Pascal's Wager Argument

[atheistgirl]

that if there is no afterlife, the nullity of all consciousness upon death would render all our actions during life futile, both for ourselves and others.

In what way are all our actions futile in this life, if there is no afterlife?

Sarah x

 

[Anselm33]

Interesting… this is actually subtley different to what I’ve been arguing all these years, and probably less cynical!

My argument was always roughly, that if there is no afterlife, the nullity of all consciousness upon death would render all our actions during life futile, both for ourselves and others. Only if there is eternal consciousness is purposeful life possible, and human experience of the possibility of the same is overwhelmingly tied into, and dependent upon, God, so therefore we should assume God is real in order to have meaningful purpose to our lives…

So are you saying this is this not quite what Pascal was arguing?

yep, Pascal’s argument was strictly prudential. By the way I see the link I gave doesn’t work.
Here’s another one:
facebook.com/note.php?note_id=171231979581598
Pascal invented (along with Fermat) modern probability theory, as an aid for gamblers; This is the context in which the wager should be viewed.
anselm

 

[Anselm33]

Interesting… this is actually subtley different to what I’ve been arguing all these years, and probably less cynical!

My argument was always roughly, that if there is no afterlife, the nullity of all consciousness upon death would render all our actions during life futile, both for ourselves and others. Only if there is eternal consciousness is purposeful life possible, and human experience of the possibility of the same is overwhelmingly tied into, and dependent upon, God, so therefore we should assume God is real in order to have meaningful purpose to our lives…

So are you saying this is this not quite what Pascal was arguing?

I should add that my interpretation seems to me to be more cynical than the argument you quoted, but being prudential can be (in some contexts) a cynical way of doing things.
anselm.

 

[Touchstone]

I do see your point and your criticism may indeed be correct in the end. Mostly, I’m curious as to what sort of value, if any, a fundamentally pragmatic argument could potentially have. I also wonder whether we could ever derive any theoretical conclusions based on some recognition of an undeniable pragmatic value.

Plus, I’m not so much interested in a proper exegesis per se of Pascal; if any conceivable argument could be mounted to the same general result, that would be intriguing enough.

Pascal might deny that you’ve got any reason to call what you’ve got “a real and current asset.” We would have to have a set of criteria by which to judge something either valuable/pragmatic/successful or not.
Yes, and here, we can see Pascal refuting himself.

Think about what that entails. If Pascal suggests I haven’t got any assets to protect, mental or otherwise, then I necessarily have NO BASIS to entertain, never mind accept his wager. The wager is predicated on the assumption that I do have something to gain/lose. That’s the “stakes” for the wager, and the only basis for calling it a wager.

If I have a mind capable of grokking the proposition, then it is functional enough (and therefore an asset) to identify Pascal’s Wager as a barely child-quality bit of analysis.

If I don’t have a mind capable of identifying the Wager for the debasement it is, there’s no point in “winning the wager”, there’s nothing to preserve or “win with”.

Let’s just suppose – for argument’s sake – that Pascal believes, and that it really is true, that if God doesn’t exist, then nothing is valuable or good. If we assume that nihilism is entailed by God’s non-existence (and I know you and hecd2 deny this, but entertain it for now), then ipso facto haven’t we necessarily eliminated all possible justification for accepting atheism?

Yes, certainly. You’ve eliminated the concept of “justification” entirely. Justification becomes Jabberwocky at that point all the way around, yes. This makes the value of “winning the wager” just as absurd in the process, though. You’re right, ipso facto, but Pascal has to blow his own head off to hit the mark on this. It annihilates the Wager along with his target.

At this point, it would seem the options are:

(1) Accept theism.
(a) God exists, and you’re possibly justified.
(b) God doesn’t exist, and you’re not justified.
(2) Don’t accept theism.
(a) God exists, and you’re not justified.
(b) God doesn’t exist, and you’re not justified.

2(a) seems to offer the only initial wiggle room for the PW denier here. It looks like the key point lies in whether we know, and whether it’s true, that if God doesn’t exist there’s no (basis for) meaning or purpose.

