To make this forum more dynamic , I'm going to start, periodically, a few threads about different subjects, which I'd like to hear your thoughts about. (I may even give these posts a common name... I'll think about it )

The first is Pascal's Wager.

If you don't know about it (I think the current members all do, but...), it was first enunciated by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, and it goes like this:

• If you believe in God and he exists, you go to heaven (infinite reward).
• If you believe in God and he doesn't exist, nothing happens.
• If you don't believe in God and he doesn't exist, nothing happens.
• If you don't believe in God and he exists, you go to hell (infinite punishment).
  

Therefore, according to Pascal, it makes perfect sense to believe, since you have everything to gain (if you're right) and nothing to lose (if you're wrong). Hedging one's bets, one might say.

There may be, however, certain problems with his logic. I won't write them here, right now; I'd like to hear your thoughts first. Do you agree with Pascal? Or do you find something wrong with his thinking?

I actually used Pascal's wager when I was in high school to convince myself to stay a Catholic a while longer. It was during my 10th grade year when I was going through the process of getting confirmed, and I was having serious doubts. My parents (my mother especially) were frantic that I would choose to not get confirmed. In the end I read about the wager and decided that it made more sense to go through with the confirmation then to live in my house if I did not. I actually went further and got much more involved in the Church, in hopes, I think, that I would find something that made it worthwhile.

I did not. In the end the wager was not sufficient to keep me in the Church - for many of the reasons I have read on your blog, Pedro. The same wager can be used to believe in any supernatural deity - so how does one choose? In the end I left the Church - floundered awhile - and found myself a Buddhist (and my mothers comment was that I was going to hell - how is that for a religion of love and forgiveness?!).

At any rate, Pascal's wager makes sense if there are only two competing views - there is a God (i.e., one and only one) or there is not. Otherwise it is too weak to base belief on. (Actually, even in the former case it is too weak - it is a coward's way out in my opinion!)

That's my two cents.

It's even more "branched" than you imply, though what you said is perfectly right. I'll write my own thoughts about it after there have been more replies. Nice answer, by the way; it's exactly this kind of discussion I want to encourage with these yet-to-be-named threads.

So, any more thoughts on Pascal's Wager?

First thoughts, this is of course the judeo Xtain (or at least.. mostly) God.
Anyway..


As I've pointed out before... you don't have everything to gain if you believe. Infact you may definately have everything to lose.
There are problems with that as well.
1. If you believe in this God, then you also "know" that you may very well go to hell. And life can become a bit more of problem. (Especially when desperate times call for desperate measures (stealing and such))

2. Not all, but most people think that they've done right. They think that they are good no matter what harm they've caused to other, innocent bystanders. So anybody in thier own view could go to heaven because, hell.. "I killed him because he was EVIL."

No. 2 of is a wierd one though. You can convince yourself of being a good person when you've been a bad one, but deep inside... you actually know you've done wrong.

As far as I can see, there are several big problems with Pascal's Wager.

1- Which God? At the time, most of the known world was Catholic. These days, there are a lot more religions; if we count variations of Christianity as separate religions (and we should - after all, most of them say that all others but themselves are damned), then there are probably thousands.

While some will say that "basic" belief in "God" is enough, many others will say the opposite (and, indeed, that's what's in the holy books). Most religions preach that they bring the only path to salvation, and that whoever believes in "other gods" goes to hell.

Effectively, according to Pascal's Wager, if God exists and one religion is right, you still have a huge chance of not picking the right one; in other words, your chance of damnation and eternal suffering is above 99%, and not that different from the one you'd have by being an atheist.

2- Assumes God wants what they say he wants. What if he's not "all-loving", but evil? What if he prefers honest doubt to blind faith? What if he rewards a good life, independently of whether a person believes in him or not? What if he is really "all-loving", and forgives everyone? Or is a sadist, and everyone will be damned? What if everyone is already pre-damned or pre-saved? What if God simply doesn't care about what we do (as the idea of a god building a "heaven" and a "hell", much like the idea of a "chosen people", is so primitive and tribal that it's absurd that people still believe in it)?

