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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemicly speaking you still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means.
can't make sense of your demand for verification when you've not established privilege of your own preferred theory of truth.
as for metaphilosophy, the observation on a structure like infinite regression is itself a useful conclusion for metaphilosophy, leading to construction of truth with use of fixed points. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-reference/#GenFixPoiApp
but just talking about 'philosophy,' it is a natural science about thinking. this means being receptive to worldly facts just like physics etc do.
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On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means.
What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world.
It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified.
As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions.
And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy.
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On March 30 2015 23:49 oneofthem wrote:
there is no imaginary religious zealot, just a bad foundation for the metaphysics. ive given my take on the pascal wager previously with the simple phrase 'well formed pascal's wager,'
this means simply evaluating a conditional probability without all the heaven etc motivation. the motivation for the wager is flawed, but once u have the lopsided probability and reward table it is a well formed problem
You're only two entries have specifically stated that this problem is purely a god vs no god problem and a link to a thesis specifically stating we can't have infinity as a reward. So when you say that you're not fighting a religious zealot, why are you the one bringing up god arguments?
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On March 31 2015 00:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 23:49 oneofthem wrote:
there is no imaginary religious zealot, just a bad foundation for the metaphysics. ive given my take on the pascal wager previously with the simple phrase 'well formed pascal's wager,'
this means simply evaluating a conditional probability without all the heaven etc motivation. the motivation for the wager is flawed, but once u have the lopsided probability and reward table it is a well formed problem You're only two entries have specifically stated that this problem is purely a god vs no god problem and a link to a thesis specifically stating we can't have infinity as a reward. So when you say that you're not fighting a religious zealot, why are you the one bringing up god arguments?
you motivated your argument by the "we don't know what happens after death" thing. i said this is flawed, but unnecessary as well.
there is really no need to bark here.
just a disclosure here, i've not read more than 3 total of your sentences so far, but one of which was already enough to render the rest kind of waste of space.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On March 31 2015 00:15 excitedBear wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means. What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world. It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified. As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions. And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy.
well you are making less and less sense now. let's start from 'verification' itself. this, by your logic, is also assuming a certain epistemology and theory of truth. where are you at now?
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On March 31 2015 00:20 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2015 00:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 30 2015 23:49 oneofthem wrote:
there is no imaginary religious zealot, just a bad foundation for the metaphysics. ive given my take on the pascal wager previously with the simple phrase 'well formed pascal's wager,'
this means simply evaluating a conditional probability without all the heaven etc motivation. the motivation for the wager is flawed, but once u have the lopsided probability and reward table it is a well formed problem You're only two entries have specifically stated that this problem is purely a god vs no god problem and a link to a thesis specifically stating we can't have infinity as a reward. So when you say that you're not fighting a religious zealot, why are you the one bringing up god arguments? you motivated your argument by the "we don't know what happens after death" thing. i said this is flawed, but unnecessary as well. there is really no need to bark here. just a disclosure here, i've not read more than 3 total of your sentences so far, but one of which was already enough to render the rest kind of waste of space.
Only reading three sentences out of multiple multiparagraph posts but feeling confident anti-god discourse is the answer is by definition "blindly attacking suspected theists" even when the person you are suspecting of being a theist continually talks about the problems of Pascal's Wager.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it's better than you totally misreading my posts. i'm not criticizing you as a theist at all, and i've not said this is a god vs no god problem.
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On March 31 2015 00:21 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2015 00:15 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means. What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world. It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified. As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions. And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy. well you are making less and less sense now. let's start from 'verification' itself. this, by your logic, is also assuming a certain epistemology and theory of truth. where are you at now?
This is exactly what I'm trying to show.
You make a statement. I show that your statement is based on assumptions.
In doing so, I make assumptions myself (the assumption that certain thoughts are not verifiable).
You attack my assumption by making the assumption that the world can be categorized into "theories of truth" and epistemologies. And so on.