Right, arguendo, but this annihilates the Wager as well. This logic consumes itself on that lemma.

To reject theism w/such knowledge would amount to saying this:
“I know that, logically speaking, if God doesn’t exist, then nothing is justified (as a result of all value being merely illusory). Also logically speaking, a proposition can only be legitimately justified if it’s true (or possibly true?). (Or: Also logically speaking, the acceptance of a proposition can only ever be justified if one at least believes it is true.) If I believe that God doesn’t exist, then I cannot believe or know I’m justified in such a belief – in fact, I could only ever have justification if I were wrong, so my acceptance of atheism is necessarily irrational and unjustified.”

Yes, correct. Per the understandings you’ve stipulated, this necessary follows. But it necessary follows that if pigs could fly… well, I am not sure what that would entail. But at any rate, garbage in, garbage out. Pascal’s problem, as with so many other noodlers, is not establishing implications, it’s starting uncritically with gratuitous and frivolous superstitions as their foundational premises. If you begin with goofy pseudo-axioms, no amount of high-quality deduction from there can save your enterprise.

GIGO.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

In Spiration:

From here, one might offer some “logical consequences” that don’t directly follow, but which would be consistent with the logic. E.g.:
(i) “While other arguments for God’s existence aren’t immediately compelling, we are immediately sure of the fact that justification in general is real or at least possible (and if it’s even possible, then God exists).”
(ii) “The fact our wills are effectively forced, or irresistibly disposed, to adopt certain beliefs is a sure sign that the object/content of such beliefs is true, or rooted somehow in truth. And it’s indeed impossible, not just practically beneficial, to believe our beliefs are false or unjustified. (If we cannot believe x, then x is false.)”
(iii) If someone’s ever given the option between affirming or denying x, then he will ultimately never decide unless he sees at least some benefit (some good/positive value) to affirmation/denial. If there is absolutely nothing for or against p, he will never believe in p or not-p. If we know that p is possibly justified, and that not-p is necessarily unjustifed, then we have some reason to push the belief threshold. In the absence of theoretical, truth-conducive reasons, practicality might step in?

I think the hole in this logic is that ignores human self-reflection; we are tainted just be thinking about the above in the abstract. This is a form of debasement. We understand the underlying mechanics of the Wager, and the wager changes in its dynamics. A kind of “strange loop” of self-interaction. It is precisely through bullet points like this that (iv) looms over all of this:

(iv) (i)-(iii) are naïve game-theoretic responses to the unknown, an irrational and emotional way to “bargain with our own ignorance”.

It would be sophistry committed against the self it was more sophisticated. In any case, a bit of self reflection results in (i)-(iii) being thought about, not just thought, and the rationale behind them, the “meta-rationale” becomes clear. And the thinker is repulsed.

I agree that there’s an apparent degree of intellectual debasement when one prioritizes self-interest over truth,

I understand what you are saying, but I hold it to be a form of self-debasement to consider those as distinct. That is, self-preservation over defeat-in-truth is still defeat. You’re defeated either way in this case, but in the former case, one is debased, AND defeated. At least in facing the truth, painful or destructive as it may be, we are not also debased.

Again, if debasement is not a problem, then none of this holds, and Pascal’s Wager is a viable proposition.

Christian thinking even nominally understands this principle. What does it profit a man to gain the world and forfeit his soul? If you strip away the supernatural superstitions there, the core gist is grasped: self-preservation becomes defeat in doing what Pascal suggests we do to preserve ourselves.
"It's a TRAP!"

but I’m not so sure this would be the case if one already established that any truth can’t be known as such.

No you’re right. I can be sure it wouldn’t be the case if one stipulated the truth can’t be known as such. But it also wouldn’t matter, because then the whole basis for entertaining the wager, and “winning” is washed away, as well.
"It's a TRAP!"

Also, if someone thinks that debasement is only possible/unjustified if and only if God exists, then he’d see nothing better than debasement in refusing the wager – in fact, he’d probably view nihilism as a worse outcome than any personal debasement.

