It has been claimed on this site that the fundamental question of rationality is "What do you believe, and why do you believe it?".
A good question it is, but I claim there is another of equal importance. I ask you, Less Wrong...
What are you doing?
And why are you doing it?
It is always wrong to give weight to hypotheses beyond that justified by the evidence and the length penality (and your prior, but Pascal attempts to show what you should do irrespective of prior). Pascal's application is a special case of this error, and his reasoning about possible infinite utility is compounded by the fact that you can construct contradictory advice that is equally well-grounded.
I downvoted you not just for being wrong, but for having made such a bold statement about PW without (it seems) having read the material about it on LW. I also think that such over-reaching trivializes the contribution of writers on the topic and so comes off as inflammatory.
Are you saying, here, that it is wrong to factor in the utility of the hypothesis when giving weight to the hypothesis?
If he didn't consider all the cases, his particular application of the argument was bad, not... (read more)