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On March 27 2015 01:05 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 00:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 00:39 Djzapz wrote:On March 27 2015 00:36 Thieving Magpie wrote:
You're over complicating this DJ
The value of X and Y are irrelevant. Believers believe the totality of life is a sum of both values and by believing Y is bigger than X, they feel comfortable negotiating X. It doesn't matter if Y is infinity or if Y = X+1. If Y is bigger than X, then it's okay to negotiate X.
Non believers believe the totality of life is just X, and so no matter the value of X they cannot negotiate it because it's all they have. Being it is all they have, sacrificing or hindering X for a non-believer is the same as the threat of eternal damnation (-Y) is for a believer. The payments for T are very different for both.
Pascal's Wager asks us to use only the formula X + Y = T and for us to assume that atheist value Y at 0, but the core of atheist beliefs is not that there is no afterlife but that living = life. The reward of existence, to an atheist, is being alive. They already are living in T. They are now asked to put a Y in the equation and being asked to manipulate X but there is no Y variable to non-believers. Which is why the costs are different. Why does the belief in Y change anything was the conclusion to my post. If I believe in X=T, my lack of belief in Y doesn't necessarily change my ability to access it, unless it so happens that belief is the key to Y, which begs the question, what other keys to Y are there and why belief, a human construct, should be the key? They have nothing to lean on for comfort as they negotiate X. First I'm not sure what you mean when you speak of negociating X. You say I'm overcomplicating this but my reading of Pascal's wager is not what you're saying. The initial idea is that eternal life is possibly bought with belief and so you should believe in the offchance that it is not a fantasy. It has less to do with my management of X.
To negotiate X is to barter aspects of X for value, usually related to Y but could potentially be for T. The negotiation is arbitrary.
Christians asks for belief, the reward is infinite life
Cannibals in New Guinea asked for the consumption of your enemy’s heart, the reward would be to gain their strength.
Christians asked for a very low cost to X, for very high reward to Y
Cannibals asked for a very high cost to X, for a very low reward to Y
Despite that—negotiation still happened. Negotiations will always happen if you have both an X and a Y to lean on. Whichever of the two has a smaller value gets negotiated.
Pre-Catholic Romans believed that nothing happened to you after death, but that your memory was important. So they placed high values for X and low values for Y. As such, their negations for X was very small (a statue, token, or deed done in some time during X to make it so they're remembered in Y)
Post Catholic Romans went the opposite route. Where there was little to no value in X but extremely HIGH value in Y. Which led to witch burnings, flaggarents, and martyrs all destroying various aspects of X (both to others and themselves) in hopes of having a better Y.
So long as there is an X and a Y negotiations will ALWAYS happen.
But Atheists don’t have a Y, and so X cannot be negotiated for them. Your actions are on an infinite time scale as an atheist. What you do now is what is done, what happens after you’re dead is not really your concern since in the infinite length of time nothing we do really affects anything. What is important, what is bliss, is the moment of being alive, living, breathing, doing. For some it means doing good works that make you feel good during that time. For others its doing malicious works that make you feel good. And some its doing mundane things that make you feel good—its irrelevant which path it is actually. For when the sun expands and the age of men perishes nothing done here on earth or any other world will mean much. Everything turns to ash and frozen balls of entropy anyway if we look past our own lifetimes. What is important is what is happening now, in front of us. What is important is what the life of those around us will be. Because living in the here and now is the only thing of value to an atheist, others living in the here and now and future generations “living in the here and now” is the only thing that Atheists pass on or teach others. Negotiating X when X is the only thing there is does not compute to a true atheist. Might as well ask a dead christian following the light “are you really sure that’s heaven? why not go down to that fire and brimstone down there just in case you’re wrong?” No christian would say that because once a christian sees his reward he will go after it—period. An Atheist sees his reward everyday with each passing tick of the metaphoric clock. There is no negotiating X for him.
And stop pretending to not understand what the word negotiate means.
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I know what negotiation means, it's just odd in that context for me. English is my second language for what it's worth.
Nonetheless that definition of Pascal's wager is unlike every other I've encountered. And the idea that atheists have to be egotistical because of their lack of belief in God (what the fuck honestly?) is absurd. I don't see the reasoning in your argument at all tbh at this point.
It's just really far from Pascal's wager on top of being some pretty wild absolutist weird definition of what atheism is.
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wern't we all born atheists until we were able to understand what our parents told us? fucking egotistical babies.