Yes, perhaps. From what I recall of Pascal, that resonates. At that point, it’s really moves out of being a serious intellectual question to pitying the poor fool, though. Not only is “theism or nihilism” a kind of cartoonish failure of intellectual imagination and moral courage, the very debasement Pascal would opt for as a result of that is the very kind of action that will prevent him from every getting out of the pit he has dug himself into.

It’s not hard to understand revulsion at the thought of nihilism. But debasement, at the level of Pascal’s Wager, IS a thoroughgoing form of nihilism. One must forsake values as baseless to accept the wager!

To get to the point: would you be willing to grant the merits of PW, or anything like it, if it’s indeed true that one’s essentially choosing between possible meaning and utter absurdity?

Sure. It’s tautologically true. You’ve posed “utter absurdity” as a choice where we are pursuing “merit”. By definition, there’s no merit in “utter absurdity”, else the absurdity ain’t “utter”.

If so, would the argument be theoretical, or would we just be allowing a “pure faith”/pragmatic “wager” sort of thing? If the justification is pragmatic, what’s the basis and how do we know?

Sorrry, I don’t think you made that cryptic, but I can’t decide what your asking, here. Can you rephrase that for me?

If anyone admits the “God or nihilism” dilemma, maybe that’s where this argument must lead. I, for one, think it’s a legit dilemma, but that would launch us into a lot of arguing about what’s necessary for a true, justified ground for any ultimately meaningful ethics/value system. And I’ll bet we’ve got differences on what’s satisfactory.

God or nihilism. This as a duality is debasing, and really, that’s the core problem for Pascal, here. If you get to a point where one sees only these options, you’re already pretty far off in left field.

Good post, thanks for the thought invested there.

-TS

 

[hecd2]

hecd2,

I hope you’re still around. Here are some replies to your comments. I might try to summarize my general view on its own in another post. But for now…

I’ll do my best to respond to this but it’s been a while since we last spoke so please forgive any non sequiturs or plain nonsense that I’m bound to produce.

I meant to say that I’m not ready to reject the notion of belief as being simply a reliance on the truth of p without certainty in p’s truth, where “reliance” includes outward activity. Basically, mentally accepting p may just mean the choice of acting as if p is true regardless of knowing so, without being intellectually compelled. Belief may perhaps be characterized as the subject’s attempt to fill a perceived gap between truth and knowledge (in the attempt to attain the recognized potential benefits surrounding knowledge of some truth).

I hear what you’re saying - that believing is not merely or always acting as if p, but in some circumstances relying on p (which includes outward action) is sufficient to define belief. I’d like to propose a question and a point. First, how, other than outward action, does one manifest one’s reliance on p? In other words, is your definition conceptually different from belief in p *is *acting as if p - whether or not one intellectually accepts that p is true. Second, the point - how does that work in the light of the sort of perverse actions of professed believers that I put forward - it seems to me that according to this definition one could not simultaneously hold an intellectual belief and act contrary to that belief. So if I commit a mortal sin I must have abandoned my belief in God; if I smoke I must reject the truth of the epidemiology of smoking.

Re: religious faith, there are degrees of it. After all, faith is considered one of the highest virtues. This is obviously much more than simply the mental/verbal affirmation of theism.

Sure, although I do not accept the virtue of belief by faith at all.

Sense-data is meaningless until it’s interpreted. The senses don’t judge that there’s a gap between internal and external, nor do they make any metaphysical commitments. Further, your justifications here are mostly pragmatic, so I don’t see the necessary truth-conducive aspect.

It’s correct that sense data must be interpreted - in about three neurones in C elegans, in a much more complex way in H sapiens. I was using ‘sense data’ to include interpretation and given that, my point stands. The justification of the axiom is not whimsical or faith based but is tested at every moment of every day. It seems to me that if our sensing of the world is not broadly aligned with reality, we would die a quick and brutish death. That’s where the alignment reality is shown. Of course the senses and their interpretation are not infallible, which adds a layer of complexity - see my post on this up-thread in response to M Banana.

