Pascal's Wager Argument

[hecd2]

Keep in mind, though, that I’m just focusing on the epistemic aspects here. I don’t intend any of this to necessarily support PW.

Understood, and thanks for taking the time to reply. You’ve encouraged me to think a bit more about this aspect of PW.

Now rather than reply section by section to your posts, which process is causing the whole thing to grow to an unmanageable length, let me try to summarise where I stand, having, prompted by your challenge, thought through my original statement.

First of all, I want to distinguish between the case where a belief is engendered as a direct consequence of the argument either because of its logical force; and the case where the argument persuades someone, perhaps because of its psychological force, to take actions which are not in themselves synonymous with belief but which, in the fullness of time, might lead to metaphysical belief. My position is that by its very nature PW is an argument to act as if one had a belief, and cannot, directly, result in that belief. I agree that one can come to a metaphysical belief in time by taking actions which are initiated by the argument, but this is not the same as saying that the argument for the proposition directly results in belief, or that it is possible to believe in a proposition by an act of will alone.

I think your examples illustrate this. With regard to the locking of the door, you say ‘“the decision to act” just is the decision to believe’. Perhaps this is the source of our disagreement, because I don’t take the decision to act as being identical to the decision to believe. I have been in Ginet’s situation and I would clearly distinguish between my decision to act and my belief at that time. My decision to act was not caused by a decision to believe that the door was locked or not, nor did it entail it, because I remained agnostic about the state of the door. My will to act was based on considerations which were extraneous to the matter of fact. I acted as though p, or I acted as though not-p, but I was agnostic about p. Can we arrive at a belief and a decision to act at the same time? This is what PW encourages us to do. Of course, where there is sufficient reason to believe in the truth of p, we also (usually) act as though p were true. However, I do not think that that the decision to act is synonymous with the decision to believe. The first is clearly possible, the second is the point in question.

Your B and C scenarios support the contention that a decision to act can lead, in time, to a desired belief, but they do not support the idea that one can directly will to believe. Neither B nor C arrive at their desired beliefs by a direct act of will, but by willing actions which indirectly increase the probability that they will achieve that belief.

And indeed self-deception is relevant, but as far as I can see it supports the notion that one can act by, for example, ignoring or distorting or avoiding contrary arguments, to arrive at a false belief - but it does not support the notion that one can, by an act of will, arrive at the false belief directly.

So, I propose that Pascal is not exhorting by reason the agnostic to believe in the truth of God’s existence, but to will to act as though God exists; **and **to will to act in ways that increase the probability of coming to a belief in God’s existence in the future. To that extent, it does not appear to me to be a very good argument for arriving a metaphysical true belief. It might be useful for someone who wishes others to hold the belief to get them there, but it is not a good way to arrive at a true belief about reality - which was one of my original criticisms of it (understanding that you are not arguing for its merits).

My position has become more nuanced as a consequence of your comments - thanks. I hope you can take something from this.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

PW clearly has a lot of implications related to William James and truth according to Pragmatism:
…]

I’ll go out on a limb and guess hecd2 isn’t a big fan of pragmatism. Neither am I. Yet it seems oddly tough to pin down at the same time, especially without appealing to “intuition” or “self-evidence”. How does one disprove it without begging the question? What is a higher value, truth or goodness, if either? If the transcendentals – being, unity, truth, goodness – are inseparable, then could one draw conclusions about what’s true based on what’s good?

Sure, it’s a tricky subject. I am absolutely not a fan of pragmatism in the full William James sense. I don’t define true beliefs as being what works but as being beliefs that correspond to reality (obviously I also hold to the concept of realism - there is a real external reality about which we can hold true beliefs). But the whole intuition and self-evidence thing rears its head, and I cannot get away from some aspects of pragmatism.