You see where this is leading. You cannot make a single meaningful statement without getting into this endless loop of attacking each others assumptions. Any answer I give is again based on asumptions. And any attack you make on my assumptions can only be made by making further categorizing definitions and assumptions.
This leads philosophy ad absurdum.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On March 31 2015 00:40 excitedBear wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2015 00:21 oneofthem wrote:On March 31 2015 00:15 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means. What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world. It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified. As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions. And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy. well you are making less and less sense now. let's start from 'verification' itself. this, by your logic, is also assuming a certain epistemology and theory of truth. where are you at now? This is exactly what I'm trying to show. You make a statement. I show that your statement is based on assumptions. In doing so, I make assumptions myself (the assumption that certain thoughts are not verifiable). You attack my assumption by making the assumption that the world can be categorized into "theories of truth" and epistemologies. And so on. You see where this is leading. You cannot make a single meaningful statement without getting into this endless loop of attacking each others assumptions. Any answer I give is again based on asumptions. And any attack you make on my assumptions can only be made by making further categorizing definitions and assumptions. This leads philosophy ad absurdum.
not really. observations about the structure of logic is adding to our knowledge.
it is pretty difficult to talk with you because your use of words like 'philosophy' and 'assumption' are not very conventional. i would venture to guess that you are taking a TLP 7 line of using the ladder of philosophy, finding it absurd, and throwing it away.
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On March 31 2015 00:42 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2015 00:40 excitedBear wrote:On March 31 2015 00:21 oneofthem wrote:On March 31 2015 00:15 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means. What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world. It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified. As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions. And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy. well you are making less and less sense now. let's start from 'verification' itself. this, by your logic, is also assuming a certain epistemology and theory of truth. where are you at now? This is exactly what I'm trying to show. You make a statement. I show that your statement is based on assumptions. In doing so, I make assumptions myself (the assumption that certain thoughts are not verifiable). You attack my assumption by making the assumption that the world can be categorized into "theories of truth" and epistemologies. And so on. You see where this is leading. You cannot make a single meaningful statement without getting into this endless loop of attacking each others assumptions. Any answer I give is again based on asumptions. And any attack you make on my assumptions can only be made by making further categorizing definitions and assumptions. This leads philosophy ad absurdum. not really. observations about the structure of logic is adding to our knowledge. it is pretty difficult to talk with you because your use of words like 'philosophy' and 'assumption' are not very conventional. i would venture to guess that you are taking a TLP 7 line of using the ladder of philosophy, finding it absurd, and throwing it away.
This also happens to anyone who wants to use philosophy to find empirically correct answers instead of simply using philosophy as a tool for exploring truths.
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On March 31 2015 00:42 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2015 00:40 excitedBear wrote:On March 31 2015 00:21 oneofthem wrote:On March 31 2015 00:15 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 23:46 excitedBear wrote:On March 30 2015 22:12 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 16:27 excitedBear wrote:
Believers operate in the complex vector space. Nonbelievers operate in the real vector space.
The real vector space coincides with actual life. Afterlife is the complex scalar field.
Operations in the real vector space are comprehensive, giving them complete culmunarity.
Taking a decision in the real vector space does not require knowledge of the complex scalar field.
However, the complex vector space can be completely construed from within the real vector space.
It is perpendicular to all the possibilities derived, but also distributive.
The possibility of the complex vector space to exist transforms the reality of its existence back onto itself.
This proves that an after life exists.
The paragraph I have written above is completely made up bullshit.
Since the assumptions are not verifiable, I can willy-nillily take any position I want.