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On March 27 2015 01:49 Acrofales wrote:
My little green teapot just told me that the only way to get into unicorn heaven is to find the flibberwocky. Anybody seen it?
Btw, this is merely to show that there are more problems with Pascal's wager if you decide to interpret it in the way Magpie is explaining here. You cannot speak in such abstract terms as "reducing the payoff from X" unless you actually say how. In Christianity that is by praying to God (and Jesus), and by doing good deeds. However, if we take it out of Pascal's explicit context, then it is no longer clear what we should do to achieve Y. Maybe it is, as DJ says, to brush your teeth in the morning. Or maybe it is to find the flibberwocky.
So why even worrying about what you might have to reduce from X to achieve Y, as that is clearly not properly defined.
Which is why I said that Pascal’s Wager is not really proof for Belief but proof against disbelief.
N = Infinite
Imagine N possible results after death.
N-1 of those beliefs suggests something happens (arbitrary what it is).
1 of those beliefs suggests nothing happens.
1/N of those beliefs is correct.
Of all N choices, only 1 choice provides no rewards for being right.
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
So here are your odds:
1/N chances of something happening
1/N chances of nothing happening
(N-1)/N chances of eternal damnation
(N-1)/N chances of you being wrong no matter what you choose. Of the two options left, both are just as likely to be wrong as the other. But only one provides something if you are correct as the other provides nothing.
So assuming that you’ll pick correctly, of all possible choices N-1 has the potential for reward, while 1/N only has the potential for nothing. It is thus more logical to pick ANY of the N-1 choices available that has the potential for reward as opposed to the 1/N choice that only has the potential for nothing. In either case, you’re chances of getting it wrong is (N-1)/N
Now, going back to the negotiation aspect of the conundrum.
[X = Life, Y = Afterlife, T = Total Life]
Of those N choices, N-1 of them follows the rubric of X + Y = T while only one follows the rubric of X = T
Of those N-1 choices that follow X + Y = T there is an infinite variation of how to negotiate X and Y for maximum T. Its arbitrary what that negotiation will be since its all about what each individual person feels is worth sacrificing for the potential gain.
Some believe that just doing good works will lead to good things for you, some believe that you need to be willing to claw your way to the top, some believe that you have no control over your fate so you just do whatever. No matter what the price and what the reward, the base of the formula remains the same. X + Y = T, and you will usually negotiate X to maximize Y. Which negotiation you feel is most cost effective is up to you.
Theoretically, a logical person will choose the N that requires the least cost to X for most gain to Y. A good example are agnostics, where they don’t disavow Y, but they don’t sacrifice X. A bad example would be modern day Extremist Terrorists where they sacrifice X for access to Y. Majority of people will fall in between both these camps.
Of 1/N of those choices, the rubric is X = T where there is no negotiation. I’ve often used the phrase that “Atheists don’t need proof to not believe in God, but Agnostics do” because it highlights, in a more descriptive way, the limitations of the rubric. If the core of your belief system requires that there is no Y then you are unable to properly discuss and converse with the other N-1 beliefs of the world. And while there is always the ability for opposing views to discuss their differences through parallels and shared experiences, Non-believers do not have this capability and are forced to treat existence as a binary of themselves, and all other opinions being wrong.
When Pascal posits his wager, it is in the context of that conversation, that ability to talk abstractly about how much of X we are willing to negotiate for Y. His argument suggests that a christian can talk to an agnostic about that act of negotiating X vs Y and the agnostic, or muslim, or ritual cannibal will be able to converse back about that struggle because it is something they tackle with daily. Non-believers will never be able to discuss because anything that affects X is equivalent to plunging them into eternal torment. To Pascal, it is illogical to follow this path since it leads to nothing. The mere fact of the possibility of a reward by choosing one of the N-1 other options means that you are at least proactively seeking the correct answer instead of just shutting yourself out from the conversation altogether to put all your eggs in one basket and hoping for the best.
The reason I have continually gone back to the discussion of costs is because Pascal’s Wager ONLY works if you look at possible conclusions as opposed to costs to commit to a conclusion.
For example. Say you actually believe your little green teapot and spent finding the Flibberwocky. That is a noble aspiration and will live meaning and context to your life. Why move to a new country? Haven’t found the flibberwocky yet. Why choose job ____? Gives me enough vacation days per year to look for the Flibberwocky. Etc… However, to some people, the cost of that kind of commitment might be too high. To others, that cost might be too small. So some people follow a different path—say Agnosticism. They don’t really believe there is an afterlife, but they don’t really want to commit and say it *doesn’t* exist. So they try a bit of a bunch of different things just in case. Do good deeds here, maybe give to charity there, thank “the universe” here, wish someone luck there—etc… The commitment is small, just do things that make sense, but the reward is also small. To some that’s okay.