The EW correspondence axiom is whimsical and arbitrary unless one has established its preference as being rooted in something other than an undetermined free will. What makes the property of being preferred since birth non-arbitrary? Are your preferences themselves rationally based? But if they are, then perhaps your “axiom” is based in reason after all.

I’m not sure of your point. You seem to be saying that this axiom needs some validation for preference other than free will? Is that right? If so, my answer is based on the consequences of ignoring it. How long do you think you’d survive if you acted in direct contravention to the EW. How long? I’m sorry that the language of my answer is not very philosophical but the preference is absolutely forced on us by the blows, burns, cuts, falls, starvation and so forth that a rejection of the EW entails. I doubt whether the axiom is rational or produced by undetermined free will(we don’t arrive at it by reason, but by experience and by genetic code and all mobile creatures from us down to C elegans live by it) but it is inescapable and undeniable. Show me someone who claims to live without accepting the EW and I’ll show you a self-delusionist.

…]

 

[hecd2]

…]

This sounds like rational justification to me. As such, it also still seems incomplete. You’d need to establish that practical impossibility has truth-conducive implications, for one.

OK - so your challenge here is to show that the impossibility of getting through the world without accepting EW entails a general correspondence between our interpretation of sense data and reality. Perhaps, I can ask you - how would it be otherwise? If our interpretation of sense data did not have a correspondence to reality how would you explain our experience that, acting as if the correspondence pertains, is essential for survival. What scenario of non-correspondence would result in such an outcome?

Plus, “getting through the world” is vague; it appeals to a standard of success, which would arguably be contingent on the truth of an external world. If radical solipsism is true, for instance, then could one “fail” in any sense?

Absolutely - radical solipsism trumps everything without trying. The existence of an external world is an unprovable and irrational axiom. Trying to prove it is a fool’s errand.

Perhaps there is no real value. This is what I mean when I say pragmatism presupposes a justified end. It’s impossible to judge whether anything “works” without assuming a worthy goal as the standard. But this standard would likely stand/fall according to the truth (or else to the whims of some non-rationally chosen standard).

Well, in this case, the value is survival and avoidance of harm in the context of and by entities in external reality - and yes, I know that is presupposing that survival and avoidance of harm are justified ends - but I’d be interested to see a case that they are not, either in terms of biological evolution or some transcendental metaphysics - I feel them very directly - they are justified to me. I don’t see reason and whim being dialectically opposed here. The justified end bears directly and immediately on my personally experienced well-being and that of every other sentient being. I cannot but act as though my interpretation of sense data corresponds to external reality - and neither can you.

And Samuel Johnson “refuted” Berkeleyan idealism by kicking a stone. Though you may be justified, you haven’t p(name removed by moderator)ointed the source of that justification.

Well, perhaps I’m unable to think this through in sufficient detail and with sufficiently circumscribed definitions of terms to make a proper philosophically justified case. I did point out at the outset that I am not a philosopher but a scientist. What I am describing here is a worldview that I find satisfactory and compelling, but I’m quite willing to accept that is deficient in some formal philosophical sense.

Suppose that all EW deniers (apparently!) struggle within this world and die. Or pretend you did decide to forever doubt your EW axiom and that, further, this caused you horrible suffering.

Why and how would that suggest these beliefs are in fact false?

Maybe it wouldn’t suggest any such thing. In that case, is anything “justified”? Wouldn’t it be more correct to just say: “**** happens”?

maybe - but don’t you think that the consequences of EW denial should carry some epistemic weight?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[P_A_L]

I actually find that kind of blasphemous. I don’t think that god would be pleased by a person who lies to him self, “pretends” to believe, gives lip service to God, “just to be on the safe side”.

 

[hecd2]

IS has pointed me at this post that I haven’t responded to - so here goes.

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.”