That's why discussing metaphysics or philosophy in general is a complete waste of time.
while i am sympathetic to this sentiment, metaphysics is still pervasive and there is no neat delineation between the logical and the empirical. much of analytic metaphysics after kripke is hogwash though true dat. Thinking that logical and empirical are two different entities is in itself already an assumption that is not verifiable. In fact you cannot do philosophy without starting to make assumptions. This is where it all breaks down. To be rigorous, you would need to test the assumptions by having a "philosophy of philosophy". Since you cannot do that without assumptions, you would need to have a "philosophy of philosophy of philosophy". And so on, this continues until infinity. If you would program philosophy on a computer, this would be called infinite recursion and you would get a stack overflow error. epistemically speaking ypu still need the category of empirical unless you think we can get to knowledge about the world is deducible by pure logical means. What I am trying to say is that you cannot define 'logical', 'empirical' and 'outside world' without making assumptions. Simply defining these terms already assumes something about the world. It doesn't matter if 2000 years of philosophy have been dealing with these terms or not. They are still assumptions that cannot be verified. As soon as you starting to categorize, you start making assumptions. And this is when you get into this infinite loop called philosophy. well you are making less and less sense now. let's start from 'verification' itself. this, by your logic, is also assuming a certain epistemology and theory of truth. where are you at now? This is exactly what I'm trying to show. You make a statement. I show that your statement is based on assumptions. In doing so, I make assumptions myself (the assumption that certain thoughts are not verifiable). You attack my assumption by making the assumption that the world can be categorized into "theories of truth" and epistemologies. And so on. You see where this is leading. You cannot make a single meaningful statement without getting into this endless loop of attacking each others assumptions. Any answer I give is again based on asumptions. And any attack you make on my assumptions can only be made by making further categorizing definitions and assumptions. This leads philosophy ad absurdum. not really. observations about the structure of logic is adding to our knowledge. it is pretty difficult to talk with you because your use of words like 'philosophy' and 'assumption' are not very conventional. i would venture to guess that you are taking a TLP 7 line of using the ladder of philosophy, finding it absurd, and throwing it away.
Maybe, but even if one does that one is not done. Wittgenstein had to make a whole lot of assumptions to derive at his conclusions (actually the very first sentence of TLP is an assumption), so his philosophy is again attackable and therefore the loop continues. There is no meaningful way to find philosophy absurd without doing philosophy yourself. SoI guess the best thing is to just shut up and let it be.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i don't think your infinite regress situation is correct, because general rules are observable even then and become useful for formulating a foundation for truth. but leaving that aside, by shutting up you would also be abandoning any statement on truth and philosophy in general. this cannot be done wtihout abandoning all pursues of knowledge.
look, i am generally unsympathetic to the overuse of metaphysics in philosophical justifications, but you still need some of it to establish the foundation of the natural sciences.
edit. after looking at it again, i think you are being captivated by the 'directness' of verification as an account of truth. it seems to do without theory, at least explicitly stated theory. this is a more acceptable intuition, in that philosophy does not add any truth not already present in the structure of the world/logic. that's fine as a compromise/resting point of this conversation.
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On March 30 2015 23:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 22:23 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 02:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
snip the problem with the 'we dont know what happens after death' argument is that it carries an implicit idealist assumption of first person experience being the immediate frontier of reality. the most concrete fact is still a version of the cogito, which could be surprised by experiences after death. now this is an absurd formulation if we take a third person view of what a human is, a bunch of brain matter. while not going into the validity of this type of idealist initiated skepticism arguments, it is sufficient to say that the idealist assumption provides much of its intuitive force. a metaphysics taht is happy to talk about 'what i know after death' without realizing the connection between death and that 'i' is pretty bad. might want to think harder on it. So remove the "I" Take the initial premise of Pascal's wager to it's logical extreme. Stop fighting an imaginary religious zealout and just look at the logic of actually exploring the unknown. Pascal was personally held back by his Christian bias--but take his wager away from that binary into infinite options and then listen to his actual question. Pascal asks what is the benefit of believing in no afterlife vs believe that something happens. He does not talk about which has more likelihood or which is more verifiable, he just asks about the benefits. Is it good for people to live knowing that anything they do now has no bearing, punishment, or reward. That if you do the greater good, that you will be rewarded the same as doing the greater evil. That all your efforts of this life no matter how good or Noble leads to nothing but oblivion. What he asks is "what is the benefit of that mindset" and then he asks that if, statistically, would you be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of the knowable even for the smallest chance of being rewarded "something" no matter how insignificant the chance no matter how insignificant the reward? Even the Romans believed in "living on in memory" for their afterlife, this isn't some heaven vs heathens bullshit. This is straight up philosophy attempting to discuss basic human desires and passions. To discuss concepts of fairness, totality, and human value. That is what Pascal's Wager is actually about. There's no need to get your atheist pitchforks up in arms to stop the evil theists especially when nobody is arguing for that. There's no need to paraphrase the beginning of your counterpoints with variations of "but when someone brings up ____" or "usually people mean ____" and instead just discuss the conversation at hand instead of acting like mini-Dawkins ready to tell us that it's all muslim's faults. Be more mature than that please.
