty. What should one believe in this case?

Pascal would say: since you are uncertain, bend the mind to think, insofar as you are able, the most positive thing is true. Suppose I chose to think that he was fine, and really bent my mind in this direction. I would have a sort of “gestalt shift” in the evidence. I would start telling myself all the aspects of it which support my willingness to believe.

I understand that would be or could be the *outcome *of accepting PW, but how do you logically use these arguments in support of PW? Pascal’s exhortation says nothing at all about the arguments for or against the facts of the case.

The obvious problem with my example is that such a belief can be fasified in this life, and this can give reasons for withholding judgment. I may not want to get my hopes up, for instance, because I know how much more crushed I’ll be.

But even on this supposition, the method of Pascal shines through, for the only reason one would withhold judgment is for practical reasons: the will sees the potential badness in great disappointment.

To be honest, I can’t even see how a true PW applies in this case, because PW explores the four combinations of two variables and finds the profit and loss in two combinations of belief and unbelief (if God exists) overwhelming and the other two (if God does not exist) neutral which, Pascal claims, tells you what to do. In this case, your belief briefly affects your psychological comfort but has no influence on the far more important fact of the matter. You seem to be saying that all willing to believe is based on a PW and I think that debases the character of PW.

The obvious problem with this is that it is not clear how much a mind can actually be bent to believe in what it is genuinely agnostic about. One who is quite skeptical may not be able to believe, while one who is less skeptical may be able to move the mind to assent more easily.

As you know, I don’t accept that we can directly will to believe a proposition, but we can will to act so that accepting the proposition is more likely in the future (what In Spiration would call indirect DV).

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[The_Exodus]

I understand that that is the argument - but since it starts from agnosticism, which means that one finds the propositions possibly true, my question was how do you use the arguments for the proposition as a logical part of the PW. How do you refer to them within PW?

The truthfulness or coherence of the propositions are not used at all to justify the wager. They are not epistemically connected to it in any way, expect insofar as they are “unknowns.”

The wager derives its force from the *outcome *of the arguments. It seems to me that you are assuming that the outcomes of the propositions are entirely untintelligible (or potentially so.) If this were the case, I agree, the wager would be ultimately senseless. It would partner with absurdity, so to speak.

But the outcomes do not seem to me to be unintelligible. Either God exists or he doesn’t. Argument does not support either hypothesis, but one hypothesis must be true, and the other false, regardless of belief. But, it happens to be the case that if God exists is true, belief in him matters very much, whereas, if he does not exist, belief matters nothing at all. Therefore, it seems plainly reasonable to believe, since one is not risking anything by doing so, even if one is in error.
hec:

I understand that would be or could be the *outcome *of accepting PW, but how do you logically use these arguments in support of PW?

By their *potential *truth value.
hec:

To be honest, I can’t even see how a true PW applies in this case, because PW explores the four combinations of two variables and finds the profit and loss in two combinations of belief and unbelief (if God exists) overwhelming and the other two (if God does not exist) neutral which, Pascal claims, tells you what to do. In this case, your belief briefly affects your psychological comfort but has no influence on the far more important fact of the matter. You seem to be saying that all willing to believe is based on a PW and I think that debases the character of PW.

It seems to me that you’re squeezing lemons and wanting orange juice. The wager has nothing to do with theoretical reason. Pascal himself pretty much said that once you grasp the wager, you ought to delude yourself into believing that God exists and never look back.

But this is debasing, you say, for it may be entirely fallacious to conclude that God exists, and the wager doesn’t speak to the speculative side of the question at all. You are afraid of deluding yourself. To which Pascal would (and did, specifically) respond: “Why: what do you have to lose?”
hec:

As you know, I don’t accept that we can directly will to believe a proposition, but we can will to act so that accepting the proposition is more likely in the future (what In Spiration would call indirect DV).

I’m not sure we can either, but I do think the mind has power to bend the will in a certain way, as I’ve previously said.

