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V_V comments on Cryonics: Can I Take Door No. 3? - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Chris_Roberts 05 September 2012 03:49PM

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Comment author: V_V 06 September 2012 11:09:32PM -1 points [-]

That's a Pascal's wager argument.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 07 September 2012 02:37:52PM 1 point [-]

What? No. Pascal's wager is when you apply the rules of instrumental rationality to epistemic rationality.

Simply being willing to take risks to possibly get a better outcome, without warping your beliefs, is not the same thing at all.

Comment author: V_V 07 September 2012 08:19:30PM 0 points [-]

"Pascal's wager" denotes several different fallacies, which are present in Pascal's original argument.

Instrumentally, it refers to estimating expected utility based only on a possible outcome with an extremely large (positive or negative) payoff, without taking into account the fact that said outcome has an extremely small probability.