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TheOtherDave comments on Pascal's Mugging: Tiny Probabilities of Vast Utilities - Less Wrong
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Pascal's Wager isn't about what your mind can possibly conceive, it's a bet about the way reality works.
No. The whole point of Pascal's Wager is asymmetry. It posits that there are two possible states of the world: in one you can have eternal life, in the other you can not.
That said, Shield's question is not whether according to Pascal's Wager that symmetric probability exists.
If (as Shield suggests) "only beliefs with evidence to support them should be considered, because only those beliefs don't have a contradicting belief with an equal probability," then accepting the posited asymmetry without evidence is an error.
There is certainly evidence to support the existence of god (God, a god, gods, etc.) Most people around here don't find it convincing but billions of people around the globe do.
Perhaps the issue should be formulated in the form of the balance of evidence for the proposition A as compared to evidence for not-A. However this would lead you to probability-weighted outcomes and the usual mechanics which Pascal's Wager subverts by dropping an infinity into them.
All in all, the objection "But absence of God could symmetrically lead to eternal life as well" to Pascal's Wager doesn't look appealing to me.
We're not talking about the existence of god. You're forgetting the law of burdensome detail.
Pascals wager doesn't posit that God exists, it posits that God exists and he'll give us eternal joy if we believe in him.
The claim god exists has an above negligible probability, the claim god will give you eternal joy, but only if you believe in him has no absolutely no evidence to support it, and is therefore equal to the claim god will give you eternal joy, but only if you don't believe in him.
If a God exists, since he hasn't given us any indication of any of his characteristics (if you feel otherwise please argue), we have no evidence to indicate he'd do either.
Hell I find it more probable that an intelligent deity would reward us for concluding he didn't exist since that's by far the most probable version of reality as determined by the evidence at hand. He'd have to be malevolent to reward us for believing in him if this is the evidence he gives for his existence, and there isn't any evidence for that either. Maybe life is a test and you win if you realize that based on available evidence the existence of god isn't sufficiently likely to claim he exists cough sarcasm cough. This is of course assuming vaguely human motivation and values.
There isn't any evidence to indicate either, the point of pascals wager seems to be that a finitely small probability multiplied by an infinite gain is cause for motivation, but this is untrue if that claim is equally true to any made up contradicting claim.
I am not quite sure how do you reconcile the former and the latter parts of this sentence.
So you think there's some credible evidence for god's existence but absolutely none, zero, zilch, nada evidence for the claim that god can give you eternal life and that believing in him increases your chances of receiving it?
Of course he did. There is a large volume of sacred literature in most cultures which deals precisely with characteristics of gods. A large chunk of it claims to be revelatory and have divine origin.
I am not quite sure why I would have issue. Above negligible in this case means any probability above that of a completely random unfalsifiable hypothesis with no evidence to support it.
No, and there's perfectly valid evidence to believe he wants us to not believe in him. Of course that isn't actually any evidence of a reward or an afterlife, nor would evidence that he wants us to believe in him be.
The current evidence at hand only indicates that God doesn't care about whether or not we believe in his existence, as god is omnipotent and could just give us ACTUAL evidence to convince everyone of his existence, which doesn't exist.
This isn't evidence. There's an equal probability of people writing these things in universes where there is no God and universes where there is a God. This is of course an estimation, we haven't seen what these texts look like in an universe with a god compared to religious texts in an universe without a god, nor the amount of them, so the texts we have don't actually indicate anything about the existence of god.
The absolutely only difference between a religious text and a random hypothesis with no evidence to support it is that a religious text is a random hypothesis with no evidence to support it that someone wrote down.
There isn't anything in these texts to imply divine origin. They're full of logical errors, scientific errors, and they contradict themselves internally and among each other.
And if say, the bible was actually of divine origins, as it is full of logical errors, contradictions and scientific errors it would only indicate that god doesn't want us to believe in him, which is what you're trying to prove in the first place.
<shrug> You're falling into the atheist-arguing-with-believers mode.
The original issue was whether you have discovered a new failure mode in Pascal's Wager (besides a few well-known ones). My view on that remains unchanged.
I've only made arguments I think are correct in response to points that you made. If I have offended you, that was certainly not the intent and you can point to where you think I was rude.
But this is a theological argument. If you did not want to start a theological argument, then why did you start a theological argument?
What is your point?
"The original issue"? Were still talking about the same issue. Whether or not there's evidence to suggest that a god would do these things is an integral part of Pascals wager, aka the thing we've been talking about for 5 posts, and it's the only point you've made against my argument.
And in discussion it's customary to explain why your view hasn't changed. If my logic isn't incorrect, it is obviously correct, and it would be nice of you to explain why you think it isn't, instead of just offhandedly dismissing me without explanation.
It's not about offending people, and I doubt that Lumifer is actually offended.
It's just that there are certain scripted / cached modes of debate that we try to avoid on this site, because they don't actually aid in the pursuit of rationality.
TLDR: Lumifer is trying to help you become stronger. You stand to learn an important skill if you pay careful attention.
Not once in my life have I had these debates (no, not exaggerating) and I find it a strange assumption that I have. Don't spend an immense amount of time on these sort of forums ya' see.
If this sort of debate is truly so scripted could you point me to one? Since I'd gain an equal amount of information, apparently.
I do actually want to know what the apparently so common christian reply to these arguments is, it's sort of why I asked. I'm here to get information, not to be told that the information has already been given. This fact doesn't really help me.
I am not offended at all. The meaning of the sentence was that the argument started to follow well-worn railroad tracks.
I find your arguments unconvincing. I also don't have the inclination to get into a discussion of the Indifferent God approach which, again, is trampled ground.
Well, I'd expect more texts in a universe with a God. Where on earth are you getting this "equal probability"?
I would instead break it down into the claim that some Force could theoretically give us eternal bliss or suffering (A), and the further set of complicated claims involved in Pascal's brand of Christianity.
Conditional on A: the further claim that religion would prevent us from using the Force in the way we'd prefer seems vastly more plausible to me, based on the evidence, than Pascal's alternative. And there are various other possibilities we'd have to consider. I don't believe the Wager style of argument works, for the reasons given or alluded to in the OP -- but if it worked I believe it would argue for atheism.
You'll have to be more specific. What type of evidence are you referring to?