Taken to its logical extreme it just becomes completely empty. If we assume there are infinite possibilities, and they all (may) require different things from you during your life. Some require you to pray to a god. Others require you to do good deeds. Others again require you to do both of the above, and not work on Sundays (others on Saturdays). Some might require you to find the Flibberwocky. There are INFINITE possibilities (an infinite number of which you will be doing quite by accident or because it simply makes sense). Some of them are mutually exclusive: for instance, only believing in Yahweh or only believing in Allah, or always tying the shoelaces of your left foot first, vs. always tying the shoelaces of your right foot first.
So lets say you have made your fancy tradeoff and decided that you are willing to sacrifice an x% of your X payoff from living your regular life for a shot at having Y. The point is that the chance of you "choosing" the right one (rationally here, because it is a RATIONAL argument against atheism, not a faith-based one) is 0. Not very nearly 0, not almost 0. No. Insofar as the probablity of picking the right one can be defined at all, it is exactly 0. There are INFINITE possibilities, and lim(x -> inf) 1 / x = 0.
So even if you accept that choosing not to believe in the afterlife gives you 0 payoff on your Y part of the equation, rationally picking one of the infinite other options ALSO gives you 0 payoff on your Y part of the equation, because your chance of picking the right one is 0.
In other words, Pascal's wager when taken to its logical (mathematical) conclusion loses all meaning, and is almost certainly not what Pascal had in mind when making it.
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On March 31 2015 00:58 oneofthem wrote:
i don't think your infinite regress situation is correct, because general rules are observable even then and become useful for formulating a foundation for truth. but leaving that aside, by shutting up you would also be abandoning any statement on truth and philosophy in general. this cannot be done wtihout abandoning all pursues of knowledge.
look, i am generally unsympathetic to the overuse of metaphysics in philosophical justifications, but you still need some of it to establish the foundation of the natural sciences.
edit. after looking at it again, i think you are being captivated by the 'directness' of verification as an account of truth. it seems to do without theory, at least explicitly stated theory. this is a more acceptable intuition, in that philosophy does not add any truth not already present in the structure of the world/logic. that's fine as a compromise/resting point of this conversation.
That's fine, let me just add:
A caveman did not need to formulate an abstract concept of truth before he was able to tame fire. Just because we are able to form abstract thoughts, doesn't mean that all of them are meaningful or required.
We have an innate understanding of truth as a result of our brain anatomy.
Humans made discoveries since the beginning of time.
