Pascal's Wager (the new version)

[Something completely different]

And which god would be worth following?
Human morals are far more supirior to those of any existing god.

[genkaus]

Hi all,

Let's start with a new old topic
Pascal's Wager

I"ll put the statement which I'm trying to prove first

Atheism is a very weak position to take, (Anything is better than nothing)

P(G) is the probability of God existence (which is >0 unless you can prove that God doesn't exist)

V the value of your life
P(V) the probability of your death

P(G)/(P(V)xV) will go to infinity as your life is coming to an end
But as you don't know when are you going to die, you should embrace a religion NOW!

And what exactly is that ridiculous mathematical expression supposed to signify? A constant? A variable?

By the way, P(V) - which you define as the probability of your death, is always 1. You are going to die. No two ways about it. Therefore, your expression reduces to P(G)/V which means - nothing. It signifies nothing and gives me no reason to embrace religion at all.

[Muslim Scholar]

By the way, P(V) - which you define as the probability of your death, is always 1. You are going to die. No two ways about it. Therefore, your expression reduces to P(G)/V which means - nothing. It signifies nothing and gives me no reason to embrace religion at all.

P(V) is the probability of dying now
My expression reduces to P(G)/0 as your life will ultimately worth ZERO

It means that your hereafter (regardless of the probability of it) worth everything

[LastPoet]

Hmmmmm, something smells fishy, or rather poe-ish

[genkaus]

P(V) is the probability of dying now
My expression reduces to P(G)/0 as your life will ultimately worth ZERO

It means that your hereafter (regardless of the probability of it) worth everything

Oh, so now its probability of dying now, is it? Way to go, goalposts.

If that's the case, your expression is even more meaningless - which is a feat in itself given that it signified nothing to start with. You cannot compare the ultimate value of life with the probability of dying now, because they both refer to separate temporal contexts. Either both have to compare for now or both for the ultimate future.

Secondly, what is the expression supposed to signify? How does it indicate the 'hereafter'? You are making less sense than an orangutan high on absinthe.

[pocaracas]

Hmmm..... you think your life is worth zero when it reaches the end?

[Kayenneh]

This thread is not about proofs!

Obviously. Then stop talking like you're the only one who can be right.

I think I already made my points

Yes, and what a poor attempt it was.

You will have a proof that you cannot refute

Why not skip this meaningless discussion and hop right to the good stuff?

[Angrboda]

I haven't had my coffee yet, so bear with me. A few observations.

First, as noted, simply because you can put something into a formula doesn't mean the formula itself is meaningful. (Ask William Dembski.)
It's not clear what theory of probability you are employing here; would a Bayesian analysis yield a different result? (Not my area.)
As noted, even if this settled the matter of choosing to worship or not, it doesn't tell you which god. (And here the OP is incorrect; it isn't the probability of an unspecified god's existence which is in question, but rather the probability of a specific god existing [how would one worship a non-specific god?]. As Ryantology has pointed out, since the number of conceivable gods approaches infinity, the probability of a specific god approaches 0 (zero) at the limit, as does the denominator. Transfinite math is also not my area, but my intuition tells me that the result would then = 1; which I don't exactly know how to interpret.)
The value of life is not dependent on the probability of me dying, or indeed on any utilitarian grounds, at least not to most people I've talked to. (You're free to jump on a grenade at your pleasure.)
Almost forgot. If the god that exists is not one we are capable of imagining, the probability of worshiping it is 0 (zero).
The fact that I can imagine something does not attach any probability to it. I can imagine that I had steak for dinner last night, the probability that I did so is still 0 (zero). Probability is only established in the context of a theory (usually with unjustified assumptions, and a metaphysical/ontological interpretation). Just putting out that you believe the probability of (a specific) god is non-zero does not make it so.
Oh, and again, I'm ignorant of matters of probability, but it would appear that, on this analysis, nothing is of probability 0 (zero). This has two consequences. First, it changes the nature of one's epistemology, as things are neither all on or all off, but always have some probability, then the nature of justified, true belief changes. Second, one can then likely input any other non-zero probability into the equation. The probability that wearing underwear on my head will extend my lifespan is non-zero; thus, the closer I get to death, the more sense it makes to wear underwear on my head. I'm just spitballing, but that makes me suspicious of the whole argument....
[ETA: And what does the probability that there are more than one god do, perhaps cooperative, perhaps competing; or that we are all god? or that the universe is god? or that the god is or isn't one for whom worship matters?]


