Swoop

Well that's some bad news for a lot of folks right there!

heh, also the wager presupposes that simply believing in god is enough to secure a pass to heaven, which largely disregards everything the bible teaches about being a good person and leading a good life and all that boring stuff.

Bloop

Doesn't the reasoning in the Pascal's wager open up for all kinds of strange bets.

1. You better learn to juggle five red balls by next thursday or California might sink into the Pacific ocean. Can't say that the possibility is zero now can ya' ?

2. Need to name my socks with names starting with the letter T or else my mom could die.

3. Have to touch the goalposts five times with my left hand or else we loose the game.

Anything you could come up with in superstitions would do fine. Better safe than sorry. ok the punishments may not be of infinite size but the tasks involved are really not that much of a hazzle either. (ok juggling five balls ain't easy, but we're talking about the entire state of California here folks, put some effort into it )

stretch

Hi Bloop,


Nope. It isn't equivalent to the types of bets that you are proposing. Pascal's wager was designed with the intention that it would not depend on the probability assessments of the person taking the bet (except for the case of a strong atheist who puts a zero probability on the existence of God). That is why the infinite payoffs are necessary. For any finite payoff, there will be an (infinite) set of probabilities for which it is not reasonable to take the bet.

Bloop

Ok then change my three proposals adding "and something of infinite badditude"

Would it now work ?

stretch

Why don't you tell me whether or not it would work?

If so, why?
If not, why not?

Bloop

I'd say that it does. I don't give special creedence to the "suffer in hell" punishment. There could be similar , unknown, but as harsh punishments for just about anything. It wouldn't have to include God at all. There could be a non-sentient mechanism that enforced this kind of thing for all I know. As long as you cannot set the probability to zero and the punishment is infinite you have to believe.

But as the critics here and elsewhere have stated there will be conflicting bets that contradict eachother. Then one is left deciding what to do with the help of something else. Evidence, or/and emotions perhaps. I'm sure there are other factors involved as well.

stretch

Hi Bloop,

Methinks you's right. Except for another flaw in the setup ...

We can make it a more complicated game.

Flip a coin to decide (i) if tails, to go out for ice cream and never think of this again or (ii) if heads, accept the wager.

Same final payoffs to the bet, but maybe you get to go have ice cream instead.

Bloop

Make it a flip for hot tea instead and I'm all ears. Cold winter here and ice cream is not at the top of my wishlist.

The point in this is still that any action action could be the thing that decides on heaven or hell after death. Wait...... It needen't be after death either right? Maybe i get sent to limbo after typing this sentence up and hitting reply.

stretch

Cold winter here too ... coldest day so far -36 or so ... but I still prefer ice cream

I'll have to think about the rest of what you're saying ... back to figuring out highest posterior density intervals for a while now ....

Neilium

this article you posted earlier:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

is just fanatastic. I finished it up this afternoon. Thanks much.

-Neil