 

[Anselm33]

Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, theologian and philosopher devised the Wager Argument. The argument resulted from his conclusion that reason was unreliable either to prove or disprove the existence of God, and that therefore believing in God must be an act of the will resulting from the decision to act in the best interest of the self. What is the best interest of the self? If we believe and God exists, we have acted in our best interest. If we don’t believe and God exists, we have acted in our worst interest. If we believe and God does not exist, we have lost nothing. If we do not believe and God exists, we have lost everything. Therefore, in the absence of definitive logical arguments for or against the existence of God, we should bet on the existence of God, rather than on His non-existence.

Comments?

See
facebook.com/note.php?note_id=171231979581598
anselm.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Exodus

*I’m not sure we can either, but I do think the mind has power to bend the will in a certain way, as I’ve previously said. *

Always an interesting question: Who is in charge; the Mind or the Will?

Or God bending the mind and the will together?

 

[grannymh]

The Exodus

*I’m not sure we can either, but I do think the mind has power to bend the will in a certain way, as I’ve previously said. *

Always an interesting question: Who is in charge; the Mind or the Will?

Neither is in charge.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Pascal was a great logician and mathematician.

Bertrand Russell was as well. Russell was notorious for denigrating every proof for the existence of God, as pecially the cosmological and teleological proofs of Aquinas. Yet, so far as I know, no where in any of his works does he tackle the logic of Pascal’s Wager?

Was he reticent to attack the logic because it was ironclad? Surely, if he had a refutation, he would have offered it in print. Russell always relished every opportunity to blaze his reputation across the philosophical skies. His book, Why I Am Not a Christian, would have been the perfect forum in which to debunk Pascal once and for all.

 

[grannymh]

Pascal himself pretty much said that once you grasp the wager, you ought to delude yourself into believing that God exists and never look back.

This thread is absolutely beyond me except that this one sentence reminds me of my curiosity when, many moons ago, I first heard about “The Wager” which was being discussed without connecting it to Pascal or anyone in particular. I often wondered how people would act if they decided it was in their best interests to believe that God exists. I wondered if they would be curious enough to find out Who God is. And if there were something they should be doing.

The comment that “Pascal himself pretty much said that once you grasp the wager, you ought to delude yourself into believing that God exists and never look back.” has, in my opinion, the power to destroy the wager.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

granny
*
The comment that “Pascal himself pretty much said that once you grasp the wager, you ought to delude yourself into believing that God exists and never look back.” has, in my opinion, the power to destroy the wager. *

I don’t recall Pascal ever referring to the wager as a delusion. To be deluded is to fool oneself. Pascal merely said accept God and don’t look back. To the atheist this might be a delusion, but how does the atheist know he has not deluded himself into thinking there is no God? Certainly he has cut off all avenues to grow in the knowledge of God, if there truly is one, whereas the person who accepts the wager is opening up avenues. Possibly opening up those avenues will result in revelations that would not be possible by the mere application of logic, such as the materialist might require. Indeed, if God made us in His image and likeness, it stands to reason that, if God is a personal God, he wants to engage us in ways beyond mere intellect. His appeal will be to our whole person, to our imagination, our will, our sense of the beautiful and the sublime, our need to love and to be loved.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Pascal was a great logician and mathematician.

Bertrand Russell was as well. Russell was notorious for denigrating every proof for the existence of God, as pecially the cosmological and teleological proofs of Aquinas. Yet, so far as I know, no where in any of his works does he tackle the logic of Pascal’s Wager?

Was he reticent to attack the logic because it was ironclad? Surely, if he had a refutation, he would have offered it in print. Russell always relished every opportunity to blaze his reputation across the philosophical skies. His book, Why I Am Not a Christian, would have been the perfect forum in which to debunk Pascal once and for all.

He’s credited on one webpage for rejecting Jesus for being mean, based on the usual moron-misreadings of the Bible…

Somewhere else, his response is credited as being based on the lack of evidence for God, which is essentially to walk blindfold past Pascals logic entirely

I suppose I should check on it properly!