To put it in a nutshell: I don’t see how we can know anything about external reality except through evidence that is presented via our senses. But we cannot know that what we perceive actually and always exactly corresponds to external reality (if we think about the way our senses perceive the world, we are far removed from truly direct experience of anything external to us - we see the shadows on the walls of the cave). It is not possible to have any belief about the external world that is formally provable in the mathematical sense (except in respect of mathematical propositions themselves and only in incomplete formal systems). At this point, it all seems hopeless to attempt to arrive at any true beliefs about the world and I think that is possibly so in a formally logical way. We have to bootstrap our way out of this dead-end. To do so, I start with an axiom that what our senses tell us, usually corresponds approximately to reality. That sounds horribly tentative, but I can’t justify anything stronger. I justify the tentative statement pragmatically - that the fact that we can make our way through the world supports that axiom: we can cross the street, we can find food etc. Now, accepting the tentative statement as one axiom and the intelligibility of the world as another, we can move forward to develop beliefs about reality that more or less correspond to it. We do that in our day to day lives, and, as an example, the entire natural science project is based on finding ways to avoid sensing and interpretative errors to arrive at beliefs that more and more closely correspond to reality. It is a social project because it is inductive and the more points at which propositions are checked for correspondence to reality, the more certain we can be of the degree of truth in the propositions. Science does not (cannot in my view) get its philosophical foundation from some formally provable syllogism (and I would say the same about all methods for discovering reality) - we propose that it is a good way for discovering beliefs that are approximately true on a pragmatic basis. We accept or reject propositions because of their perceived degree of correspondence with external reality but we cannot prove them true in a formal sense. This is not the same as saying that what is useful is true.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

The seeker may see that, in examining the arguments, she is “conceding” the truth or falsity of them. Indeed, she may even find some compelling, but she may still in her mind realize that the truth of such propositions does not rest on her subjective certainty, or the feeling of certitude she has.

I think we might be talking past one another here. I have conceded the point that a set of arguments might psychologically predispose the seeker to a particular point of view which makes PW more readily accepted, and your thoughts there were helpful. Now, I’d like to look at this from a strictly logical pov. So, in an attempt to circumvent our mutual misunderstanding, let me put a case and if you feel you’d like to respond I’d be interested in what you say.

Our seeker comes to you and she says: “I’ve looked at all the arguments for God’s existence that I can find and I am not convinced by any one on their own or all of them together. In some cases, I think there is a flaw or fallacy in the argument that leaves the conclusion open, in other cases I don’t understand the argument. In other cases, I understand the argument and there is no flaw in it, but it is inductive and I don’t think that the supporting data that I have is sufficient to assent to the proposition. I am agnostic about the proposition - it might be true but these arguments do not convince me”

Now then, how would you conduct the PW argument in such a way that you logically appeal to the arguments that she has either rejected or is agnostic about? It seems to me that logically you have to set aside these other arguments and do what PW does - work through the consequences of different suppositions with regard to reality and the proposition ie PW as a separate rationale for action. But I’d be interested in whether you can logically tie arguments for the proposition into the PW argument.

I’m enjoying our dialogue tremendously, by the way.

As am I.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Thanks to danserr for mentioning on page one about Pascal’s Pensees. As I’ve mentioned before on this topic, do some research. I’ve left quite a bit of it as can been seen in my previous messages but I wanted to further explore Pascal’s Pensees. W.F. Trotter has translated Blaise Pascal’s PENSEES. Everyone can read all of Pascal’s pensees online. It’s free! oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-a.html.

My suggestion is to read them. Some pensees sit well with me others do not. It’s a mixed bag of sorts. Sincerely speaking, I’ve never met a person that agrees with me 100% of the time. The exception to me would be if I am sipping a 1999 Vintage Port from V. Sattui Winery with a friend who gave it to me as a present. The light then does shine on with agreement. Oh so very good.

I also located:
“The great and well-known French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, when he finally arrived at the definitive and joyful meeting with Christ, wrote with unequalled lucidity in his Pensées: “Not only do we know God only through Jesus Christ, but we, know ourselves only through Jesus Christ. We do not know life and death, unless through Jesus Christ. Outside Jesus Christ we do not know what is our life or our death, God and ourselves. For this reason, except for the Scripture, the object of which is Jesus Christ alone, we know nothing and see nothing but darkness and confusion in the nature of God and in our nature” (Pensées, n. 548). And the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council emphasized that “it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear” (Gaudium et Spes, 22).” (ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II, TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ITALIAN MILITARY, March 1, 1979). That message from John Paul was long ago but nonetheless an element of truth still remains. The year is 2010 and we know so much more.

