Pascal's Wager

af_thefragile

I'ld like to know what you guys think of this of this concept?

Pascal basically says although the existence of God cannot be proven through reason, one must wager to live life as though God exists as if he does exist then you've only gained while if he doesn't exist then you have nothing to lose.
"If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager


I believe this is a very reasonable thought to live your life by. If you live believing God exists and if he does exist then you are safe while if he doesn't then you haven't lost anything.
While if you live your life believing God doesn't exist then if there's even a small chance that he does exist, you'ld be in trouble for rejecting him...

What would you say?

Joe1919

St. Augustine use to pray to the Lord, saying 'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.' I think his idea was to sin when you are young and then convert when you get older. ............. He was sort of placing an 'each way' bet.

I'm giving up all sins when I get to 80 !

Black Swan

Pascal's Wager is Problematic:

• If you have adopted an explanation for the nature of the universe that omits the existence of God, to wager otherwise would be disingenuous and a corruption of self.
• Pascal uses a over-simplistic dichotomy that is nominal and finite (e.g., heads or tails coin toss metaphor) to explain a highly complex decision that implies more of a life commitment by a person than just saying yes or no (see Jacques Derrida's Points for more problems associated with dichotomies).
• Does Pascal's Wager suffer from the St Petersburg Paradox, in that the person pays only a finite amount for an infinite expectation (see Daniel Bernoulli)?

philologos

Too problematic:

1) It merely involves taking a punt on God, rather than actually committing yourself fully to Him.
2) It is a simplistic dichotomy where the two solutions are to put your faith in the God of Judeo-Christianity, or not to. Although Christians generally believe only one God exists, people can still very much believe in other ideologies and belief systems that inform them otherwise. As such it isn't a 50% 50% chance, it is a 1 in several thousand chance punt. Not the best gamble.
3) As for being in trouble, if I arrived at the gates of heaven to meet Krishna, or if I was reincarnated as a cockroach, I'd be equally as in trouble as a non-believer.

Joe1919: I hate to be excessively morbid, but it depends on if you get to 80!

looksee

You can't choose whether to believe something, you either do or you don't. If you do 'choose' to believe, it implies that there is a possibility that you are wrong.

Joe1919

I'm being light-hearted but at the same time and on a serious note, some older people have remarked to me that they go to church as a matter of 'insurance' or 'just in case' there is a God etc. and in this respect they have a half-hearted belief.
People, of course, are also superstitious and do the same, like not walking under ladders etc. 'just in case'.

So anyhow, in my view, it would seem that Pascal's wager has some validity, especially if taken with what Augustine's seems to be suggesting in his prayer ( to postpone taking not sinning seriously until an older age).

philologos

Joe1919 wrote: »

I'm being light-hearted but at the same time and on a serious note, some older people have remarked to me that they go to church as a matter of 'insurance' or 'just in case' there is a God etc. and in this respect they have a half-hearted belief.

Fair enough. There could be a case made that half hearted belief mightn't be sufficient though, which brings another element into Pascal's Wager. Is it even valid to begin with.

It replaces what can I do for God, with what I can do for God to let me into heaven. The latter is wholly selfish.

Joe1919 wrote: »

So anyhow, in my view, it would seem that Pascal's wager has some validity, especially if taken with what Augustine's seems to be suggesting in his prayer ( to postpone taking not sinning seriously until an older age).

Hm. Perhaps. I would see Augustine's prayer as being an expression of being ready to believe, but not being ready to accept the consequences of a belief in his life (stopping sinning). That's wholly different from not being sure about God. I can sympathise with Augustine's prayer to a certain extent as it is something I had to go through when I decided to believe in God also.

af_thefragile

I see the Pascal's Wager is to live your life as though God exists.

Which means living your life as God told you to live (in the religious books).
Now I can't see much problem with this.

As firstly if you live your life according to what your religion teaches, and as most religions teach morals and ethics and basically how to be a good person, you should be able to live a decent life.

And I don't think God would punish anyone who believes in him and lives a decent life according to his religion even if the person's belief isn't complete and has an element of doubt in it. Or you would atleast have some chance of being forgiven by God by seeing how you atleast tried to live according to the way he told you to. All in the case God exists. If there is no God then you don't lose anything, maybe the dissatisfaction that you probably didn't live your life fully but that's not going to last long anyway as soon you'll be dead.

I think many problems arise from this whole attitude of pursuing the world as "you only live once" and hence you can consume and gather as much as you can through whatever means necessary as long as they're within the law.