 

[Mystic_Banana]

The comment that “Pascal himself pretty much said that once you grasp the wager, you ought to delude yourself into believing that God exists and never look back.” has, in my opinion, the power to destroy the wager.

…in the same way that the comment “well, Darwin essentially said we should be pure breeding xenophobic fascists, and based his theory on his amateur interpretations of the findings in one small country” has the power to destroy Evolution?

Who is this quote from, hmmm?

 

[Anselm33]

There are many reasoned arguments against Pascal’s Wager, particularly that the proposition of infinite reward introduces paradoxes. (see the St. Petersburg Paradox) . One can use modern decision analysis theory, a minimax regret, and show that the bet for God is prudential. And as Pascal advises at the end of the argument in Pensees
“

**I am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?” **

Pascal responds:

“

Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it…There are people… who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began (emphasis added); by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.”

Which of the Catechism dicta are appropriate,
(1131)”

The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace…They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.”

or
(1128)

The sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.

”
The second suggests that if one prays for faith, then the “top-down” approach will work, starting from the head and eventually through to the heart, or, as Pascal suggests:
“…

.at each step you take on this road you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.”

anselm.

 

[grannymh]

…in the same way that the comment “well, Darwin essentially said we should be pure breeding xenophobic fascists, and based his theory on his amateur interpretations of the findings in one small country” has the power to destroy Evolution?

Who is this quote from, hmmm?

The comment/quote is found in post 142. Regarding the power to destroy evolution? That concept is not even close to the comment I posted. However, your view is certainly welcomed. But personally, I do not consider that a wager which carries yes and no propositions is in the same category as a scientific theory.

Blessings,
granny
:snowing:

 

[hecd2]

Another thing: how does your solution to skepticism differ from the basic “form” of PW? Aren’t you really resorting to…

“External World Wager”: the pragmatic assumption that one’s sensations, thoughts, and beliefs roughly correspond to some real world outside his own mind. The first obvious benefit is that we’re now justified in explaining all this apparent order and predictability around us. While this may not convince hardcore Matrix fans or Cartesian demon-worshippers, at least one doesn’t seem to be betting against the house either. If the machines do one day pull a plug, then I’ll hardly regret this blissfully ignorant life that I spent enjoying pseudo-steaks in the comforting Matrix; whereas, if the sci-fi dudes are wrong, they missed out on a social life for nothin’, and hardly for any “reward”.

Why accept something like this but reject PW? I want to say that Pascal’s Wager, having God as a wild card, offers an even more secure postulate than just EWW. (Hey, it was good enough for Descartes.) So we might as well go all-in. No need to budget.

Here’s what I think about your interesting analogy. The difference between the arguments isn’t in their basic rationale which is pretty similar as you show. The difference is between the sort of thing that they are arguing for and the nature of the pay-offs in the four boxes.

We know the structure and claimed pay-offs in PW (I have some logical problems with how Pascal arrives at those, but let’s leave that for now). Contrast that with what you call the EWW. We have no choice but to accept the EWW - we don’t have a choice, and chimps, dogs, fish, shrimps and slime moulds don’t. My solution is no more than the formulation of what we are all forced to do anyway - it isn’t some magnificent foundational a priori argument, but a stance that is derived from a distillation of all the messy sensory (name removed by moderator)uts that we receive from the moment of our birth. So I start with that and from it, implicity and explicitly, I build my life and my career and my epistemics and I’m cool with that. And I dare say, so do you.

There is no choice in the EWW. In order to get through the world, all entities, including humans, that use sensory (name removed by moderator)uts to make decisions to act have to work in a system that axiomises the EWW. Sure, humans have more smarts, and so we don’t just act on our sensory (name removed by moderator)uts, but find patterns and conceptualise about underlying causes and so on to arrive at statements about the external reality, but the basis of all of this is the axiom. Because, what would life be like if we reject the EWW? It would be painful and short. External reality doesn’t care about our metaphysical pretensions, but will just get on with mangling us if we don’t pay it any attention. So in that sense this isn’t a wager like PW at all. In the one case you can present the argument to the agnostic, and she can say 'I hear you but I think your logic’s screwed up for this or that reason and I’m just going to go on living as though God doesn’t exist - I’m betting against". In the other case you don’t need to present an argument because there are no agnostics and no-one bets against - it’s not a wager at all because acting agnostically is just not a viable option. Those who choose it soon remove themselves from the scene.