I could even put it this way: if there is a God, he's hiding, and created an universe where everything works naturally. If he's a god worth my respect, he'd want me to use my power of reason. My power of reason tells me that no god exists, since that's the logical conclusion from what I can observe. See what I'm getting at? Would you worship a god who prefers morons to people who use their minds?

3- Assumes God would reward "hedging one's bets", that is, believing just because it's "safer". Again, a god that would do so wouldn't be, in my opinion, worth one's worship.

4- Assumes that there's no "loss" for believing in a god when there is none. I'd say there is. It depends on the version of religion, and on the particular believer, but, usually, religious faith implies a loss of a lot of time and money. It also implies that some parts of life are simply closed to the believer; many religions forbid certain habits, foods, sexual positions, etc.. Furthermore, a lot of religions - not to mention the Christian Bible - encourage blind faith, refraining from questioning, and so on... in other words, if you follow the Bible, you have to cripple your mind.

5- Assumes you can choose whether you believe or not. If I thought that there was a reasonable chance of there being a god, and I was an utter coward, I could "make" myself believe. But would it be "honest"? Or would I just "believe" because I wanted a reward and was afraid of a punishment? Again, a deity worthy of our respect wouldn't fall for such a thing...

This post was last modified: 12-16-2006 10:24 PM by Pedro Timóteo.

To my knowledge, Pascal figured that in doing all the worshipping and whatnot, you would eventually actually believe.

Not that it matters, though. The wager is flawed primarily for the first reason you mentioned.

Not actually true, I'm not going to argue the fact that Morality is a construct and therefore can be safely ignored within this kind of objective argument, because TXstorm will find and kill me .
However our sense of morality CAN be easily warped, a basic example is a victim of depression often sees themselves as "evil" this may not be essentially true, but TO THEIR MIND it is true, there is no doubt of this, it is pure simple fact.

Ultimately it IS your own mind that makes the good/bad decision.

I agree with XTimmy in that OPINIONS or mere beliefs about morality can be warped, as religion sets out to do. That said, the fact that it does take effort to get over the knowledge of doing wrong does speak well of the awareness of morality.

I'd say that's because it is a very firm construct, it's something that's been there for a person's entire life, and therefore it's hard to separate oneself from it.

You could say the world is flat as well, but that would not make it true..

The whole reality as construct position has no foundation, nothing upon which it can rest, and of course it fails the most basic criteria for any theory: it fails to explain the data.

I meant morality, it's a very strong construct, one that's reinforced by almost every angle of one's life, and there fore it is very hard to ignore it, but it's not impossible to do so.
I wasn't stating reality as a construct, constructs are ways of perceiving reality, for instance, the reality is that we live in a universe, the RELIGIOUS constructs view on this is that we live in a universe because of God or gods.

I understood what you meant, but the fact remains that denying reality, which you are doing in calling morality a construct, you might as well be denying the shape of the planet. The whole reality as construct notion simply fails to fit the available evidence, as well as having a great many other errors (not the least of which is that it is necessarily self-contradictory as it is merely a pure construct!)

Reality does not equal morality in anyway, morality is a way of judging events and entities within the reality.
Take the following example
239 239 0
U ----> Np + b
9 93 -1

The above equation is a Beta decay for uranium, a very simple example of a radioactive decay.

Now that above equation happens in reality, however it has no morality, it's effects, indeed the action (the beta decay) has no morality, the beta particle escaping the Uranium is not good or bad, however it is very real, it exists. The only point at which morality comes into play is when this is equation is observed within reality and an opinion is formed of it.
Summarized
The action has no moral rating, no "good" or "bad", however when it is observed and judged, presumably by humans, it gains a rating of good or bad.
You see, that decay can either provide us with electricity, presumably a "good" thing, or melt down the entire plant , presumably a 'bad' thing.

In reality the decay has simply happened, it exists and functions within reality, it is not until it it is observed and 'judged' that it has any moral stance.
SO! Morality exists within reality, but as a construct of viewing events and entities within in it.

EDIT: Sorry for derail, please help get back on topic ASAP.

