Re: CHAT: OT CHAT: Pascal's Wager

Muke Tever writes:
 > From: "Tim May" <butsuri@...>
 > > Indeed.  Or for that matter, requires absolute faith in a particular,
 > > narrowly defined religion, and you chose the wrong one?
 >
 > This is why it is a 'wager' ;)
 >
 > There are many squares on the board labeled "big money, big
 > prizes".  According to the most common rules none (or very few) of
 > the other ones nab you anything, and you only get to pick one.  But
 > at least you get a chance of winning--as opposed to those guys in
 > the corner who refuse to play at all, (and they've got all kinds of
 > reasons... they think the whole game's a scam/sham, or their
 > parents got trampled by the fans of one of the hosts, or whatever)
 >
Well, sure, although it kind of ignores the rest of what I said.
Anyway, that's a fairly accurate portrayal of the situation, but I
dan't think it's what Pascal meant (I confess I've never read his
original argument, only various recapitulations of it).  As I
understand it, the original wager involves betting that there either
is, or is not a God, and he points out that (for a certain set of
circumstances) it makes sense probabilistically to bet that there is
(see the other part of my original post).  I don't think it takes
multiple religions into account (not that it would matter, as long as
you assume that the afterlife isn't worse for members of any religion
than it is for atheists, which probably seemed more reasonable to
Pascal than it does to me).

Note, anyway, I'm not suggesting that Pascal's conclusion applies in
reverse, which would mean you're better off betting there is not a
God, no matter how high a probability you assign to His existence.  I
think you're best of going with whatever you think is most likely,
based on your interpretation of the evidence.  (Which is what everyone
does, anyhow, or thinks they do.)  You might weight them according to
the possibility of an infinite reward in the afterlife, but this
depends on your idea of the most probable means used by God (if he
exists) to assign rewards to the dead.

This really has no relevence to conlanging now, but if anyone can
translate my paragraphs above into a conlang, I'll be very impressed.

 > > Incidentally, has anyone covered this kind of debate in a conculture?
 >
 > I intend to, eventually.
 >
 >      *Muke!
 > --
 > http://www.frath.net/