I called the axiom weak, and so it is in the sense that it isn’t logically foundational, and because the correspondence on which it’s based is far from perfect. But in another sense it’s very strong because everyone is forced to accept it in how they act (even if they entertain themselves in student dormitories by questioning it as a metaphysical concept). I’m forced to live with it and it’s good enough for me in ways that PW isn’t.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Just thumbing through Bertrand’s Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, I notice he covers Descartes but skips right over Pascal, not even a mention of the Wager Argument.

Since he also doesn’t mention the wager in “Why I Am Not a Christian,” I think it fair to conclude that Russell was really nervous about taking on Pascal.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

hecd2

In the one case you can present the argument to the agnostic, and she can say 'I hear you but I think your logic’s screwed up for this or that reason and I’m just going to go on living as though God doesn’t exist - I’m betting against".

It’s just as interesting that many of those who bet** against** God, when they are young and in good health, later decide, especially as the hour of death approaches, to bet on God?

Jean Paul Sartre and Antony Flew might be just two more famous examples.

Atheism is the height of arrogance. One can be one’s own Supreme Being.

DEATH has a humbling effect. No?

 

[Mystic_Banana]

The comment/quote is found in post 142. Regarding the power to destroy evolution? That concept is not even close to the comment I posted. However, your view is certainly welcomed. But personally, I do not consider that a wager which carries yes and no propositions is in the same category as a scientific theory.

Blessings,
granny
:snowing:

Well, it’s based on a secondary re-imagining, then basing itself upon *that *interpretation as definitive in effectiveness for purposes of evaluating the argument…

But now I find out you were replying to the evaluation of they you are discussing with ,it makes more sense! Still, I think Charlemagne gets it more accurately

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Here’s what I think about your interesting analogy. The difference between the arguments isn’t in their basic rationale which is pretty similar as you show. The difference is between the sort of thing that they are arguing for and the nature of the pay-offs in the four boxes.

We know the structure and claimed pay-offs in PW (I have some logical problems with how Pascal arrives at those, but let’s leave that for now). Contrast that with what you call the EWW. We have no choice but to accept the EWW - we don’t have a choice, and chimps, dogs, fish, shrimps and slime moulds don’t. My solution is no more than the formulation of what we are all forced to do anyway - it isn’t some magnificent foundational a priori argument, but a stance that is derived from a distillation of all the messy sensory (name removed by moderator)uts that we receive from the moment of our birth. So I start with that and from it, implicity and explicitly, I build my life and my career and my epistemics and I’m cool with that. And I dare say, so do you.

There is no choice in the EWW. In order to get through the world, all entities, including humans, that use sensory (name removed by moderator)uts to make decisions to act have to work in a system that axiomises the EWW. Sure, humans have more smarts, and so we don’t just act on our sensory (name removed by moderator)uts, but find patterns and conceptualise about underlying causes and so on to arrive at statements about the external reality, but the basis of all of this is the axiom. Because, what would life be like if we reject the EWW? It would be painful and short. External reality doesn’t care about our metaphysical pretensions, but will just get on with mangling us if we don’t pay it any attention. So in that sense this isn’t a wager like PW at all. In the one case you can present the argument to the agnostic, and she can say 'I hear you but I think your logic’s screwed up for this or that reason and I’m just going to go on living as though God doesn’t exist - I’m betting against". In the other case you don’t need to present an argument because there are no agnostics and no-one bets against - it’s not a wager at all because acting agnostically is just not a viable option. Those who choose it soon remove themselves from the scene.