Anyway. Coffee first, thinking later.

(I know I've got some good analysis of Pascal in my library here. I'll see if I can find some.)


Further edited to add: This is not even Pascal's wager. Properly speaking, the wager is predicated on the value of infinite good (heaven) versus what is (potentially) lost. First, Pascal (and others) typically omit the fact that worship of a god, and behaving in accordance with its principles is of non-zero cost (and if there is no god, our life is all we have; thus wasting it in unnecessary worship is also of infinite (relative) cost along similar lines if the probability of no god is non-zero). But more importantly, there's no term for the value of the thing to be gained in your equation! The eternal reward is missing. It's possible that could be patched up by then asserting that "if god exists and if worshiping that god results in eternal bliss..." one might rescue the analysis. However there's a key turn here, in that now the probabilities in question are conjunctive, and they trend toward zero very quickly. So, again, transfinite math is beyond me, but I suspect that the equation will converge on zero if a conjunctive probability is inserted into the numerator, and the bottom remains a simple probability. (Though transfinite math is very weird; I trust my intuitions on this about as far as I can throw them; part of me suspects that the conjunctive series is of the same order as a non-conjunctive series, but again, I really don't know.) [Actually, the denominator, specifically the odds of dying, is the reciprocal of the conjunctive probabilities of dying by a specific method or cause or some such. But this is all quite beyond my abilities. [formal reasoning isn't my strong suit; please correct my bumbling if I've erred.]

Moar: I suspect that, like the denominator, the numerator would be the reciprocal of the conjunctive probability that behaving and worshipping in a specific way, meaning every act and precept, does not in some critical sense end up scotching the whole job (resulting in damnation). That probability is significantly more questionable.

("What's that you say? You ate pork? You should have known better. Get down there, vermin!")

Moar2: You state that the god of Islam would accept faking it till you make it. This is adding another condition as not all gods would be cool with this. (Ma Kali probably would. She's pretty froopy.)

[Minimalist]

But as you don't know when are you going to die, you should embrace a religion NOW!

Whatever will you do when you arrive at Valhalla and Odin kicks your allah-loving ass straight to hell because you did not die with a sword in your hand.

You are just another religious crackpot.

[Mister Agenda]

Hi all,

Let's start with a new old topic
Pascal's Wager

Hi yourself. Looking forward to understanding what new spin you're putting on old Pascal's Wager.

I"ll put the statement which I'm trying to prove first

Atheism is a very weak position to take, (Anything is better than nothing)

Good form, a welcome change from people who try to be mysterious about where they're going with their arguments.

P(G) is the probability of God existence (which is >0 unless you can prove that God doesn't exist)

Sure. Of course you can assign a similar term to any proposition that can't be proved false, like Alpha Centauri gives off undetectable emanations that nevertheless suppress your chances of enlightenment by 4%, which can be resistied by wearing a tinfoil hat when Alpha Centauri is visible from your part of earth. I'm not the first to point this out, I've read down-thread a bit.

V the value of your life
P(V) the probability of your death

Again, thanks to reading down-thread, I see you mean that you're referring to the probability of one's death in the immediate future. I don't agree that the value of one's life is inversely proportional to how much of it is left. Surely the value of a person's life must be considered in its entirety?

P(G)/(P(V)xV) will go to infinity as your life is coming to an end
But as you don't know when are you going to die, you should embrace a religion NOW!

Hm. That means the probability of the tinfoil hat thing being true gets greater the closer I am to dying, and approaches certainty when I'm dead. That doesn't make sense, does it? How much longer I have to live can't have an effect on the probability of the numerator in your equation.