Love, honesty and compassion make us unique. This unique human capacity extends our power to do good beyond the family. Close and enduring friendships with religious and non-religious (atheists) which make us important to others, naturally enhance our sense of significance. True friends value and accept us as we really are and allow us to return this grace. Contributions of love and support in a friend’s life, enhance our sense of personal significance as well, and bring deeper meaning to our lives so thinkth me. God bless everyone.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

The year is 2010 and we know so much more.

Amendment to my comment: 2010 was a great year for me! Still getting used to 2011! LOL! Nevertheless, I’m still living a life that matters.

 

[In_Spiration]

hecd2,

Thank you for taking the time to consider and respond. Please don’t feel any burden to answer point-by-point either, because (a) I sometimes go overboard, and (b) I don’t always expect a reply. We both seem to have relatively open minds as well as the smarts to handle complex issues, and I had to seize the opportunity. I’m sometimes just posting to take advantage of the extra motivation for concretely organizing my own thoughts.

I agree that one can come to a metaphysical belief in time by taking actions which are initiated by the argument, but this is not the same as saying that the argument for the proposition directly results in belief, or that it is possible to believe in a proposition by an act of will alone.

Perhaps this is the source of our disagreement, because I don’t take the decision to act as being identical to the decision to believe.

OK, I can agree to leave these questions unresolved. At least now we know where the argument stands, say, if PW is found to hinge on that point. Plus, I’m not as sure about direct DV anyway, that is, if I really even adhere to it.

I’ll admit that I’m unclear as to what the essence of belief is. Also, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be ready to accept that it’s ultimately anything other than acting as if p is true. Perhaps all belief boils down essentially to a matter of outwardly behaving on a basically functional premise, one on which we agree to lean with agnostic reliance. (Thus it’s the equivalent of an assumption. One agrees to follow its trail and entertain its consequences as an open trial, for instance.)

It might be useful for someone who wishes others to hold the belief to get them there, but it is not a good way to arrive at a true belief about reality - which was one of my original criticisms of it (understanding that you are not arguing for its merits).

Or Chesterton’s quip: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Pascal’s “argument” then starts with a challenge to motivate the skeptic to simply take a test drive; his real proof is supposed to be the skeptic’s eventual realization along the lines that no faith could be misguided which provides him such fulfillment. Pascal is the drug dealer attempting to persuade you to check out his free sample – no harm done. Or a hopeless romantic begging a girl to just go on one date with him, certain that she’ll come to see he’s the honest guy he claims to be (if you’re more comfortable with that analogy).

At this point, it all seems hopeless to attempt to arrive at any true beliefs about the world and I think that is possibly so in a formally logical way. We have to bootstrap our way out of this dead-end.

Enter Blaise Pascal! Or not…

To do so, I start with an axiom that what our senses tell us, usually corresponds approximately to reality. That sounds horribly tentative, but I can’t justify anything stronger. I justify the tentative statement pragmatically - that the fact that we can make our way through the world supports that axiom: we can cross the street, we can find food etc.

Can you justify this, admittedly weak and tentative as it is? How do you avoid the charge that your entire belief system rests on a whim, a comforting resolution to stick one’s head in the sand and cross his fingers, on blind faith? At the end of the day, I may not dismiss these pragmatic justifications. However, we’d then have to consider what such justifications might even begin to look like. And it arguably requires the belief that our wills, which seem responsible for these axiomatic beginnings, are only justified on certain grounds. Anything “pragmatic” presupposes a justified aim before it declares its means.

I sympathize. Trust me. Every now and again I’ll be fall into entertaining unspeakable skepticism and nonsense. I’ve got an idea for a revised PW, based on retortion, that claims God provides the only way out of an utterly terrifying, unintelligible nightmare of nihilism.

Modern philosophy is arguably man’s valiant battle against radical solipsism and Cartesian evil demons. Wittgenstein’s answer was silence, albeit a widely published silence. He was possibly the anti-Pascal, as he encouraged everyone to climb this ladder he constructed, though precisely as a way for folks to see the falsity and alleged absurdity of such ladders. (They never did.)

