Pascal's wager

This is the binary belief/no-belief issue that I referenced. Your belief is not factual evidence to non-believers, nor will it ever be. The convictions of the non-believers are not preconceived, they are based on careful reasoning given the lack of factual evidence.

For you belief is enough; the lack of factual evidence is not important. Belief is at the very core of your religion. You offer your belief as evidence, but the non-believers are not impressed. This isn't from an unwillingness to be convinced, but from an unwillingness to accept belief as proof. Given hard evidence, most of the non-believers would willingly change their position.

It's not stubbornness, or preconceived notions, but a different standard of evidence.

Tom

 

Logic without evidence is a brick wall built on quicksand. It may appear well built, but it is unsupported.

Tom

 

Repeating again and again the secular viewpoint is 100% factual while the religious viewpoint is absent of fact is both a fallacy and inciting.

 

Well you provided not actually rational model, you just dismissed it. Even without knowing P you can decide there is a difference.
The worst case for box B is it is the same as best for A. Depending on the unknown p, box B could be better. Since there is nothing to "loose" by choosing B, only something to gain, the rational choice is B.

Only if you know know p is exactly zero are A and B the same. If p = 1:176,000,000 the expected return is 2.84 x.

You can try to assert your view, but you would be incorrect. The above are all simple HS or freshman level math questions on limits. (You might check out [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_of_a_function]Limit of a function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame].)

These are are easily analyzed with unknown constants. Consider the sequence of the ratio of items as x -> 0 , e.g. Term1/Term2. If that is well defined and the ratio goes to zero as x -> 0 then term 2 is larger in the limit as x->0. So we can consider D / (C/x) which is equal to Dx/C and as x-> 0, this goes to zero for all finite values of D and C <> 0. if C = 0 and D <>0, then (C/x)/D is 0 for all x and D is larger. if C = D then D/(C/x) = x and it goes to zero. o one can analyze the cases without knowing the values of C and D, and the only information special cases is if C==0 or D==0.


If one does not take the time to understand limits, in particular limits at infinity, then pascal's gambit is nearly impossible to properly analyze.

 

Cute, but not a factual statement. Some logical constructs need "evidence" to reach a conclusion. For others, the only "evidence" needed is the axioms of mathematics. And as already stated we have proofs that there are formal statements, but true and false, that cannot be proven by our limited mathematics. So even with evidence and mathematics there are things we cannot prove or disprove.

I will agree that no amount of logic, without evidence, an lead one to conclude the existence of a supreme being, but that is not what is being discussed in Pascal's Gambit.

If one wants to believe that the statements of others, as recited in various books (Tanakh, Bible, Quran, Brahma Sutras, etc) are evidence, or not, is a question of your standards for evidence (and resolving conflicting accounts). It does not matter which, if any of these, I consider evidentiary, I can still analyze the Gambit in a logic framework as the limits involved don't depend on quality of evidence.

 

As you do with mine, including things like quoting Scripture out of context to "support" your viewpoint.

What's the point of continuing the argument?

Enjoy the weekend!

 

Okay, prove to me something that has no basis.

We can use logic to link the axioms of mathematics, but that only shows the consistency of an abstract system. A proof within such a system is just circular reasoning. It can be an interesting intellectual exercise, but it only becomes useful when tied to the real world. Once you have this basis, or foundation, the abstract system can be used to model the real world.

Tom

 

Pascal's wager is a perfectly reasonable argument, but only when applied to an artificially limited solution set: 1) There is no god, or 2) There is a god, and he is The God of The Bible.

Pascal's wager breaks down completely when applied to a general solution set.

Just as with Zeno's paradox that found that motion was logically impossible. Zeno reasoned that to move from A to B, one had to first move half the distance from A to B; and to move half the distance from A to B, one had to first move half of half the distance, and so forth to an infinite number of halves. Since it would take an infinite amount of time to cover the infinite number of half segments, motion must be impossible.

Zeno's logic was impeccable. His premise, however, was flawed. The infinite series of 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... sums to 1, so it takes exactly the same amount of time to walk the infinite number of halves as it does to cover the distance from A to B - exactly what we would expect from experience.

Zeno wasn't stupid. His logic wasn't flawed. His only problem was the initial premise. Had he understood how to sum infinite series, his motion paradox would not have been paradoxical at all.

Tom

 

You have a great weekend too Chuck. And remember, He has risen!

 

You're going to have to show where anyone in this thread has done that: quoted anything "out of context" in such a manner that the missing context imparts some significantly different meaning.

When you fling a hostile accusation like that at somebody you'd better back it up with the actual fact, otherwise it's just a baseless insult (something you ceaselessly whine that others do).

So where did this happen?

 

^ A number of Old Testament Scriptures come to mind.