Therefore, to say you need philosophy to establish the foundation of science is a bit of a stretch.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i like naive truth theory(very big understatement), but there is nothing wrong with a study of science from the outside. you still make use of natural facts about human cognition while leaving realism of scientific ontology intact
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On March 31 2015 01:25 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 23:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 30 2015 22:23 oneofthem wrote:On March 30 2015 02:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:
snip the problem with the 'we dont know what happens after death' argument is that it carries an implicit idealist assumption of first person experience being the immediate frontier of reality. the most concrete fact is still a version of the cogito, which could be surprised by experiences after death. now this is an absurd formulation if we take a third person view of what a human is, a bunch of brain matter. while not going into the validity of this type of idealist initiated skepticism arguments, it is sufficient to say that the idealist assumption provides much of its intuitive force. a metaphysics taht is happy to talk about 'what i know after death' without realizing the connection between death and that 'i' is pretty bad. might want to think harder on it. So remove the "I" Take the initial premise of Pascal's wager to it's logical extreme. Stop fighting an imaginary religious zealout and just look at the logic of actually exploring the unknown. Pascal was personally held back by his Christian bias--but take his wager away from that binary into infinite options and then listen to his actual question. Pascal asks what is the benefit of believing in no afterlife vs believe that something happens. He does not talk about which has more likelihood or which is more verifiable, he just asks about the benefits. Is it good for people to live knowing that anything they do now has no bearing, punishment, or reward. That if you do the greater good, that you will be rewarded the same as doing the greater evil. That all your efforts of this life no matter how good or Noble leads to nothing but oblivion. What he asks is "what is the benefit of that mindset" and then he asks that if, statistically, would you be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of the knowable even for the smallest chance of being rewarded "something" no matter how insignificant the chance no matter how insignificant the reward? Even the Romans believed in "living on in memory" for their afterlife, this isn't some heaven vs heathens bullshit. This is straight up philosophy attempting to discuss basic human desires and passions. To discuss concepts of fairness, totality, and human value. That is what Pascal's Wager is actually about. There's no need to get your atheist pitchforks up in arms to stop the evil theists especially when nobody is arguing for that. There's no need to paraphrase the beginning of your counterpoints with variations of "but when someone brings up ____" or "usually people mean ____" and instead just discuss the conversation at hand instead of acting like mini-Dawkins ready to tell us that it's all muslim's faults. Be more mature than that please. Taken to its logical extreme it just becomes completely empty. If we assume there are infinite possibilities, and they all (may) require different things from you during your life. Some require you to pray to a god. Others require you to do good deeds. Others again require you to do both of the above, and not work on Sundays (others on Saturdays). Some might require you to find the Flibberwocky. There are INFINITE possibilities (an infinite number of which you will be doing quite by accident or because it simply makes sense). Some of them are mutually exclusive: for instance, only believing in Yahweh or only believing in Allah, or always tying the shoelaces of your left foot first, vs. always tying the shoelaces of your right foot first. So lets say you have made your fancy tradeoff and decided that you are willing to sacrifice an x% of your X payoff from living your regular life for a shot at having Y. The point is that the chance of you "choosing" the right one (rationally here, because it is a RATIONAL argument against atheism, not a faith-based one) is 0. Not very nearly 0, not almost 0. No. Insofar as the probablity of picking the right one can be defined at all, it is exactly 0. There are INFINITE possibilities, and lim(x -> inf) 1 / x = 0. So even if you accept that choosing not to believe in the afterlife gives you 0 payoff on your Y part of the equation, rationally picking one of the infinite other options ALSO gives you 0 payoff on your Y part of the equation, because your chance of picking the right one is 0. In other words, Pascal's wager when taken to its logical (mathematical) conclusion loses all meaning, and is almost certainly not what Pascal had in mind when making it.
Pascal’s Wager does not care about the which possibility is correct—but at the rewards provided for being correct.
Here are the only possible results from being correct.
If you believe there is no reward, and are correct, then you get nothing.
If you believe there is a reward, and you are correct, you get something.
Even if you parse it out of the Christian/Atheist binary into the infinite—the results amount to the same conclusion where being correct that you won’t be rewarded tautologically rewards you nothing, while being correct that the actions you’ve chosen to improve your afterlife rewards something. In this stance, Pascal is absolutely correct that, so long as you don’t mind the amount of sacrificed practiced (even if the sacrifice is 0% of your current life) that choosing to believe in something offers the higher chance of reward in the insignificant case that you happen to be correct. Choosing for no reward and getting no reward leads to not gaining anything. Its a brilliant leveraging of the nature of tautology in order to put in a bind an Atheist perspective since it makes it so that even believing in the spaghetti monster, no matter how facetious a belief it is, still bears more reward than believing in oblivion.