Now, accepting the tentative statement as one axiom and the intelligibility of the world as another, we can move forward to develop beliefs about reality that more or less correspond to it. We do that in our day to day lives, and, as an example, the entire natural science project is based on finding ways to avoid sensing and interpretative errors to arrive at beliefs that more and more closely correspond to reality.

Sure, as long as you’re still limiting your confidence in these beliefs to the justification of your initial foundational axiom. I’ll object as soon as you begin to suggest that any correspondence or logical order within the system can add justification to the axiom itself, i.e., beyond the system. Some epistemologists argue as much, so you might go that route – I can’t tell exactly if that’s what you’d assert or not – but I tend to reject that as illogical wishful thinking. Maybe we’ll have to consider first-axiom options more.

 

[In_Spiration]

For the record, it seems you’re advocating abductive reasoning (in contrast w/deduction or induction) as the way out of skepticism. That’s certainly *my *preferred style of thinking, and I think most reasoning is in fact along these lines. I think it sounds pretty close to analogical reasoning too, and I have a suspicion that analogy is the highest form of thought.

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.

Should we interpret Pascal like the following? “The Christian wager is by far the least risky system, yet also the most elegant and rewarding of all the possible systems, so only a fool would deny it. (And fools are least likely to be right.)” Anyway, I’ve toyed with the notion that the systems of man can be compared to paintings. A simple painting can mirror an image on a basic level, but closer inspection will necessarily reveal “flaws”; and the more detailed and beautiful you get, while also handling more total levels, the “more right” you get. Maybe it’s not necessarily devastating to admit certain inadequacies (if all alternatives entail more of them). In the grand scheme of it all, no painting is the exact same as the image; the sharper eye may just require a more nuanced painting to “buy”. (Then if simplicity/comfort/absence of pain is the good, then IQ is an awfully expensive taste; better: a Brave New World.)

 

[LogisticsBranch]

hecd2;7510549:

. To do so, I start with an axiom that what our senses tell us, usually corresponds approximately to reality. That sounds horribly tentative, but I can’t justify anything stronger. I justify the tentative statement pragmatically - that the fact that we can make our way through the world supports that axiom: we can cross the street, we can find food etc.

Can you justify this, admittedly weak and tentative as it is? How do you avoid the charge that your entire belief system rests on a whim, a comforting resolution to stick one’s head in the sand and cross his fingers, on blind faith?

Hello In Spiration. It appears to me what Alec is referring to is the five senses. It’s pretty common knowledge that every pre-school child is taught *Sense of Touch *, Sense of Taste, Sense of Smell, Sense of Sight, and Sense of Sound. It’s part of the physical sciences. The website is from the National Science Teachers Association: preschoolrainbow.org/5senses.htm. It doesn’t have anything to do with a belief system. Henceforth, I disagree with Blaise Pascal pense #67: The vanity of the sciences.-- Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences. oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-a.html

 

[hecd2]

I’m sometimes just posting to take advantage of the extra motivation for concretely organizing my own thoughts.

+1

I’ll admit that I’m unclear as to what the essence of belief is. Also, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be ready to accept that it’s ultimately anything other than acting as if p is true.

But you would be ready to accept that it’s ultimately acting as if p is true? What would that say about imperfect human nature and the issue of sin? Would you say that someone who is generally a decent person, who professes to believe in God and who shows outward signs of belief, does not believe in God in that moment that he chooses commit a serious sin (in that such a thing cuts him off from God which would be unthinkable if they really believed in God and the consequences of the act)? Or that someone who accepts the epidemiology of smoking but who continues to smoke does not really believe that smoking increases the probability of contracting various diseases? Perhaps there is some actual difference between two mental acts that we conflate by using the common term ‘belief’ - intellectual belief (as in “I know eating pies makes me fat”), and functional belief (as in “pass the pies, please”)

Perhaps all belief boils down essentially to a matter of outwardly behaving on a basically functional premise, one on which we agree to lean with agnostic reliance. (Thus it’s the equivalent of an assumption. One agrees to follow its trail and entertain its consequences as an open trial, for instance.)