With Atheists is different. Since Atheists puts value on only X, any lost of X is losing the totality of existence. There is no difference between sacrificing X and sacrificing T to them. All other belief systems don’t touch T because T is the most important value in the formula. When X = T any sacrifice in X is a sacrifice in T and that where the costs to X offered by the N-1 beliefs are not accepted by Atheists. Its just not the same formula anymore.
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On March 27 2015 02:05 Djzapz wrote:
I know what negotiation means, it's just odd in that context for me. English is my second language for what it's worth.
Nonetheless that definition of Pascal's wager is unlike every other I've encountered. And the idea that atheists have to be egotistical because of their lack of belief in God (what the fuck honestly?) is absurd. I don't see the reasoning in your argument at all tbh at this point.
It's just really far from Pascal's wager on top of being some pretty wild absolutist weird definition of what atheism is.
There's nothing egotistical about valuing what we do in the here and now as opposed to what we do once we're dead.
I'm just showing that the value system in Pascal's wager has less to do with the promise of infinity, and more to do with undervaluing what the sacrifice is for a non-believer. Whether it's Christianity or all infinite possible belief systems, Pascal's wager remains the same attack on non-believers because it assumes that the sacrifices made by atheists and non-atheists are of the same philosophical value, which I'm saying they aren't.
Christians would never sacrifice heaven to live in hell in the off chance that they are wrong. Atheists shouldn't be asked to do the same.
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On March 27 2015 02:57 ComaDose wrote:
wern't we all born atheists until we were able to understand what our parents told us? fucking egotistical babies.
We're technically all born agnostic with no idea what anything is and are willing to believe anything if it sounds legit enough--which doesn't take much for babies.
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On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism.
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On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 01:49 Acrofales wrote:
My little green teapot just told me that the only way to get into unicorn heaven is to find the flibberwocky. Anybody seen it?
Btw, this is merely to show that there are more problems with Pascal's wager if you decide to interpret it in the way Magpie is explaining here. You cannot speak in such abstract terms as "reducing the payoff from X" unless you actually say how. In Christianity that is by praying to God (and Jesus), and by doing good deeds. However, if we take it out of Pascal's explicit context, then it is no longer clear what we should do to achieve Y. Maybe it is, as DJ says, to brush your teeth in the morning. Or maybe it is to find the flibberwocky.
So why even worrying about what you might have to reduce from X to achieve Y, as that is clearly not properly defined. Which is why I said that Pascal’s Wager is not really proof for Belief but proof against disbelief.
What? Pascal wager is an argument against disbelief, definitely not a PROOF against disbelief. Pascal's wager tries to show that disbelief is irrational because belief comes with a shot at eternal life.
As for the rest, frankly I still don't follow your reasoning.
Non-believers will never be able to discuss because anything that affects X is equivalent to plunging them into eternal torment.
Why?
To Pascal, it is illogical to follow this path since it leads to nothing.
Sure, but it does though... When you don't believe in some religion to an extent it frees your from the constraints these religions want to impose upon you. This is if we're willing to talk about the real consequences of the belief.
The mere fact of the possibility of a reward by choosing one of the N-1 other options means that you are at least proactively seeking the correct answer instead of just shutting yourself out from the conversation altogether to put all your eggs in one basket and hoping for the best.
I'm not putting all my eggs in the same basket just because I decide not to choose the other options in "N". I'm a good person, how does that not give me a chance like belief does?
They don’t really believe there is an afterlife, but they don’t really want to commit and say it *doesn’t* exist.
Most people who call themselves atheists, whether you agree with their use of the term or not, don't actually actively "disbelieve" in the existence of God, they just don't believe. A (not) - Theist (religious). I'm an atheist because I'm not religious. If someone tells me of their religion and tells me it's true and it's real, I'll say that I'm unconvinced by their lack of evidence. If they bring up Pascal's wager and told me "better believe because it gives you an extra chance", I'll just say I'd rather live my life as a good guy and if there's a heaven which I highly doubt, then whoever runs heaven will see me as a viable candidate.
