RobinZ comments on The Fundamental Question - Less Wrong

43 Post author: MBlume 19 April 2010 04:09PM

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Comment author: byrnema 23 April 2010 10:09:40PM *  0 points [-]

First, the most annoying form of Pascal's Wager is the epistemological version: "Believing that God exists has positive expected utility, so you should do so". This argument fails logically, for reasons SilasBarta listed, and it is usually this form being refuted when people say, "Pascal's Wager fails".

I disagree that it fails logically. The argument, written modus ponens, is:

"If believing in God has positive expected utility, then you should do so".

If you don't believe that believing in God has positive expected utility, then this is not a disagreement in the logic of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager would equally say, "If believing in God has negative expected utility, then you should not do so".

Comment author: SilasBarta 23 April 2010 10:23:57PM 1 point [-]

I disagree that it fails logically. The argument, written modus ponens, is:

"If believing in God has positive expected utility, then you should do so".

Okay, now I think I'm starting to see the miscommunication: PW does not simply say what you've quoted there. It's typically associated with an argument about how the possibility of infinite utility from believing (and perhaps infinite disutility from not believing) outweights the small probability of it being true, and the utility of other courses of action, on account of its infinite size.

You're taking "Pascal's Wager" to refer only to certain premises the argument uses, not the full argument itself.

Comment author: byrnema 23 April 2010 11:01:37PM *  0 points [-]

It occurred to me that you might not agree that my distillation of PW contained all the salient features. (For example, there are no infinitesimals and no infinities written in). However, I think it must have been my more general argument that PeerInfinity was referring to, because he was applying it to atheism.

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