Well, at least we have found one fundamental source for our interesting disagreement about direct voluntarism in beliefs.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[The_Exodus]

Now then, how would you conduct the PW argument in such a way that you logically appeal to the arguments that she has either rejected or is agnostic about? It seems to me that logically you have to set aside these other arguments and do what PW does - work through the consequences of different suppositions with regard to reality and the proposition ie PW as a separate rationale for action. But I’d be interested in whether you can logically tie arguments for the proposition into the PW argument.

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

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?

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.

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.

Now, Pascal would say, you have no way of knowing for certain in this life whether or not God exists. But, there is infinite potential in believing he does. If you are right, you gain all. If you are wrong, you lose nothing.

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.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Exodus

*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. *

No doubt that is why it’s called a “leap of faith.”

The one who refuses to leap also refuses the benefits to be derived from the faith that follows. The Wright brothers would be unknown today if they did not have faith in what others believed to be not just doubtful, but downright impossible.

Those who wage on boldness get the payoff.

 

[The_Exodus]

The Exodus

*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. *

No doubt that is why it’s called a “leap of faith.”

The one who refuses to leap also refuses the benefits to be derived from the faith that follows. The Wright brothers would be unknown today if they did not have faith in what others believed to be not just doubtful, but downright impossible.

Those who wage on boldness get the payoff.

Charlemagne,

In the past I would agree with your point, but a few years ago I experienced something unspeakably dark, which convinced me that it was not “I” who took the leap of faith. The truth is, without God’s grace, everyone would refuse to leap – even you. It would be well for you and for all Christians to come to grips with this.

Neither you, nor I, am responsible for leaping, and we no doubt both still refuse to make little leaps in our daily lives. So while I agree, that one is still held responsible for not leaping, let us say so in fear and trembling, knowing that the only reason we have leaped, is because God has moved us to do so.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

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.

My personal opinion pertaining to your comments: Speculation isn’t of sound mind. Staying calm and focused on the issue while patiently waiting for news is wise. Evidence is based on observations. May I have the Pascal’s pense(s) that states what you state.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Exodus

Neither you, nor I, am responsible for leaping, and we no doubt both still refuse to make little leaps in our daily lives. So while I agree, that one is still held responsible for not leaping, let us say so in fear and trembling, knowing that the only reason we have leaped, is because God has moved us to do so.

---

 

[The_Exodus]

My personal opinion pertaining to your comments: Speculation isn’t of sound mind. Staying calm and focused on the issue while patiently waiting for news is wise. Evidence is based on observations.

I personally agree. But notice, your stance on the nature of speculation – i.e., that clamness of mind is best – is a practical conclusion, which makes your will move your mind to act in this way. One’s “calmness” really has nothing to do with the truth of the claim, as such.

I say this to highlight the pervasiveness of Pascal’s wager. It is a penetrating psychological insight. We do it all the time, even in how we go about assessing evidence.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

I personally agree. But notice, your stance on the nature of speculation – i.e., that clamness of mind is best – is a practical conclusion, which makes your will move your mind to act in this way. One’s “calmness” really has nothing to do with the truth of the claim, as such.

I say this to highlight the pervasiveness of Pascal’s wager. It is a penetrating psychological insight. We do it all the time, even in how we go about assessing evidence.

Hi Exodus I asked from you in my previous message, “May I have the Pascal’s pense(s) that states what you state.” Will you give it to me please? Also, the pense that states what you now refer to. Your statement that I earlier addressed was based on speculation. The reason was no knowledge of death or life was known of the soldier. Honestly, free will means something different for each person as I previously mentioned in an earlier posting. Do you recall what Francis Collins said? Basically, we don’t all think alike or act alike. Not even twins. It’s dangerous to psychologize people on the Internet. You obviously aren’t a professional psychologist.

 

[The_Exodus]

Hi Exodus I asked from you in my previous message, “May I have the Pascal’s pense(s) that states what you state.” Will you give it to me please? Also, the pense that states what you now refer to. Your statement that I earlier addressed was based on speculation. The reason was no knowledge of death or life was known of the soldier. Honestly, free will means something different for each person as I previously mentioned in an earlier posting. Do you recall what Francis Collins said? Basically, we don’t all think alike or act alike. Not even twins. It’s dangerous to psychologize people on the Internet. You obviously aren’t a professional psychologist.