I agree with that and think it’s what I’ve been trying in my inarticulate way to say all along. This, I think, draws a line under one part of our discussion, which was about whether the PW stands on its own or relies on other arguments from a perfectly logical or epistemic point of view. It seems that we agree that it is not connected to arguments for (or against) the proposition.

The wager derives its force from the *outcome *of the arguments.

Agreed in so far as those outcomes can be determined to a high degree of probability (see below).

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.

Yes, I think that the outcomes of the various options cannot be clearly and unambiguously discerned (again, see below): if this comports with unintelligibility then this is an accurate reflection of my position.

But the outcomes do not seem to me to be unintelligible. Either God exists or he doesn’t.

Granted.

Argument does not support either hypothesis, but one hypothesis must be true, and the other false, regardless of belief.

Granted, and this also aligns us with my view that the wager logically stands apart from arguments for or against the proposition.

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.

And this is where we part company, because I don’t see that the conclusion follows. In order to make the claims valid a) that belief matters very much if God exists and b) that granted that it matters then it is reasonable to believe, then one has to make all sorts of assumptions about the nature of God and His putative relationship with us that cannot and are not justified within the wager. The wager gives us no warrant to think that believing in God if He exists will matter at all to us or to think that believing necessarily leads to a better outcome than not believing. To that extent the terms of the wager are unclear, unintelligible and incapable of demonstration. For the wager to work it requires us to make a leap not just from unbelief to belief, but from complete ignorance about the nature of God to unwarranted (within the agnostic and ignorant context of the wager) assumptions about His nature and how He will treat belief and unbelief in us.

Furthermore, I don’t accept the proposition that one is risking nothing by belief in the event of His non-existence. To the extent that one cares about aligning one’s beliefs with reality to the best of one’s ability, then accepting the wager in its own terms is a degradation of that stance, and in a matter that in its own terms is absolutely foundational to our world view. It undermines one’s reasonable epistemology and replaces it with a process that subjugates epistemic integrity to superstition. I don’t see that as a small matter and much less do I see it as ‘nothing’.

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?”

Your integrity and your life’s energy in following a will o’ the wisp. Fearlessness in deluding yourself demonstrably leads to all sorts of bizarre and ill conclusions - when you have been fearless about the possibility of deluding yourself with regard to foundational beliefs, what rational raft is left to cling to? It seems to me that in this matter, above all others, we should fear deluding ourselves.

None of this, of course, has any bearing on the reality of God’s existence - this is all about the wager as a reasonable and respectable argument for belief (or for acting as if one believed). As ever, thanks for the time you have spent thinking about these things and helping me to think through my position.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Ranklyfrank]

The Exodus:

The wager derives its force from the outcome of the arguments.

In fact the outcome is the defeat of the argument i that it is “arrival” at God by wager, not love nor faith, even if it is intended that somehow in process a transformation occurs.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

In what way are all our actions futile in this life, if there is no afterlife?

Sarah x

Because if all human beings were to be finite, then nothing we do would have lasting effect for anyone - since all benefit would cease to have effect upon death, something which occurs to all. Thus, the net gain for the human race of, well, anything, would be zero

Oh, hang on - I said that in the bit you were questioning!!! Is there a part you don’t you understand? Or have you a reasonable counter argument?

 

[Ranklyfrank]

Because if all human beings were to be finite, then nothing we do would have lasting effect for anyone - since all benefit would cease to have effect upon death, something which occurs to all. Thus, the net gain for the human race of, well, anything, would be zero

Do you have an imagination you could apply to this problem, oh yellow rinded one? Are you really considering all possible factors? Hmmmmm…I think not. (Ranklyfrank suddenly vanishes and finds himself in a vast nothingness next to Descartes who refused a cocktail at a party with those exact words …)

 

[Mystic_Banana]

The Exodus: In fact the outcome is the defeat of the argument i that it is “arrival” at God by wager, not love nor faith, even if it is intended that somehow in process a transformation occurs.