This post was last modified: 12-19-2006 02:31 PM by XTimmy.

There is no interaction between moral agents therefore morality never enters into is.

BTW your argument is that since morality does not contain the whole of reality, it cannot be a part of reality. So by that reasoning, cars do not have tires.. By denying that tires really exist, you deny that cars really exist. Same for morality. By STIPULATING that morality does not exist, especially in the face of overwhleming evidence, you are simply STIPULATING that reality does not exist, which of course undermines any and all claims you may make. The position is necessarily self-defeating.

Morality exists WITHIN reality as a way of classifying actions and entities, however it does not AFFECT reality, it's simply a way of viewing it, to say that morality is PART of reality would be to suggest that morality affects reality, which it doesn't, an action will continue doing what it's doing, good or bad, regardless of if it is good or bad.

It's the same thing as emotions, they exists WITHIN reality (Chemical reactions etc), but they would not shape reality.

So by your reasoning light is not part of reality. Neither are the effects described by physics, nor is the physical world, nor any entity whatsoever... So you have eliminated the possibility that anything could be part of reality, thus eliminating reality. Neat trick, unfortunately since we know reality does in fact exist (it is literally nonsensical to claim otherwise) the argument you offer is necessarily unsound.

BTW You should have read the analogy for it still holds. The tires do not affect the car in the sense you offer, yet they remain part of the car.

Light, is part of reality, it is a physical thing, it exists. Morality does not exists in reality, I can not hold a handful of liquid morality. Explain how, in reality, morality exists, show me an example of morality outside of human perception, provide a universe without conscious entities and then show me morality.

It's not possible, morality is a way of judging actions and entities in reality, morality does not exists as an entity nor a action, but as a method for categorizing events and objects.

Take another school of philosophy, existentialism, existentialism does not exists within reality, it simply doesn't, it is a way of VIEWING reality (I'm fully aware of what existentialism teaches and how this statement is a minor loop), reality is what is happening outside of emotion, outside of morality, outside of classification. Reality is what is there, it is logical, it follows set rules (of physics and other sciences).

EDIT: The example I gave above exists within reality, it happens, sometimes humans make it happen, that doesn't make it any less real. But whether it is good or bad is not something that is real.
Lets say that the decay happens, in the natural world, no-one to observe it and judge it.
Is it good or bad? How do you define "good" or "bad" in this situation? You CAN'T if morality is part of reality as it is in your model then it would affect this decay in someway, but as it stands morality doesn't do a thing, the lump of uranium keeps on giving out beta particles until it turns into the new element. Where is the good or the bad in that?

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 11:09 PM by XTimmy.

You cannot hold a handful of liquid light either. You cannot hold gravity, or physics.

Existentialism has to do with a way of dealing with experiences. It is specific to a view, whereas morality is universal to all rational, vulnerable entities. It is no less a science than physics. Recall that physics too once had mystics and crazy notions of magic and the like, just as you are suggesting about morality.

As for the "affecting reality" I have already debunked this tactic. Your entire post is nothing more than a restatement of your baseless conclusion.

Regardless of the properties of light, it can still be measured and when have a moderate understanding of how it works, to an extent we also understand how gravity works.

How is morality universal? A leopard killing a gazette is both good and bad, good for the leopard and bad for the gazette. So it's subjective to the entities, in reality what has happened is that a leopard has killed a gazette, where is the morality?
Reality of situation: The gazette lives and will continue to do so until it cannot out run the leopard.
Morality of situation: Dependent on perspective, reality does not change due to perspective, I can boldly claim that a rock is an apple, but it's not, it has none of the properties of an 'apple'. If morality is part of reality, then, just as known physics is (theories aside), it would not change with perspective. But it does, being eatten is bad in the gazette's perspective and good in the leopards.

This post was last modified: 12-21-2006 09:33 AM by XTimmy.

You seem to me mistaking morality for all normativity. There is no issue of morality in the lion killing a gazelle (which is what I assume you mean since few lions ever kill newspapers)

You also seem to be confusing immediate desires with morality. This is akin to confusing your desire to fly with the laws of physics which prevent you from flying unassisted.

