Pascals Wager
Pascals WagerFWIW: "Pascal's Wager is the name given to an argument due to BlaisePascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. The name is somewhat misleading, for in a single paragraph of his Pensées, Pascal apparently presents at least three such arguments, each of which might be called a "wager" - it is only the final of these that is traditionally referred to as Pascal's Wager". [emph. added - bdt] -- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
-- BenTremblay
Unfortunately for Pascal, God can see the fallacy in Pascal's reasoning. Too late now, Pascal!
Just out of curiosity... what is this fallacy? Is it the BifurcationFallacy mentioned below, or is it the idea that a rational act of will can lead to faith?
It contains a number of fallacies and questionable assumptions:
Sorry Pascal, today we're only accepting people who don't believe in God.
Indeed one risk of worshiping God, could be the time wasted worshiping. Instead, the person could be helping here on earth with his abilities that he knows he is capable of. Instead of asking for God to help the poor, do it yourself you wimp! Instead of attending a church every Sunday, someone could instead volunteer one hard hour of focused time on an OpenSource project (maybe even 10 hours). One could instead spend one hour reading books to children, etc. In other words, there is equal risk that believing in this potentially false God will cost/waste a lot of time in your life. In fact it could restrict you from accomplishing what you need to accomplish, because you may believe this God will help you through, when in fact you would have survived longer/better if you had instead spent time on real things here that you can affect on earth. Consider a scientist who discovers life on other planets through a physical telescope, instead of just worshiping a god and waiting for this god to send him the magical information into his brain through prayers. Wouldn't time be better spent on researching what we can find out, what we can control and realistically know? Instead of just what could be, possibly, maybe?
What if the rubber tires on your vehicle were actually God? We shouldn't take the risk it is false, and therefore we must believe in tires as God! What if the pencil is the almighty creator of everything? We should believe this too? This leads to what if every idea in the world could be correct. It actually is related to ConspiracyTheory, and even ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof. You can't prove that my pencil is not God - so you should believe my pencil is God... otherwise YOU are taking the risk! It is your duty, therefore, to worship my pencil.
This page was one of those moved to WhyClublet. Why is a little flaky these days, so I'm putting back the final document mode here:
The original wager:
Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; where-ever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.
-- BlaisePascal, Pensées #233
Pascal's wager is posed to someone trying to choose between belief in the Christian God and belief in no god. It makes the following assumptions:
In addition, following the logic of his wager would lead one to seek out the religion with the worst punishment in the afterlife.
I would also say the odds of a Christian God are approximately zero, i.e. 1/infinity, where infinity is the number of possible unprovable explanations of what goes on after you die. Or infinity = the number of unverifiable assertions of the existence of kinds of supernatural beings. Etc.
see: http://clublet.com/c/c/why?PascalsWager and http://clublet.com/c/c/why?PascalsWagerDiscussion
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