No, you’re perfectly right about that. I am no professional psychologist. I do, however, know myself a little bit, and if other men are like me, I think I may have some knowledge about how their mind works.

I meant no offense to you. You seem to be felt slighted. I actually agreed with you, for what it’s worth.

Here is the relevant part of the Pensees which discuss the wager.

mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/Pascal_Wager.htm

 

[hecd2]

hecd2:

To do so, I start with an axiom that what our senses tell us, usually corresponds approximately to reality. That sounds horribly tentative, but I can’t justify anything stronger. I justify the tentative statement pragmatically - that the fact that we can make our way through the world supports that axiom: we can cross the street, we can find food etc.

Can you justify this, admittedly weak and tentative as it is?

Ok, so this is a new big subject. There are various elements that I omitted in a very sketchy description of my position. For example I reject solipsism out of hand without wishing to or being able to justify that step - to arrive at realism.

How do you avoid the charge that your entire belief system rests on a whim, a comforting resolution to stick one’s head in the sand and cross his fingers, on blind faith?

Wow. To justify one’s axiom that one’s senses usually correspond to an external reality does not strike me as whimsical or based on blind faith. It’s one’s experience from birth onwards. Stick your hand in the fire and you’ll get burnt. Look at the sky and you will see that it’s blue. Find something to eat or you’ll starve. Look before you cross the road and act on what you see or you’ll be strawberry jam. Put one foot in front of the other till you reach the precipice then do it one more time and down you go. See what happens to others in similar circumstances. I can’t think of anything less whimsical or with more concrete consequences than to deny that what our senses tell us usually corresponds to reality, and no-one could live for any significant time who acted on a contrary belief. To me, the tentativeness and weakness comes not from any arbitrariness in the proposition that our senses correspond with reality, but from it’s imperviousness to formal proof (and from the facts that we have discovered that they do not always do so and that they do so imperfectly).

At the end of the day, I may not dismiss these pragmatic justifications. However, we’d then have to consider what such justifications might even begin to look like

For me they look like demonstrations that decisions to act, based on our senses, get us through the world at all (hence the pragmatism), which would be impossible in the absence of some substantial degree of correspondence.

And it arguably requires the belief that our wills, which seem responsible for these axiomatic beginnings, are only justified on certain grounds. Anything “pragmatic” presupposes a justified aim before it declares its means.

Could you expand on that?

I sympathize. Trust me. Every now and again I’ll be fall into entertaining unspeakable skepticism and nonsense. I’ve got an idea for a revised PW, based on retortion, that claims God provides the only way out of an utterly terrifying, unintelligible nightmare of nihilism.

Well, I don’t feel like I’m in a nightmare of nihilism, not for a second. I don’t see that fallibilism leads necessarily to nihilism. I’m pretty comfortable with where I am in my epistemic philosophy - it gives me what I need to underpin my epistemics which are frankly empirical and verificationist. As a scientist, it’s pretty unusual for anyone to even consider this stuff explicitly. I am sure that it’s naive and horribly incomplete and could be pulled apart in seconds by a professional. I haven’t thought it through completely and developed it fully because I haven’t got the training nor the talent and because it doesn’t ultimately matter that much to me. I enjoy thinking about it from time to time, but it’s all rather distant, like considering the Peano axioms as a prelude to doing the domestic accounts.

Modern philosophy is arguably man’s valiant battle against radical solipsism and Cartesian evil demons.

Perhaps, but my response to radical solipsism is to laugh at it - like I laugh at Gosse’s Omphalos.

Now, accepting the tentative statement as one axiom and the intelligibility of the world as another, we can move forward to develop beliefs about reality that more or less correspond to it. We do that in our day to day lives, and, as an example, the entire natural science project is based on finding ways to avoid sensing and interpretative errors to arrive at beliefs that more and more closely correspond to reality.