You're in a glass house to accuse others of whining, when you have been making it a full-time job years longer than me. Stuff like absurdly blaming religion for all wars persecutions, then taking a blind eye to what happened in atheistic states like the Soviet Union....I seriously doubt you would give Stalin a pass if he had declared himself an Orthodox Christian during his regime. - such is the intellectual dishonesty I've witnessed here.


I know what I'm "supposed" to do:

• State there is no God
• Tell everybody humanism has all the answers, or enough of them - make assumptions about the unknown (dark matter, Near Death Experiences...)
• Spent a considerable part of this one and only mortal life badgering others to agree
• Keep on droning well after it's obvious some are not going to agree. After all, about 80% of people believe in God, so continue to explicitly/implicitly call them idiots

No, thank you.

Enjoy the weekend for a change.

 

Your advice cuts both ways.

 

If I MUST buy either A or B, then B is still the rational choice. It may not better, could even very likely be no better, but it is always no worse and could be better.

Sorry but your reasoning is just PRESUMING you need data and then once again you try to changed the problem rather than answering.
You are partially correct in that I cannot know if B is a GOOD bet. However one can conclude it is a better bet than A
You are trying to introducing a choice C.. (don't bet), but one of the conditions of pascal's wager is that you must choose one. (And there are only 2 choies Believe or don't believe. )

If you want to introduce an alternative buying choices (poke C) its a different problem.
Pascal's gambit did not include a 3 way choice (though it can be generalized to so do). There are only 2 choices.

Here is a summary from Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are only 2 choices in this gambit and you always bet -- not betting or ignoring the game is the same as betting A.
In my simple example yesterday it was A you win nothing, B you loose nothing but may gain something.

The real point of Pascal's gambit is that the infinite outweighs the finite, and since one cannot prove p=0, the rational move it to act to balance the risk if of a god/infinite afterlife is not exactly zero. Its not about which god, or how to achieve infinite gain, just about the choice of finite vs infinite.

The mathematics I was adding allow me to reduce things down to the 2 choices above and formulate it as a limit equation.

To help explain it better let us broaden the choices from Pascals initial "christian" biases version (and address a more expansive set of religions).
A) Our existence is finite (and/or there is no god and/orthere is a god but there is no added value in any the afterlife)
B) There is this life plus an infinite afterlife (with the afterlife granted by believing in god or living a good life or finding enlightenment). This afterlie could be your FSM beer volcano, christian heaven, a harem of virgins, unending Nibbana, etc). Pascal's gambit does not (really cannot) address "which" god/afterlife is better, so a more modern analysis lumps them all together.

Let the probability of the infinite afterlife actually existing be be p.

So for A let's say the value is S, enjoyed over time lifetime T. The total value is then (1-p)* S*T.
For B, let say the value over time is F and another value G in the afterlife. The total value is ( F*T + p*G*X) where X -> infinity.

Since we want to take a limit, consider the ratio of Term1/Term2 (where if the ratio in a limit as X goes to infinity goes to zero, then the second term is "bigger") then with Term1=A and Term2=B we have (1-p) S*T/ (F*T +p*G*X) which goes to zero as X -> infinity. So the "fancy mathematics" show that in the limit (or if you do it differently the expected value) of B is large and is true for all values of p except if you can prove p is exactly 0.


Now if you want to address the "multiple-god" argument against pascal's wager.

if you want to include the probability that the afterlife has negative value (i.e. good life is followed by unending suffering), then I believe you are really arguing that either you choose the wrong religion (and choosing another religion with flipped logic would yield a better afterlife), or that god is unjust. This is outside the scope of the original pascal gambit. But can also be addressed. The "unjust" or flipped god model is easy to address:
If god is unjust/capricious/flipped in logic, then there is no way to win the gambit as the flipping of logic can be recursed infinitely many stages, so no choice can be "better". If there exists only an unjust god, our actions do not determine outcomes.

The choice of the "wrong religion" is a bit tougher and does not reach as strong a conclusion. The logic I used in the poem was to further divide this into, there is a just god, there are many gods (any of which can grant eternal afterlife) or there is one ore more unjust gods.
Presume that there is only one god, god is just but choosing the wrong religion results in a negative afterlife. If any religion with huge numbers of followers is allowed to flourish without god providing evidence to steer those subjects toward a "true" god then the gods are not just which is a contraction of the assumptions. So either god is unjust or there is more than one god, or choosing the wrong religion is, in and of itself, not sufficient reason for a negative afterlife. The unjust god direction has already been covered but nothing in the logic allows one to distinguish between the multiple gods and only one god but no-penalty for choosing the wrong religion. I consider is sub-argument more about what religions should NOT do than about which religion, if any, is correct.