It seems to me like your definition of atheism is a very narrow one which has no basis in reality. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, and yet I'm not a nihilist - I'm able to place value upon things, I'm able to see beyond myself and decide by my own accord that humans have value and what happens beyond my death is not irrelevant just because I'm going to be dead.
X probably is T, if Y exists I see no reason why believe in Y matters, and to depict atheists like people who are incapable of nuance is very naive.
On March 27 2015 03:10 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 02:57 ComaDose wrote:
wern't we all born atheists until we were able to understand what our parents told us? fucking egotistical babies. We're technically all born agnostic with no idea what anything is and are willing to believe anything if it sounds legit enough--which doesn't take much for babies.
Babies are atheists, they are irreligious.
Proper definition of atheism: A person who disbelieves (active) or lacks belief (passive) in God or gods.
If your definition of atheism only includes the active disbelief in any form of deity, then it only includes a tiny proportion of atheists as far as I can tell. Probably not the most balanced at that. What all atheists have in common is the lack of belief in gods.
Nonetheless if you want to continue the term agnostic, then I'm an agnostic and yet I'm still "pretty sure" X=T.
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Yeah I don't think they are undecided on whether or not there is a God if they have no idea what God is. If no one ever brought it up I doubt they would come up with the idea on their own.
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On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism.
Lots like that already. One is called Christianity.
First rule => worship no other gods
Then turns himself human and says to worship him.
Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else.
So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism.
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On March 27 2015 03:33 ComaDose wrote:
Yeah I don't think they are undecided on whether or not there is a God if they have no idea what God is. If no one ever brought it up I doubt they would come up with the idea on their own.
And if you asked a baby if gods are real they would say "I don't know"
Which is what agnostics would say.
If you said to a baby "is god real?"
And the baby said "of course not" you might have an argument. But babies say "I don't know" to pretty much everything since they have no clue.
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On March 27 2015 03:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism. Lots like that already. One is called Christianity. First rule => worship no other gods Then turns himself human and says to worship him. Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else. So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism.
No... what. Jesus is not human.
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Canada11355 Posts
On March 27 2015 03:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:33 ComaDose wrote:
Yeah I don't think they are undecided on whether or not there is a God if they have no idea what God is. If no one ever brought it up I doubt they would come up with the idea on their own. And if you asked a baby if gods are real they would say "I don't know" Which is what agnostics would say. If you said to a baby "is god real?" And the baby said "of course not" you might have an argument. But babies say "I don't know" to pretty much everything since they have no clue.
The answer "of course not" implies gnosticism, not atheism. Agnostic/gnostic and theist/atheist are two different qualifiers.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On March 26 2015 21:53 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2015 20:56 oneofthem wrote:
i'd pick the wish and would also defend the choice as rational. You can't end a post like that, wtf. >_> I mean, you have to argue your point if you claim that it is the rational choice, especially after many others have argued for the opposite position.
my statement of defending this position as rational is pretty substantial, because under a calculation of utility the 0.001 or however small, but finitely small chance of infinite suffering will still yield infinite suffering. this would outweigh my wish, given some easy restriction on the wish to be of finite utility. this would then pose a paradox. if i want to defend it as rational under the condition that my wish would yield finite utility, then iw would have to do some serious explaining indeed. but without doing the explaining merely stating that i will defend this position is still a substantial claim.
my answer to this potential paradox would resemble my answer to pascal's wager, in that the utility calculation model is not actually our model of reasoning for accepting beliefs. we operate more discretely, going after positive and particular solutions. the type of reasoning that would make one choose the 0.001% or a well formed pascal's wager is certainly possible and perhaps reasonable, but it is not the only mode of reasoning we have.
look under premise 3 of this section,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/#5
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Thieving Magpie, your whole argument is trivial and wrong.
Trivial because your wanted result is already build into your assumptions.
Wrong because the first assumption you make has 0 support or foundation. You say that "nothing happens" is infinitly unlikely.
The wrongness is categorial: you give no reason to have seemingly constructive process where adding "alternatives" shrinks the possibility that there is no afterlife. In your world someone inventing a new spaggethimonster has actual consequences for the mechanics of the universe as suddenly "no afterlife" became less likely. And in your process you correctly assume there can be in principle infinitely many new believes. But never once do you show a link of "believes being possible to be contrived" to actually lowering the propability that there is no afterlife
You exclude the abscence of believe as "just some other believe" which is the categorial problem that many of atheism critics fall into.