The only flaw to Pascal’s Work is the sacrifice or cost needed to produce results. The Value of X is very different between someone who believes that something happens after death vs someone who does not believe something happens after death. When the cost is not equal, then the wager is not equal.
Put it in a different context.
Lets pretend that Atheism is wrong and that there is an afterlife. The Atheist makes the wrong choice, and spends Y time in the afterlife being punished/rewarded for his actions/inactions. In which case he now spends the initial X amount of his life “in heaven” and Y amount of his life in the unknown.
If the Atheist had chosen to make his life a living hell and go against his base nature, he would then be spending X amount of his life in Hell and Y amount of his life in the unknown. He now has to leverage that vs the chance he has of being correct—which would be him living T of his life "in heaven.”
If you were to choose to live life T amount of your life in hell (Faking not being Atheist => Statistically Wrong Metaphysical Choice), or T-Y part of your life in Heaven (Being Atheist => Statistically Wrong Metaphysical Choice), you would choose the latter over the former, statistically speaking, because the latter at least gives you X amount of time “in heaven/bliss” as opposed to the former which makes the totality of your life into hell.
Pascal’s Wager only works if we assume non-believers and believers value X the same way—they don’t. X can only be negotiable if X is the same value. Different believers can argue lots about the value of X and how much is too much sacrifice. They all have an equal chance of being wrong—but they can philosophically argue of the possible results of being right.
Only Atheists are unable to have that kind of conversation, since what is important at that point in their life is living in the here and now and not the metaphysical. There is nothing to maximize when things are already maximized and attempting to hedge bets actually puts Atheists in a worse statistical position.
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Sure. You convinced me the first time around that that is another thing wrong with Pascal's wager. Don't have to write another page about it 
I was just pointing out that even assuming an atheist is willing to barter a small amount of X, the wager is still hogwash if you look at it in modern terms, where there are an infinite number of possible outcomes (afterlives), rather than just 2. The mathematics don't work out, because the expected outcome is the probability of that outcome times the payoff. Because the probability is 0 for every of the (infinite) possibilities, the expected outcome is 0 for everything, and not just for the one case where there is no afterlife at all.
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Huh, so Pascal's wager actually is wrong both if the answer indeterminable (1/N = 0) as well as is wrong as a probabilistic wager (X = T-Y is actually statistically harmful to an atheist)
Didn't think of it like that.
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also if you include the possibility that the supernatural alternate plane hostess only lets in atheists then the odds are all the same.
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On March 30 2015 11:44 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 11:00 IgnE wrote:
There's also an infinite number of hells you might fall into. How can you avoid it? And why would you assume that all N-1 options have hells? There are an infinite number options with hell (or similar) post life outcomes. And also an infinite number without hell (or similar) outcomes. There are an infinite number of things that might happen after we die, since we cannot observe this, we cannot be certain of which is what happens. Of those options, only one option has it be that nothing happens--but there are an infinite number of ways to produce that outcome (including God/s being real and specifically making sure humanity has no afterlife all the way to there being nothing happening at all) Stop being so limiting in your way of seeing the world as a binary of god vs no god when the discussion of an afterlife is far more complex and infinite than that.
Lol dude. I made the point in one sentence and it takes you two pages of discussion and Acrofales's multi-paragraph statement to knock it into your head that you haven't thought anything through. I was explicitly not speaking of a binary outcome. The very fact that you don't know anything about the infinite possibilities rules out action taken in view of any of them. If there are an infinite number of hells that you can go to for doing an infinite number of things you cannot rationally avoid them any more than you can aim for heaven. If anything Pascal is the one who is trapped in a binary.
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EPT