Sure, as long as you’re still limiting your confidence in these beliefs to the justification of your initial foundational axiom. I’ll object as soon as you begin to suggest that any correspondence or logical order within the system can add justification to the axiom itself, i.e., beyond the system…] Maybe we’ll have to consider first-axiom options more.

Why don’t we do that. I’m not, just now, that keen on foundational beliefs. I don’t think that there are many, if any, beliefs about reality which are self-evident and beyond skepticism. What I declare as axioms are testable, to some extent, within the system. Since I have eschewed a formal system here by conceding fallibility and having weak “axioms” then I don’t think any damage is done by testing the axioms within the system, or tring to figure out how to strengthen them. We can look at least for consistency between the axioms and the beliefs that come out of empirical data in the system of the axioms. Is it potentially circular? Yes. Could I be completely deceived in my system? Absolutely. Radical solipsism, Cartesian evil demons and Omphalos are all potential defeaters.

I can see how introducing God could potentially short circuit all of this, but that reminds me of this.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[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”…

OK, I want to think about this before I knee jerk. It’s an novel perspective (well to me anyway). I feel comfortable with my epistemic basis and I feel uncomfortable with PW (as you might have noticed), but I haven’t considered them to be potentially equivalent and I haven’t thought through whether my reasoning in support of one and against the other are inconsistent. It might have something to do with the payoff for one being immediate and immediately experienced and the other being delayed but I’ll try to think it through and get back if I have something not completely stupid to say.Or if I decide I agree with you and come over…

Alec

 

[LogisticsBranch]

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.
LogisticsBranch;7515321:

My personal opinion pertaining to your comments: Speculation isn’t of sound mind. Staying calm and focused on the issue while patiently waiting for news is wise. Evidence is based on observations. May I have the Pascal’s pense(s) that states what you state.
The Exodus;7515339:

I personally agree. But notice, your stance on the nature of speculation – i.e., that clamness of mind is best – is a practical conclusion, which makes your will move your mind to act in this way. One’s “calmness” really has nothing to do with the truth of the claim, as such.

I say this to highlight the pervasiveness of Pascal’s wager. It is a penetrating psychological insight. We do it all the time, even in how we go about assessing evidence.
LogisticsBranch;7515376:

Hi Exodus I asked from you in my previous message, “May I have the Pascal’s pense(s) that states what you state.” Will you give it to me please? Also, the pense that states what you now refer to. Your statement that I earlier addressed was based on speculation. The reason was no knowledge of death or life was known of the soldier. Honestly, free will means something different for each person as I previously mentioned in an earlier posting. Do you recall what Francis Collins said? Basically, we don’t all think alike or act alike. Not even twins. It’s dangerous to psychologize people on the Internet. You obviously aren’t a professional psychologist.
The Exodus;7515500:

No, you’re perfectly right about that. I am no professional psychologist. I do, however, know myself a little bit, and if other men are like me, I think I may have some knowledge about how their mind works.

I meant no offense to you. You seem to be felt slighted. I actually agreed with you, for what it’s worth.

Here is the relevant part of the Pensees which discuss the wager.

mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/Pascal_Wager.htm

Nice to met you. I’m having fun chatting with you. I still would like those pensees. Also, two of your observations are incorrect. First off, I’m not a man. I’m a woman and I’m not upset with feelings that people try to project onto me. No two persons are alike. But I do have a better understanding of you. You seem to suggest all men think alike? I’ve known a lot of men in my lifetime and none of them think always alike.

So one little page supports only the ‘relevant part’ of Pensees from the link (url) provided by you. I notice it doesn’t refer to any pensees by Pascal. I wouldn’t call the document to be all that great. You could pick out the pensees from the 994 penses from Pascal that support the paper from your link(url). Again I repeat as noted on the previous page:

Thanks to danserr for mentioning on page one about Pascal’s Pensees. As I’ve mentioned before on this topic, do some research. I’ve left quite a bit of it as can been seen in my previous messages but I wanted to further explore Pascal’s Pensees. W.F. Trotter has translated Blaise Pascal’s PENSEES. Everyone can read all of Pascal’s pensees online. It’s free! oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-a.html.

My suggestion is to read them. Some pensees sit well with me others do not. It’s a mixed bag of sorts.

Take care and may God bless you and everyone!