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On March 27 2015 03:40 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism. Lots like that already. One is called Christianity. First rule => worship no other gods Then turns himself human and says to worship him. Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else. So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism. No... what. Jesus is not human.
Christians believe he is 100% human (there's technically a sect in turkey that doesn't)
Lots of faiths worship humans and not gods, while still acknowledging that gods exist. They definitely fit the criteria of deities that punish theists and rewards atheists (people who believe in reincarnation fits this for example, where hat matters is their works and not how or which gods they worship)
It's not rare for groups to worship deities that tells them not to worship deities.
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On March 27 2015 03:40 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism. Lots like that already. One is called Christianity. First rule => worship no other gods Then turns himself human and says to worship him. Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else. So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism. No... what. Jesus is not human.
That trinity thing is rather pesky, technically as it was written and as it says quite commonly in the Profession of Faith in Catholic masses at least, Jesus died and became man. Why I remember that from elementary school I know not.
he Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81
That isn't even scraping the monotheism with the gallery of saints that the Catholics have, I remember being told in no short way that if I lost something, I was meant to pray to Saint Anthony.
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On March 27 2015 03:50 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 27 2015 03:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism. Lots like that already. One is called Christianity. First rule => worship no other gods Then turns himself human and says to worship him. Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else. So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism. No... what. Jesus is not human. Christians believe he is 100% human (there's technically a sect in turkey that doesn't) Lots of faiths worship humans and not gods, while still acknowledging that gods exist. They definitely fit the criteria of deities that punish theists and rewards atheists (people who believe in reincarnation fits this for example, where hat matters is their works and not how or which gods they worship) It's not rare for groups to worship deities that tells them not to worship deities.
Well fine, but saying that means Christianity leads you "practicing atheism" is obviously a weird BS argument 
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On March 27 2015 03:49 puerk wrote:
Thieving Magpie, your whole argument is trivial and wrong.
Trivial because your wanted result is already build into your assumptions.
Wrong because the first assumption you make has 0 support or foundation. You say that "nothing happens" is infinitly unlikely.
The wrongness is categorial: you give no reason to have seemingly constructive process where adding "alternatives" shrinks the possibility that there is no afterlife. In your world someone inventing a new spaggethimonster has actual consequences for the mechanics of the universe as suddenly "no afterlife" became less likely. And in your process you correctly assume there can be in principle infinitely many new believes. But never once do you show a link of "believes being possible to be contrived" to actually lowering the propability that there is no afterlife
You exclude the abscence of believe as "just some other believe" which is the categorial problem that many of atheism critics fall into.
It's not my stance, it's pascal's.
He posits, correctly, that things that can't be proven have no Heirarchy amongst each other. Which is true. He also says proving that something/nothing happens after you die can't be proven one way of another--also true. It is also true that there are infinite possible results from dying since we do not know what actually happens, all possibilities hold similar weight.
He posits that since all that is true--that his wager is irrefutable.
I have been repeatedly saying that that the cost analysis by pascal is wrong. Theists sacrificing aspects of their current life holds very different weight than atheists sacrificing aspects of their current life no matter how large or small that sacrifice is.
I even explicitly state that atheists shouldn't be given that conundrum since it's not the same question as when asked to a theist because the cost of the actions are VERY different.
At which point am I criticizing atheism?
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On March 27 2015 03:57 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:50 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 03:40 Djzapz wrote:On March 27 2015 03:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 27 2015 03:17 Mindcrime wrote:On March 27 2015 03:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:
N-1 of all choices provides a chance of providing a reward for being right.
What if there is a God that rewards atheism and punishes theism. Lots like that already. One is called Christianity. First rule => worship no other gods Then turns himself human and says to worship him. Logically, you're not worshipping a god but a human and aren't allowed to worship anyone else. So you now have a god telling you to practice atheism. No... what. Jesus is not human. Christians believe he is 100% human (there's technically a sect in turkey that doesn't) Lots of faiths worship humans and not gods, while still acknowledging that gods exist. They definitely fit the criteria of deities that punish theists and rewards atheists (people who believe in reincarnation fits this for example, where hat matters is their works and not how or which gods they worship) It's not rare for groups to worship deities that tells them not to worship deities. Well fine, but saying that means Christianity leads you "practicing atheism" is obviously a weird BS argument
Oh it's definitely total BS argument. But the question was about a go who asked his people to not worship deities. In a round about way this is true for a lot of current religions right now. That's the problem with abstraction.
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