Maybe my arguments are too simplistic here. But I do like to see things in a much simple way.

Joe1919

af_thefragile wrote: »

............And I don't think God would punish anyone who believes in him and lives a decent life according to his religion even if the person's belief isn't complete and has an element of doubt in it. Or you would atleast have some chance of being forgiven by God .................

Your argument here is good and is similar to the point made in section 13 of the document below.

People forget that Gods mercy is also supposed to be infinite.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30111980_dives-in-misericordia_en.html

philologos

Vatican aside for a minute. If one is doing something for personal gain rather than for its own end, isn't that mere selfishness? I can't help but think that taking a mere punt on the basis of wanting to go to heaven alone is just seflish.

Mercy is a separate issue, as one would need to be remorseful in order to need to receive mercy no?

af_thefragile

Jakkass wrote: »

Vatican aside for a minute. If one is doing something for personal gain rather than for its own end, isn't that mere selfishness? I can't help but think that taking a mere punt on the basis of wanting to go to heaven alone is just seflish.

Mercy is a separate issue, as one would need to be remorseful in order to need to receive mercy no?

I'ld say no one's faith is perfect. Everyone yearns salvation. Devotion cones from spirituality which comes from experiencing the power of faith and for this you need to have faith in the first place.

I wouldn't say expecting salvation in return for your sincerity and commitment in following god's religion is only natural and hence not a selfish act.

Remorse comes from lack of arrogance. When someone submits to a religion one must put aside his arrogance to be able to believe.

I don't believe just a half hearted thought that you're taking a chance to believe there is a God without any commitment to follow his religion is enough to get you into heaven.

All of this for the tiny chance there might actually be a God.

Better to believe and have a chance of getting saved in case there actually is a God than rejecting the concept and facing damnation if you were wrong.

Goduznt Xzst

af_thefragile wrote: »

Better to believe and have a chance of getting saved in case there actually is a God than rejecting the concept and facing damnation if you were wrong.

You assume God doesn't want you to reject his existence and live your life based on the evidence at hand. Perhaps he is only going to save those who use the faculties he has given us to their fullest and base our choices on reason and evidence rather than selfish wagering to save our pitiful existence.

You assume the men that have dictated the doctrines of Christianity are right. This in itself is foolish. Perhaps God will punish you for following the words of others and being led like a lamb to slaughter. Perhaps the true challenge that God has set before you is to open your eyes to the speculative and subjective nature of all the worlds religions and he expects you, without guidance or knowledge, to free yourself from them.

The path you may have chosen to believe in God as this belief will save you may very well be the decision that gets you sent into eternal damnation for your selfish desires and refusing to use the reasoning abilities that God has given you to their fullest.

af_thefragile

^but what if your reasoning is wrong? Or what if you aren't intelligent enough to find out what's right and wrong through your own reasoning?

Would god only reward the intelligent people and punish the fools who follow books?

Joe1919

af_thefragile wrote: »

^but what if your reasoning is wrong? Or what if you aren't intelligent enough to find out what's right and wrong through your own reasoning?

Would god only reward the intelligent people and punish the fools who follow books?

This man (Archbishop Fulton Sheen) states that goodness is in the character and this is in the will and not in the intellect. Although its a bit religious, his philosophy is good (imo).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9GSRGwfIyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl31FbWtKv0&feature=related
(second part)

Goduznt Xzst

af_thefragile wrote: »

^but what if your reasoning is wrong? Or what if you aren't intelligent enough to find out what's right and wrong through your own reasoning?

Would god only reward the intelligent people and punish the fools who follow books?

This is my point. Pascals Wager is insanely moronic. Nobody knows if God exists let alone what it wants.

Pascals Wager stacks the deck then pulls out a Royal Flush. This isn't reality. In reality you don't know what believing in God is going to accomplish, you don't know what not believing in him will accomplish.

Perhaps God doesn't exist and in actuality an Alien species is watching earth right now, and will only resurrect humans into immortality that shed such foolish ideals as Angels, Demons, Gods and Ghosts.

Pascals Wager is a little nugget of stupidity that fits nicely into the minds of people that are looking for said stupidity to tell them how to live.

philologos

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

You assume God doesn't want you to reject his existence and live your life based on the evidence at hand. Perhaps he is only going to save those who use the faculties he has given us to their fullest and base our choices on reason and evidence rather than selfish wagering to save our pitiful existence.

This makes the assumption that atheism is based on reason and evidence. Highly debatable, but clearly for another thread

philologos

af_thefragile wrote: »

I wouldn't say expecting salvation in return for your sincerity and commitment in following god's religion is only natural and hence not a selfish act.

Admittedly, I would have to say that even if heaven or hell were not on the cards, I would be inclined to believe in God based on how reasonable it is to do so.

Having the opportunity to be reunited with ones Creator is satisfying enough in itself.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Remorse comes from lack of arrogance. When someone submits to a religion one must put aside his arrogance to be able to believe.

Agreed. I do think it goes slightly further. It means admitting that you are wrong and accepting forgiveness. If one is unwilling to accept that he has done wrong, what is there to be forgiven?

af_thefragile wrote: »

All of this for the tiny chance there might actually be a God.

Better to believe and have a chance of getting saved in case there actually is a God than rejecting the concept and facing damnation if you were wrong.

Agreed, but this assumes that belief is something you can just switch on and off. I don't know if that is entirely true.

mackbolan

So God is going to burn us in hell if we don't believe in him?
And if we follow all his commands we are going to live forever and ever in a celestial North Korea.
Who would want to worship such as psychopath?

Joe1919

Why not forget about religion for a while and get back to economics and maths or even poker, especially the concept of 'expected value', a concept that Pascal contributed to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

Now let's take a simple model and say that expected value is equal to the reward (pot) multiplied by the probability.

We will make some assumptions to give some sense of reality to the figures.

Now, let's say that I am 99.9999999% sure that there is no God. That means that I think that there may be .0000001% chance that there is a God. Let's also assume that infinity is equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years or more.

We will also assume that (if God exists) belief in God guarantees infinite bliss and non-belief guarantees zero bliss. ( or possibly negative bliss e.g. Hell)
Hence the Expected value of belief in God is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 multiplied by .0000001% = 1,000,000,000,000,000 years of bliss.(or more)

Hence, according to Pascal, it still makes sense to believe in God, even if the odds are miniscule. (based on Maths)

From a pure mathematical point of view, once there is any possibility of God's existence, no matter how small, and there is also a possibility that this will lead to eternal bliss, it will pay to believe because the expected value will be infinite. ( or very large using this model)

af_thefragile

^Thats my point.

Even if there is a 0.000000001% chance of there being a God and on that there is only a 0.000000000001% chance he'll actually give you paradise for believing in him. Then believing in him would still be a better bet than rejecting him. Because if by even the tiniest chance he does exist and the religious books are really divine, then you have achieved salvation if you believe in him (and saved yourself from going to hell). And even if you go through all that trouble of believing in him and his books and it turns out there really is no God, then you lose absolutely nothing!

All that keeps one from believing in God is one's arrogance.

Joe1919

I have defended Pascal's wager on the basis of maths and pure reason. However, pure reason has its limits and we can see this with Pascal's wager in that to live as a Christian on this basis would be a very in-authentic and insincere way of living.

Let's get back to basics. What the purpose of reason and knowledge? Reason and knowledge helps people to act. It gives people some objective basis for their actions.

But actions also spring from desire. We must want to act. The action must 'feel' right. The action has a 'value'. Hence there is also subjectivity as well as objectivity to all actions. Actions stem from the will, as 'rational desire'.

Hence 'feelings' come into the equation. The Christian wants to be a Christian. The atheist wants to be an atheist. The agnostic is not sure what she wants.

I will agree with you that there are some who are arrogant in their attitude towards theism. These people are possibly more anti-theists than atheists in that they still have not learned to let go of theism and have a hate relationship to theism. (hatred can be as strong an emotion and attachment as love)

(There may be some justification to this. The moral aspects of theism and religions gives some people a rough time and some people have a hate of religion because of this and see the salvation of humanity in terms of the removal of religious ideas from people heads.)

Hence although I defend Pascal's wager on the basis of its pure rationality, a defence of religion on this basis 'feels' incomplete and to live as a Christian on this basis without the desire to be a Christian seems to me to be a very inauthentic way of living.

Mr. Mercurial

The wager doesn’t work for a variety of reasons.

First is the problem of the assumption that one can choose to believe something like ‘God exists’ in the first place (try choosing to believe that Santa is real and see how far you get).

Second is the problem of the false dichotomy between believing in God and not believing in God- this ignores the fact that there are multiple possible gods. If I decide to make the wager, do I put my money on Jehovah or Zeus?

Third is the possibility that if God does exist he might not look too kindly upon someone who believes in him as part of a wager compared to someone who genuinely couldn’t’ find it within themselves to believe in his existence.

Taken together it should be pretty obvious that the wager is just not a very good argument at all.

Mark Hamill

af_thefragile wrote: »

I see the Pascal's Wager is to live your life as though God exists.

Which means living your life as God told you to live (in the religious books).
Now I can't see much problem with this.

Just because you live your life according to a set of rules, doesn't mean you actually believe in them though, so how do this satisfy Pascals wager? God, seemingly, wants us to believe in him. And seemingly, this is something we have to do freely (if we weren't supposed to do this freely, then there wouldn't be a question of not believing in god). So even if you live your life as if you believe in god, you wont get any reward because you haven't actually lived your life believing in god (and thats assuming you get the right god).

af_thefragile wrote: »

As firstly if you live your life according to what your religion teaches, and as most religions teach morals and ethics and basically how to be a good person, you should be able to live a decent life.

Well, firstly religions are not very good at teaching morals and ethics, as they tend to base them on calls to authority and tradition and give very little leeway to discussion when situations and cultures change. Not to mention the conflicts you get with different religions teaching different morals. Secondly, if the point was simply morals and ethics, then no religion is needed, as morals and ethics are better explainable and justifiable without religion (and have been so since the time of the greeks)

af_thefragile wrote: »

And I don't think God would punish anyone who believes in him and lives a decent life according to his religion even if the person's belief isn't complete and has an element of doubt in it. Or you would atleast have some chance of being forgiven by God by seeing how you atleast tried to live according to the way he told you to. All in the case God exists. If there is no God then you don't lose anything, maybe the dissatisfaction that you probably didn't live your life fully but that's not going to last long anyway as soon you'll be dead.

And what if you believe in the wrong god? Not just have a few details wrong, but believe in a completely different deity or set of deities than actually exist? What you are suggesting is like going to an archery contest, where there are multiple target and just randomly aiming for one, regardless of its the one you are supposed to be aiming for, under the assumption that you will have have to get some reward as long as you hit something.

af_thefragile wrote: »

I think many problems arise from this whole attitude of pursuing the world as "you only live once" and hence you can consume and gather as much as you can through whatever means necessary as long as they're within the law.

Non sequitor.

Mark Hamill

Joe1919 wrote: »

Why not forget about religion for a while and get back to economics and maths or even poker, especially the concept of 'expected value', a concept that Pascal contributed to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

Now let's take a simple model and say that expected value is equal to the reward (pot) multiplied by the probability.

We will make some assumptions to give some sense of reality to the figures.

Now, let's say that I am 99.9999999% sure that there is no God. That means that I think that there may be .0000001% chance that there is a God. Let's also assume that infinity is equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years or more.

We will also assume that (if God exists) belief in God guarantees infinite bliss and non-belief guarantees zero bliss. ( or possibly negative bliss e.g. Hell)
Hence the Expected value of belief in God is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 multiplied by .0000001% = 1,000,000,000,000,000 years of bliss.(or more)

Hence, according to Pascal, it still makes sense to believe in God, even if the odds are miniscule. (based on Maths)

From a pure mathematical point of view, once there is any possibility of God's existence, no matter how small, and there is also a possibility that this will lead to eternal bliss, it will pay to believe because the expected value will be infinite. ( or very large using this model)

Your maths are missing a very important part. You dont know what god, assuming he exists, will do to you if you have chosen (assuming you can choose to believe in something) to believe in the wrong god. You cant say that god wont punish you worse for believing in the wrong idea of god than believing in no idea. heck, you dont know he wont punish you for believing in him purely out of a calculated desire for heaven.
And god being infinitely merciful doesn't solve this problem. If god is infinitely merciful, then he will still be infinitely merciful if you dont believe in any god, so the benefit is moot.

Mark Hamill

af_thefragile wrote: »

^Thats my point.

Even if there is a 0.000000001% chance of there being a God and on that there is only a 0.000000000001% chance he'll actually give you paradise for believing in him. Then believing in him would still be a better bet than rejecting him. Because if by even the tiniest chance he does exist and the religious books are really divine, then you have achieved salvation if you believe in him (and saved yourself from going to hell). And even if you go through all that trouble of believing in him and his books and it turns out there really is no God, then you lose absolutely nothing!

All that keeps one from believing in God is one's arrogance.

You are biasing your analysis by looking at it from the point of view of what you gain if that 0.000000000001% is true. However, what do you loose, if the 99.99999999999% is true?

You spend your whole life living according to an arbitrarily restricting set of rules made up by someone years in the past that have nothing to do with reality and still end up without any paradise. Any benefits from these rules while you are alive (morals, ethics etc) are easily attainable elsewhere without evoking religion, so its not needed for that. You have a 99.999999999% chance of ending up in the same boat as a non-believer (and thats assuming you wont be punished further for having the wrong belief, arrived at through selfish means).

You can think of this as an anti-Pascals wager-wager:
Either (a)god doesn't exist, (b)exists and will forgive someone for not being exactly right in their belief or (c)exists and will not forgive someone for not being exactly right in their belief:
If (a) is true, there is no reason to believe in him,
If (b) is true, then there is no reason to believe in him, as you will be forgiven either way (assuming you are good)
If (c) is true, would eternity with such a tyrant really be paradise?

who what when

Joe1919 wrote: »

St. Augustine use to pray to the Lord, saying 'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.' I think his idea was to sin when you are young and then convert when you get older. ............. He was sort of placing an 'each way' bet.

I'm giving up all sins when I get to 80 !

But arent you 91?

philologos

Joe1919 wrote: »

I have defended Pascal's wager on the basis of maths and pure reason. However, pure reason has its limits and we can see this with Pascal's wager in that to live as a Christian on this basis would be a very in-authentic and insincere way of living.

Pascal's Wager isn't really rational. Nor is it really in keeping with mathematics. It proposes a binary of God or no-God, in a world where there simply isn't a binary. There are numerous and varying ideas in respect to God, each that need to be assessed on their own basis.

The guys over on the A&A forum would delight at showing you the thousands of different concepts of God / gods that exist.

Joe1919

who what when wrote: »

But arent you 91?

How did you know?

Jakkass wrote: »

Pascal's Wager isn't really rational. Nor is it really in keeping with mathematics. It proposes a binary of God or no-God, in a world where there simply isn't a binary. There are numerous and varying ideas in respect to God, each that need to be assessed on their own basis.

The guys over on the A&A forum would delight at showing you the thousands of different concepts of God / gods that exist.

Lets put this another way. OK, I am 91, born and baptised a Christian (e.g Catholic) but don't really believe. I have never bothered to attend church etc for the last 76 years.
Now I am lying in a hospital bed on my own with only a week to live. A priest happens to be doing his rounds and asks me would I like the last sacraments. So I think to myself, what the heck? What have I to lose by accepting the priests offer? I was a gambler all my life and was never one to refuse a free entry of any type.

Can someone give me a convincing argument as to why this poor wretched 91 year old, who lived a terrible (but sometimes enjoyable) life of sin and debauchery should refuse the priests offer and indeed why I should not make an act of contrition etc. to the 'one true God', whoever he may be?

PS The argument about different Gods etc is discussed in the wiki entry. (Argument from inconsistent revelations)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Mr. Mercurial

Joe1919 wrote: »

Can someone give me a convincing argument as to why this poor wretched 91 year old, who lived a terrible (but sometimes enjoyable) life of sin and debauchery should refuse the priests offer and indeed why I should not make an act of contrition etc. to the 'one true God', whoever he may be?

Accepting the sacraments isn’t quite the same as believing in God, is it? In order to be saved aren’t you supposed to put your faith in God, something which seems to require a genuine belief.

Joe1919

Mr. Mercurial wrote: »

Accepting the sacraments isn’t quite the same as believing in God, is it? In order to be saved aren’t you supposed to put your faith in God, something which seems to require a genuine belief.

Pascal states '"your inability to believe, because reason compels you to [believe] and yet you cannot, [comes] from your passions." Therefore, this inability can be overcome by diminishing the passions through the practice of belief: "Learn from those who were bound like you. . . . Follow the way by which they began: that is by doing everything as if they believed, by taking holy water, by having Masses said, etc. Naturally, even this will make you believe and will dull you" (wiki)

Perhaps one can brainwash oneself into belief ? Indeed, this would help occupy my mind for the next week and so would make my dying easier.
'Jackpot', I gain on the double (potentially).

But anyhow the point (in gambling terms) is 'if your not in, you cant win', so perhaps any chance is better than non at all, especially if it costs nothing to bet.

philologos

Wouldn't it just be better to earnestly seek to find the truth and live it out rather than making last shot bets with a God you don't quite believe in to get to heaven? It certainly is what we are meant to be trying to do as a philosophers to begin with.

No doubt you would live a better life when you are here on earth, before the afterlife rather than living an OK existence and trying your bet for the afterlife just in case.

Main point: Put your effort and time into finding out what is true.