I called the axiom weak, and so it is in the sense that it isn’t logically foundational, and because the correspondence on which it’s based is far from perfect. But in another sense it’s very strong because everyone is forced to accept it in how they act (even if they entertain themselves in student dormitories by questioning it as a metaphysical concept). I’m forced to live with it and it’s good enough for me in ways that PW isn’t.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

The question is, would/does your average modern atheist/materialist fail the EWW, since they rely dogmatically upon secondary scientific validation before considering even the possible validity of direct experience of EW phenomena?

Anything you can’t qualify on a technical level, afterall, can be denied possibility by assuming it is a delusion… or rather, interpreted as something less disturbing to your self-delusion, materialist, supernaturalist, or whatever :hypno:

 

[The_Exodus]

Jean Paul Sartre and Antony Flew might be just two more famous examples.

Where did you read that Sartre left atheism? I’d be interested to see this, as I’ve read deeply in him and never heard such a thing.

 

[hecd2]

The question is, would/does your average modern atheist/materialist fail the EWW, since they rely dogmatically upon secondary scientific validation before considering even the possible validity of direct experience of EW phenomena?

Anything you can’t qualify on a technical level, afterall, can be denied possibility by assuming it is a delusion… or rather, interpreted as something less disturbing to your self-delusion, materialist, supernaturalist, or whatever :hypno:

Well, this is a very interesting question and seeks to take the discussion another step forward, because what you are suggesting here is that we also need to deal with the fact of sensory fallibility. This is a huge subject that I can’t possibly do justice to here, but I’ll make a few initial comments. I don’t think rejecting the EWW is a practical option for anyone (I don’t know what you mean by failing it, by the way). No-one I know requires scientific validation for accepting and acting on sensory (name removed by moderator)ut in their day-to-day lives, walking down the stairs, opening the front door and crossing the street. How would that be practical? But since our senses (and our interpretation of sensory (name removed by moderator)ut) only imperfectly correspond to reality, we also have to acknowledge the fact that we can be deluded by what we sense and by how we interpret what we sense. (The fact that we can be fooled can be demonstrated trivially by considering optical illusions).

Some failures to get perfect correspondence affect individuals, but sometimes false beliefs based on apparently accurate sensory (name removed by moderator)ut are more extended across large numbers in society or across whole societies (for example the illusion that you need to constantly apply force to keep objects moving at constant speed). Illusions can be caused in individuals by damaged or diseased senses, or by problems with interpretation caused by drugs, fatigue, neurological or psychiatric disease, altered states of consciousness or trauma, or even the desire to believe that something is true.

So this whole question of fallibility is a tricky one, particularly if one’s ambition is to understand the reality of the world - how do we maximise the probability that individually and collectively we avoid illusion and get a good correspondence between reality and our map of it. In a nutshell, it seems to me that the answer involves taking methods that we all use to get us successfully through day to day life (and after all, the vast majority of us do this most of the time) and formalising and socialising them. This involves a certain degree of skepticism (questioning received ideas, creating hypotheses and testing them, to reduce the probability of being fooled), an openness to sharing our observations and having our ideas scrutinised by others (on the grounds that some idea is less likely to be an illusion if it can be tested and agreed on by many people), understanding as well as we can how our senses and the means we use to interpret them work so that we can be particularly vigilant in areas particularly prone to being fooled, and building on the prior discoveries and understanding of others. It also requires revisiting the foundations of our metaphysical theorems in the light of changes to our understanding of how the world works.

So we don’t need any sort of secondary validation when we’re getting on with our day to day lives, but we sure need it when we are designing aeroplanes, or computers, or safe efficacious drugs, or microwave ovens, or GPS systems.

I understand that this will seem to some, perhaps to you, to undervalue personal experience and personal revelation as a means to getting at non-trivial truths - but it’s the way I see it and it’s consistent with my epistemic system. YMMV.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Exodus

Where did you read that Sartre left atheism? I’d be interested to see this, as I’ve read deeply in him and never heard such a thing.

You would not get the transformation from reading his works.

Months before his death Sartre was observed to take an interest in Judaism and the messianic idea. According to his friend Benny Levy, who interviewed him several times during his last weeks of overwork and declining health, he ceased to be an atheist.

To get started, see:

press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=3619055