Often logical arguments cannot prove what is correct, but can demonstrate things that are incorrect/illogical. Religions that say one must "just believe " with no evidence, and simultaneously say that all non-believers will suffer eternal damnation, are clearly illogical or are following an unjust god. No "just" god could condem that many people for being born in a place where their early childhood learnings, which are very hard to displace without evidence, means will be dammed. It does not mean the underlying religions views are wrong, they could be or it could be that they have been corrupted by the human that have managed the rules/history.


(I'll note that Buddism, with infinite karmic reincarnation moving between 31 different planes is a bit tricky to decide if you are betting A or B; my personal interpretations of the reading say the goal of enlightenment is focusing more on B than A, but karma seems to allow for more random variations as well, but maybe I'm just no enlightened enough to understand it;-)

First of all, nothing in pascal's gambit is structured as if X then Y. so you comment is not particularly relevant.

Reasoning is useless if starting point is false. However, if one reasons about multiple starting points, then they can even be mutually exclusive (and hence not both valid), but can still be reasoned about properly.

If X then Y is irrelevant if X is provable false, but otherwise is can still be a valid (and hence) relevant statement about x and y.

As a trivial example, of reasoning with unknown in if/then statements consider if X is unknown but you have statements if x then Y as well as if not x then Y, then it does not matter what value x takes on as Y will be true either way.




There are things that logic can help decide, and those it cannot. It may suggest some religious views are illogical (not quite the same as wrong), but it offers little guidance on which religion is correct The above analysis will not allow allow one to dismiss any major religion, however analysis by contradiction cannot dismiss that a small number of people defining a religion without some initial first-hand evidence might be within the realm of what a "just" god would allow. However it cannot prove that one way or the other.

 

I think, therefore I am.
You think, therefore you are.

I have no empirical basis for your existence (this could just be a reply from a bot) nor you for mine. If you want to get very existential, this is the limit of what I can prove about he real world. And I'm not fully sure i believe the proof, especially of the second item.

By your definitions all proofs are just circular reasoning as we exist in a closed system and can only use the elements of that system.


Your analysis of Zeno's paradox is incorrect. His logic WAS flawed, not his assumptions. His logic was flawed because he mistreated issues of limits of infinity. Pascal did not.


The only meaningful "counter" to pascal's wager is what is sometime called the "gambler's odds", argument which is based on the argument that in any probabilistic assessment the game needs to be played more than once and the odds for an "all in" bet have to be better to take the bet. In the end the Gambler's odds" argument is that person does not want to play, not that Pascal's analysis was wrong. You reject the game and bet there is no infinite afterlife. Like many "gambler's analysis", its based on a gut feeling, not actual probabilities.

The problem is that ignores the fact, like daniel seems to want to do, that you bet wether you want to or not. You cannot sit out this life/hand and hope for a better one in the future. The other aspect of this is that in reality, we get to bet every minute of every day, so we do get to make many bets. You've already placed many bets, and win or loose you'r still in the game. you can change your bet tomorrow. However, you never know when the game will be called as last hand and you don't get to keep any table winnings.

 

Pascal's wager isn't wrong per say. It's just a set of assumptions and a probabilistic conclusion based on those assumptions. The wager itself claims nothing about whether or not those assumptions and correct/accurate, so it's limited by what we don't know in this context, which is pretty much everything. If the assumptions are correct, then it's a valid approach, but there's no proof that any of it's assumptions are correct.

 

Pushing is my putting out ideas/statements without request or degrading someone else's beliefs.

I'll never bring up my religion or suggest it as a topic of conversation. I may leave items around that suggest I'm willing to discuss it, and then when a student tasks I'm still more questions that answers for a long time. I will ask people about religions I don't understand but try not to work my views into the conversation unless a related issue has already been broached by another. I only added my 2cents here as people were off on a discussion of pascal's wager and only then after 20 or so pages of discussion most of which was not about the actual issues in the wager infinite vs finite. Pascal's "wager" actually laide the ground work for new subarea of probability analysis and modern decision theory.


My views on religious pushing are a bit like how I do or not not talk about particular other cars on the PC site. I'll jump into an ongoing discussion but don't consider proper to start a discussion questioning someone's beliefs.

Even here, this discussion has gone way deeper than I would normally do but a deep discussion seeking the truth can help teach others so is worthwhile.

 

Thank you for your reply. So if someone hadn't told you about their beliefs, how would you have known about them (quite a few it seems). Would you have enlighten yourself by say reading about them? If so why... what would have been the impetus?

BTW, I have been enjoying what you have written. I know it is causing daniel all kinds of distraction because he thinks you are advocating the existence of God. Nothing you say will be factual (whether it is or is not).

Happy Easter!

 

Cute, but that happened a couple thousand years ago. I knew you had some humor in there somewhere.

You too D, I sincerely mean that.