Can you really justify that? The wager is a baseline reason for *choosing * faith, but it’s not the faith itself. By it’s very nature it leads to engagement with that love and faith - and waits again (and again) if that engagement fails…

I’ve considered it cynical myself, although I think that that was (predictably) as a result of suggestion of the same from atheists - ironic in itself, not least because it only throws cynicism back at the cynicism of doubt, by doing which (specifically, demonstrating the worthlessness of faithlessness) - it is yet another portrayal of how completely reason leads to God, by doing which, it becomes something beautiful in itself

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Do you have an imagination you could apply to this problem, oh yellow rinded one? Are you really considering all possible factors? Hmmmmm…I think not. (Ranklyfrank suddenly vanishes and finds himself in a vast nothingness next to Descartes who refused a cocktail at a party with those exact words …)

I was refuting your argument (such as it was) while you were posting… you’ll have to try harder than that!

 

[atheistgirl]

Because if all human beings were to be finite, then nothing we do would have lasting effect for anyone - since all benefit would cease to have effect upon death,

I dont look on it as futile to give my children the best education I can. They will carry that forward in their lives, and hopefully, from the examples set by my husband and I and their extended family, will go on to live great, productive, happy, fun and love filled lives, as will their children and so on and so on… but there will come a point, I believe, when it will all end. And when the last person switches the lights off, that’s it.
It’s a bit like saying why bother painting the nursery because the kids will just grow up and out of it anyhow. Of course you paint the nursery.
You do your absolute best. You give it all youve got. If you have kids, you give them the best start you possibly can. But I recognise there will come a time when it will all come to an end.
And to me, there’s nothing to be fearful or sad about. And there’s nothing futile in it, or the time in the run up to it. It’s just the nature of the life we live and the planet we evolved on.

Sarah x

 

[Ranklyfrank]

I was refuting your argument (such as it was) while you were posting… you’ll have to try harder than that!

Not really interested; having a nice chat here with Descartes. Much more fascinating than your attempts right now. But at least you are trying, and I admire that. Bon chance!

 

[Mystic_Banana]

I dont look on it as futile to give my children the best education I can. They will carry that forward in their lives, and hopefully, from the examples set by my husband and I and their extended family, will go on to live great, productive, happy, fun and love filled lives, as will their children and so on and so on… but there will come a point, I believe, when it will all end. And when the last person switches the lights off, that’s it.
It’s a bit like saying why bother painting the nursery because the kids will just grow up and out of it anyhow. Of course you paint the nursery.
You do your absolute best. You give it all youve got. If you have kids, you give them the best start you possibly can. But I recognise there will come a time when it will all come to an end.
And to me, there’s nothing to be fearful or sad about. And there’s nothing futile in it, or the time in the run up to it. It’s just the nature of the life we live and the planet we evolved on.

Sarah x

…none of which comes out as meaningful purpose, but as a shallow might as well. Which, as I argue, is the best that’s possible given your beliefs.

Presenting your assumptions regarding the nature of life as if they were facts will not make this approach any more reasonable, I’m afraid! :tsktsk:

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Not really interested; having a nice chat here with Descartes. Much more fascinating than your attempts right now. But at least you are trying, and I admire that. Bon chance!

Heh heh… knew you were going to cop out!

 

[Touchstone]

…none of which comes out as meaningful purpose, but as a shallow might as well. Which, as I argue, is the best that’s possible given your beliefs.

I should just start bookmarking posts like this, the ones that make it really clear how imperative it is for many Catholics to embrace Catholic teaching, even and especially IF IT IS FALSE. You have basically signalled that you can’t even hope to think seriously about these questions, because you can’t bear the consequences. Atheists laugh at “that’s the best possible given your beliefs”, but it’s clear you find it without meaningful purpose; you really have convinced yourself that’s the case.

So, you’ll believe anything and everything that steers you away from that. Who wouldn’t? When you build a worldview out of strawmen, this is what happens.

Anyway, filing this is in the “terrorized by consequences” file…

-TS

 

[Ranklyfrank]

Heh heh… knew you were going to cop out!

Spoken like a true mystic. How come I don’t feel alone? :headscratch: