What Do You Think Of Emmanuel's Wager©?

[Oreoracle]

Philosophically, it is substantiated.

If infinite regressions are possible, then,* logic dictates,* we would never be able to achieve the present.

That’s basic philosophy (and math), Oreoracle.

Let’s dissect this a bit more. What do you mean by “achieve the present”? I assume you mean “reach the present moment”. Reach from whence? Tell me the starting point, and I will demonstrate that we can reach this moment within a finite amount of time.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I think maybe this is splitting hairs. An atheist is an atheist. If you don’t believe in God, you have rejected God. People can lives moral lives to a degree. Catholics can live moral lives. But to die in sin is not good for an atheist any more than it is good for a Catholic. Atheism is a mortal sin as defined by the Church in the CCC. One cannot overcome mortal sin by virtues that apply in other parts of our conduct.

All this is at the heart of Pascal’s Wager.

Consider Roko’s Basilisk. A future benevolent AI may “resurrect” people who did not help create it and torture them. It is better, therefore, for even people who don’t believe in the possibility of AI or “natural” resurrection to help create the benevolent AI. In your terminology, rejecting the possibility of a benevolent AI is sinful, and no one is immune from the consequences of their lack of belief.

 

[PRmerger]

Let’s dissect this a bit more. What do you mean by “achieve the present”? I assume you mean “reach the present moment”. Reach from whence? Tell me the starting point, and I will demonstrate that we can reach this moment within a finite amount of time.

That’s the problem, isn’t it?

We can no more speak of “starting points” with infinite regression than we could speak of a circle having angles.

They are contrary positions, no?

 

[Oreoracle]

That’s the problem, isn’t it?

We can no more speak of “starting points” with infinite regression than we could speak of a circle having angles.

They are contrary positions, no?

Actually, that’s my point. Your objection that we wouldn’t be able to “reach” the present implicitly assumes that there is a beginning. Naturally if you assume the negation of what someone proposes, then you’ll reach a contradiction. Your job is to demonstrate that there must logically be a starting point, rather than assume it.

Consider an analogous disagreement that may arise when talking about the integers. Someone might say, “The integers cannot extend backward forever because we would never be able to reach a particular integer, say 0”. The problem with this is the assumption that we “start” somewhere (presumably negative infinity) and that we must count until we reach the desired integer. The argument fails, however, because it assumes that there is a first integer. Negative infinity is not an integer.

If instead one specifies an actual integer, say -1,000,000, then there is no issue. We’re perfectly capable of reaching any integer from any other integer. Likewise, we’re perfectly capable of reaching any point in time from any other point in time. Problems only arise when you try to postulate a “beginning” and treat that as a point in time.

 

[PRmerger]

Actually I am familiar with some of the guidelines. Some of these guidelines are covered in high school.

You are saying you studied these guidelines in high school?

Just curious–how long ago were you in high school?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Consider Roko’s Basilisk. A future benevolent AI may “resurrect” people who did not help create it and torture them. It is better, therefore, for even people who don’t believe in the possibility of AI or “natural” resurrection to help create the benevolent AI. In your terminology, rejecting the possibility of a benevolent AI is sinful, and no one is immune from the consequences of their lack of belief.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I will guess that you haven’t read his Pensees if you can posit the above.

Not only the Pensees, but also his protracted debate with the Jesuits. It seemed not to matter what subjects Pascal addressed with his pen, he was simply brilliant.

The only defect of* Pensees* is that it is fragmented and disjointed at times. That was not Pascal’s fault, but the fact that he never lived to assemble his *Thoughts *in a final text. That was done for him by others who recognized his genius and the need to keep it alive for subsequent generations.

The Wager Argument has never been logically defeated. Even the logician Bertrand Russell, who addressed Anselm’s ontological argument, never tackled it. You would think of all people he could dismantle it if dismantling was possible.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Imagine an artificial intelligence that was able to resurrect you after you died and torture you. Once created, the artificial intelligence would do this to people who, in the past, denied the possibility of AI and didn’t help the development of AI (e.g. were AI-atheistic.)

Now, according to Pascal’s-wager-reasoning, we should not only believe in AI, but do what we can to help create such an AI in order to avoid resurrection and torture.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Now, according to Pascal’s-wager-reasoning, we should not only believe in AI, but do what we can to help create such an AI in order to avoid resurrection and torture.

I don’t think Pascal argued any such thing.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I don’t think Pascal argued any such thing.

The problem is that these wagers are scorched earth sorts of arguments. Anything other than an a-priori proof of the impossibility of one side of the wager is deemed insufficient to “disprove” the wager. If you accept that the God-wager is a compelling reason to be a theist, then suddenly you open yourself up to compulsion through analogous wagers like Roko’s Basilisk.

As you correctly pointed out, you can’t escape these wagers just by “not believing” in God. You also can’t escape other analogous wagers just by not believing in some aspect of the wager (e.g. AI or natural resurrection processes.)

 

[SecretCatholic]

There are endless varieties of definitions of “atheist” and “agnostic”. My usage is as follows: An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in any gods. They may or may not be asserting that there are no gods (some people make the “strong atheism” and “weak atheism” distinction). An agnostic claims that knowledge of gods is impossible, or at least that we currently have none. Note that it’s possible to be agnostic and Christian. I know several who are.

Oreoracle, you are incorrect. An agnostic, for whatever reason, simply claims not to know whether God exists or not. An agnostic does not necessarily claim that knowledge of God’s existence cannot be known (though he might), but simply that he does not know. So an agnostic does not claim neither disbelief (as an atheist) nor faith in God. A person with such a position cannot, by definition, be a Christian. He may go to mass and live a Christian-like life, but without belief and faith in God, I am afraid that one cannot be a Christian.

So, with respect to the Christian God, I am both atheist and agnostic; I don’t believe in him, but I concede that he is defined so as to be unfalsifiable and unverifiable. In general, I am “ignostic” with respect to the more generic notion of gods; that is, I think the term is ill-defined and must be specified further before I can answer questions of the form “Do you believe in this god?”

There was never widespread "argument’ on these terms till recently. These seem to be politically and culturally based. Let me give you the short, traditionally accepted definitions:

agnostic: a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

atheist: a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods

You cannot be both at the same time. BTW, the term “gods” is completely incompatible with the monotheist view of God. “gods” are super-beings, while God is the essence of being. There is an infinite gap there. So to say that you don’t believe in Zeus is an infinitely different claim that to say that you don’t believe in God.

To the contrary, only about 2% of the U.S. population are atheists, but the percentage is multiplied when you ask whether the respondents are “atheist, agnostic, or secular”. So I think that either A) people can’t agree on a definition of “agnostic”, or B) “agnostic” has become a politically correct term one uses when they don’t wish to offend anyone. In my experience, it’s a bit of both.

Polls in the U.S. show a dismal understanding of anything, whether its the Constitution or religion. It’s very sad.

I agree, and this leads me back to my ignosticism. My answer to the question “Do you believe in God?” changes with the definition of “God”. In this case, you’re saying a belief in God is just a belief in morality, which only a psychopath wouldn’t hold.

I did not say or intend this. Good comes from God. The ultimate good is God. So anyone ordered towards good is ultimately going to be led to God, even if he does not recognize God in quite the same way as the Christian.

And if that’s true, I can respect that. However, many Catholics I know do have beliefs that are at odds with what we know from science. So, official stance of the Church or not, this phenomenon of faith vs. science has to be addressed. Unfortunately, some innocent Christians get caught in the crossfire.

The official stance of the Catholic church IS the Catholic position. Period. Our religion is not a democracy nor a matter of opinion. It has an official authority through which scripture is carefully interpreted and moral positions are declared when necessary. Any Catholic in disagreement is simply not following the faith. If they want to follow their own private interpretations, let them join the any protestant denomination.

Any belief a Catholic has outside the official position of the church, such as on evolution, the big bang or whatnot, is simply his private belief and has no bearing on the faith or the church. A Catholic is free to believe or not in biological evolution. But that has nothing to do with the faith.

I don’t see what’s to be addressed in this imagined “faith vs. science”. I come from a position where they do not contradict, and I see them both as truth, but also as incomplete. The incompleteness of knowing everything about God and heaven, for instance, and the incompleteness of science in understanding the natural world could well account for all such supposed “contradictions”. I have not yet ever come across any teaching of faith or science which has forced me to “decide” between one or the other. As far as I’ve seen, this is just a false dilemma.

 

[SecretCatholic]

That being said, there is a distinction between “I have a solid foundation for my beliefs” and “My beliefs are consistent with known facts”. If I claim that alien life exists in our galaxy, that is consistent with known facts–nothing we know of contradicts it. If I claim that this alien race demands our obedience and that any moral person would comply with their wishes, I have clearly overstepped the boundaries of an “innocent” or “harmless” belief. I would be making normative claims based on nothing.

The proofs are just meant to get to God’s existence. We believe in heaven and hell because of revelations from God, and because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am afraid that you are stuck with a very unsophisticated understanding of heaven, hell and God. It’s not that God will damn us. It’s that he is telling us that ultimately we will damn ourselves, like a doctor tells us that we will ultimately die young if we lead unhealthy lives, because we just weren’t designed to carry about that way.

I would not follow God if he were some arbitrary monster being demanding our obedience. I believe he created us out of love and wishes the best for us, but that we have to make the decision of what to do per our free will.

I’m not entirely sure that Pascal mortified his flesh as some saints did, as I only vaguely remember reading it and can’t seem to find it now. But I think it’s safe to say that his religiosity wasn’t truly an intellectual endeavor. His belief in God surged after a near-death experience.

Faith is not just an intellectual endeavor. We do advocate that reason and intellect is all that man needs to understand the world. We believe those are necessary, but ultimately inadequate by themselves.

Everyone thinks their life is meaningful when an accident nearly kills them and they are accidentally spared. We tend to search for meaning in accidents.

Everyone except you, right? Because you’re smarter and have more “common sense” than the average Joe, or backwards Pascal. This is an extremely dismissive statement. It’s like saying “Everyone thinks they’re special because they’re alive. We tend to search for meaning in life.” You are assuming that Pascal’s emotional/psychological response was all there was. Sometimes we need events to shake us up and make us take a look at our priorities and beliefs. It doesn’t mean that those post-priorities and beliefs are just emotional and psychological responses, though.

Many people realize how foolish they have been in their lives after a brush with death and become more loving, expressive and selfless afterwards. Does this make love less reasonable or sensible. Why would it make a belief in God less reasonable or sensible?

Consider Roko’s Basilisk. A future benevolent AI may “resurrect” people who did not help create it and torture them. It is better, therefore, for even people who don’t believe in the possibility of AI or “natural” resurrection to help create the benevolent AI. In your terminology, rejecting the possibility of a benevolent AI is sinful, and no one is immune from the consequences of their lack of belief.

Let me point out that a “sentient AI”, no matter how smart and powerful is still, at best, just a being in the universe. He is not the creator or master of the universe, as God is. He is not the ultimate nature of reality, as God is. He is not love and goodness itself, as God is. Instead of an “AI” why not just use one of the old gods? It’s the same idea. These are all just beings in the universe. Perhaps super-beings, capable of incredible things, but still just beings, bound by the laws of the universe, and the laws of God.

Pascal is not referring to a being. He is referring to the foundation of reality, the essence of love itself. This is a far cry from any “AI”, no matter how smart, good or bad, or powerful it might be. I would not bow down to a monster god, and I would not bow down to a monster AI.

I will bow and kneel down to Jesus Christ, who was willing to become one of us and suffer for us and show us the way.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Let me point out that a “sentient AI”, no matter how smart and powerful is still, at best, just a being in the universe. He is not the creator or master of the universe, as God is. He is not the ultimate nature of reality, as God is. He is not love and goodness itself, as God is. Instead of an “AI” why not just use one of the old gods? It’s the same idea. These are all just beings in the universe. Perhaps super-beings, capable of incredible things, but still just beings, bound by the laws of the universe, and the laws of God.

Pascal is not referring to a being. He is referring to the foundation of reality, the essence of love itself. This is a far cry from any “AI”, no matter how smart, good or bad, or powerful it might be. I would not bow down to a monster god, and I would not bow down to a monster AI.

I will bow and kneel down to Jesus Christ, who was willing to become one of us and suffer for us and show us the way.

Pascal’s wager is fundamentally about the outcomes, about gain and loss. It assumes we can’t *know *at the beginning if your Jesus-God even exists. Pascal’s wager is compelling not because of some property of the God involved, but because of the belief-outcomes. It’s the same with Emmanuel’s Wager.

I will also point out that an AI-wager may not be incompatible with a God-wager. That is to say you could be compelled by both at the same time.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Pascal’s wager is fundamentally about the outcomes, about gain and loss. It assumes we can’t *know *at the beginning if your Jesus-God even exists.

This is correct. It should be noted that even Plato, who was not a Catholic, believed that atheism was an insult to whatever deities do exist.

Pensees is not just about the wager, but also about which religion best satisfies the requirement of belief. Anyone who has not read all of the Pensees might think Pascal’s religion was a crude form of roulette.

I don’t think Pascal, who invented the first calculator, would have been impressed with AI as the definition of God.

 

[Protestor]

So, you see, atheism nurtures TERRIBLE BETTORS
who lose in all two of their (only) outcomes (1a &
b), while theism nurtures WISER BETTORS who win
in all two of their outcome (2a & b).

I think this your wager is silly and would never do anything to convince an atheist(+or-) or agnostic. Also it seems that you think that 2 is better than 1 because the theist can say “I told you so” and the atheist would have to hear “I told you so”. A theist “wins” if and only if there is a God. He does not win if just because no one can say “I told you so”. Remember what is said in 1Cor15:12-19, where paul says if there is no resurrection then we to be pitied more than all mankind.

I hope you have only ever actually said this to theists or even better to no one at all. I say we make this the only time that your wager is ever presented to anyone

 

[Oreoracle]

Firstly, just to clarify for JapaneseKappa: He’s not equating an AI with God, he’s just pointing out how crude wager-style arguments are. Pursuing truth should be good enough. Any being who prefers his creations gamble rather than earnestly pursue truth, wherever that happens to lead them, is no being I would care to worship.

There was never widespread "argument’ on these terms till recently. These seem to be politically and culturally based. Let me give you the short, traditionally accepted definitions:

agnostic: a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

atheist: a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods

The definition of “agnostic” you’re using is an impossibility. One either believes or they do not.

The distinctions are easier to see with a practical example: Suppose someone buys a lottery ticket and is quite convinced they’ll win. I wouldn’t believe that they would win, but, given that I cannot possibly predict the random selection of lottery numbers, I would admit that I can’t know they will lose. So I am “atheist” with respect to their winning, and I am “agnostic” with respect to anyone’s claims that they know who will win or lose, assuming the game isn’t rigged. Clearly there is no middle ground. A person who says they “don’t claim faith or disbelief with respect to someone’s winning” really means that they don’t believe they will win. It’s just a more polite way of saying the same thing.

If you don’t like the way things have been phrased, that’s fine, but this analogy perfectly captures my position. So feel free to take from the analogy that I am atheist, or agnostic, or ignostic, or whatever. Labels are less important than the concepts they represent anyway.

The official stance of the Catholic church IS the Catholic position. Period.

Yes, and the worldview originally expressed in the Communist Manifesto IS the Communist position. So all of those historians conflating Leninism with Marx’s conception are barking up the wrong tree!

Look, we have to work with what we’re given. If the majority of self-proclaimed Catholics claim to believe something, then I have to treat that as the Catholic position. There is a solution to this, of course. If the Church issued a test on its doctrine to see who genuinely agreed with it rather than being Catholic in name only, and then excommunicated those who failed, then there would be no discrepancy between those who claimed to be Catholic and those who actually held the official position. The Church, however, would have to deal with the consequences of losing the majority of its followers.

I am afraid that you are stuck with a very unsophisticated understanding of heaven, hell and God.

Hopefully this won’t sound any more condescending than you just did, but I’m afraid you have an unsophisticated understanding of the logical consequences of omnipotence and omniscience.

Everyone except you, right? Because you’re smarter and have more “common sense” than the average Joe, or backwards Pascal.

It’s not a matter of being smarter, I can just reason dispassionately about most things. Being objective eliminates a lot of potential bias.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The proofs are just meant to get to God’s existence. We believe in heaven and hell because of revelations from God, and because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am afraid that you are stuck with a very unsophisticated understanding of heaven, hell and God. It’s not that God will damn us. It’s that he is telling us that ultimately we will damn ourselves, like a doctor tells us that we will ultimately die young if we lead unhealthy lives, because we just weren’t designed to carry about that way.

I would not follow God if he were some arbitrary monster being demanding our obedience. I believe he created us out of love and wishes the best for us, but that we have to make the decision of what to do per our free will.

Faith is not just an intellectual endeavor. We do advocate that reason and intellect is all that man needs to understand the world. We believe those are necessary, but ultimately inadequate by themselves.

Everyone except you, right? Because you’re smarter and have more “common sense” than the average Joe, or backwards Pascal. This is an extremely dismissive statement. It’s like saying “Everyone thinks they’re special because they’re alive. We tend to search for meaning in life.” You are assuming that Pascal’s emotional/psychological response was all there was. Sometimes we need events to shake us up and make us take a look at our priorities and beliefs. It doesn’t mean that those post-priorities and beliefs are just emotional and psychological responses, though.

Many people realize how foolish they have been in their lives after a brush with death and become more loving, expressive and selfless afterwards. Does this make love less reasonable or sensible. Why would it make a belief in God less reasonable or sensible?

Let me point out that a “sentient AI”, no matter how smart and powerful is still, at best, just a being in the universe. He is not the creator or master of the universe, as God is. He is not the ultimate nature of reality, as God is. He is not love and goodness itself, as God is. Instead of an “AI” why not just use one of the old gods? It’s the same idea. These are all just beings in the universe. Perhaps super-beings, capable of incredible things, but still just beings, bound by the laws of the universe, and the laws of God.

Pascal is not referring to a being. He is referring to the foundation of reality, the essence of love itself. This is a far cry from any “AI”, no matter how smart, good or bad, or powerful it might be. I would not bow down to a monster god, and I would not bow down to a monster AI.

I will bow and kneel down to Jesus Christ, who was willing to become one of us and suffer for us and show us the way.

This is far and away one of the best posts I have read at Catholic Answers!

 

[PRmerger]

I think he did what many religious academics including Aquinas did; he began by assuming the truth of a religion, then he manufactured a (supposedly) internally consistent belief system around that religion.

Could you please provide some evidence for this?

That’s one of the major differences between science and apologetics. In science, we have data and we ask what conclusions can be inferred from it. In apologetics, you take the conclusion for granted and seek out only the data that supports it. In statistics this sort of thing is called confirmation bias, and in this case it’s an instance of rationalizing.

Any apologist with any integrity is going to have her mind changed by any data that countermands her position.

That’s why there are not a few former non-Catholic apologists.
Or, said without the double negatives: that’s why we have so many converts to the Catholic Church. People who were once apologists for their former belief system.

If they seek, they will find.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s not a matter of being smarter, I can just reason dispassionately about most things. Being objective eliminates a lot of potential bias.

Well, borrowing from…er, Pascal: there are 2 errors–being dispassionate only, and not being dispassionate.

If you are approaching a search for God with* only* dispassion, you are a fundamentalist.

And no one can reason with a fundamentalist.

 

[PRmerger]

Actually, that’s my point. Your objection that we wouldn’t be able to “reach” the present implicitly assumes that there is a beginning. Naturally if you assume the negation of what someone proposes, then you’ll reach a contradiction. Your job is to demonstrate that there must logically be a starting point, rather than assume it.

Consider an analogous disagreement that may arise when talking about the integers. Someone might say, “The integers cannot extend backward forever because we would never be able to reach a particular integer, say 0”. The problem with this is the assumption that we “start” somewhere (presumably negative infinity) and that we must count until we reach the desired integer. The argument fails, however, because it assumes that there is a first integer. Negative infinity is not an integer.

If instead one specifies an actual integer, say -1,000,000, then there is no issue. We’re perfectly capable of reaching any integer from any other integer. Likewise, we’re perfectly capable of reaching any point in time from any other point in time. Problems only arise when you try to postulate a “beginning” and treat that as a point in time.

If we assume that there is no starting point, then we can never agree on the distance between 2 integers.

For we have no mutual reference, no?

So if we assume that there is a starting point, then, well, infinite regression fails because, then we will never reach the point of the present.