Morality does not change with perspective. Your examples do not involve morality in any fashion, therefore cannot by definition show anything at all about morality.

To show morality does not change with perspective, it remains immoral to kill an innocent moral agent, even if their skin tone is not to your liking, or even if they hold religious views with which you disagree, etc. It does not matter if that innocent moral agent is your brother or the last of the long line of a family with whom you have been feuding for centuries. You own emotional state is completely irrelevant.

This post was last modified: 12-21-2006 09:36 AM by TXStorm.

Morality is the rating which any subjective view of reality (lets say the gazelle's) gives to an event or entity, it is simply a two way line with pure evil and the purest good on the other.
Innocence? Innocence is subjective, to many the act of being born is a sin. How would you define innocence?
If morality is part of reality then it affects all entities and actions (the laws of physics effects ALL actions and entities within reality, ignoring, of course, gods). I cannot think of an example of anything that is part of reality (rather than existing within reality such as objects in space) that does not affect everything within reality.

To make this a bit clearer I went to dictionary.com (as a neutral third party) for a definition of "morality".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=morality

"Conformity to the rules of right conduct", in that case, define 'right', as humans, what gives us the right to define what is 'right'? For an easy example, is killing wrong? If there are 'rules' within reality for 'right conduct' then there is an absolute 'rule' on whether killing is bad or not. How ever whether it is 'good' or not is subjective, I can kill and be labeled a hero, or kill and be labeled a murderer. Which is it, in this, universal set of 'rules of right conduct'?

Within the 'rules of right conduct' I am both.
In reality, I am neither, because neither exist, I am simply a very complicated object that stopped another very complicated object from continuing to perform an action. There is no good or evil in that, because good and evil are neat little rules, which work rather well on our scale.
But in the real, physical reality of the situation, I have simply performed an action.

OKay that does clear things up. You are using the word "morality" to mean, well whatever is convenient at the moment without any consistency or relationship to reality. In otherwords, the usage in your posts of "morality" can be replaced with "hsdfiuoaiahjak872349njsy" without any loss of meaning.

I am referring to the informal public system which governs actions of and pertaining to all rational vulnerable beings. This system can be observed in exactly the same way that we observe the effects of gravity, or other aspects of reality.

Clearly your criticisms have nothing to do with morality per se.

Since the errors in your reasoning as presented in the last post come after this initial error there is no great need to go into them here, though they are great and obvious.

This post was last modified: 12-21-2006 05:24 PM by TXStorm.

Use the definition above, I'd say that was correct before this debate even began, morality as the conformity to rules of right conduct. That would be correct.
However I can still stand by Nietzsche's point, these 'rules of right conduct' are not within reality, they are in our minds.
I can still, also say that morality allows us to rate something on a two way scale (conformity to Rules<->Non conformity to rules).

It doesn't prove, mind you it doesn't completely disprove, your thoughts on reality being combined with reality.

IF you have a problem with the definition then simply provide another one until a acceptable medium is reached.

My usage of 'morality' has, in fact, been the same throughout, I've simply been using different terms.

That dictionary entry may well say "the conformity to the rules of good and bad", which is essentially what I've using all along.

As I noted you seem to be mistaking morality for all normativity. By your reasoning whether I prefer strawberry ice cream or mexican vanilla is a moral choice despite lacking the crucial elements of morality such as interaction with other moral agents, the possibility of harm to other moral agents, etc.

So we are not communicating because you have redefined words to mean literally nothing at all, but rather to have only the illusion of meaning so as to discredit the real meaning of the words. This is of course a form of equivocation, which is of course a logical fallacy.

As for explaining morality, I've done so already. As for "acceptable medium" you are mistaking the way descriptions of reality work. Your approach simply stipulates how you want reality to be, so the words can be and in fact are without meaning. That is to say that they do not point to anything at all in reality but rather only back to themselves. If instead we start with reality, observe it and then describe phenomena, we have objective and verifiable meaning, as well as knowledge and consistency, all of which are excluded in principle from your approach.