I don’t think that infinite utility or disutility is a common feature of Pascalian wagers, only a very large amount of utility or disutility. For instance, myself going to Hell isn’t infinite disutility—there are worse things, such as two people going to hell.
(Unless we consider a finite amount of utility or disutility extended perpetually to be an infinite amount, in which case everything we do is equally infinitely positive or negative utility and no good or bad deed is better or worse than any other good or bad deed. Which seems very wrong to me, though I admit I don’t have a reason off the top of my head why that’s the case.)
Once you’ve accepted Hell as a finite (though very large) disutility, you can multiply it by the (utterly minuscule) odds of a logically inconsistent religion being true and everything anyone knows about physics being wildly off base.
Even assuming I consider it finite, I make a reasoning like “some people consider hell to be of infinite utility, so there is a tiny probability that hell is of infinite utility so the number one moral priority is to try to prevent as many people from going there”
For the counter-argument that two people going to hell is worse than one, I would tend to think of it as some infinities being greater than others (as in mathematics).
I don’t really understand the argument of finite utility that continues to infinity. It seems to me that this is the key point of the argument. Hell would be a torture that lasts forever. I don’t quite see what would be similar in our physical universe where all conscious life will eventually die out in several billion years.
Sorry if I have misunderstood and if I am not explaining myself clearly. My mind is anything but clear. I just want to clarify that I am a very strong atheist and I am not trying to convince anyone here. But I have heard believers defend Pascal’s wager in defense of their religion and I have never really found a fully satisfactory objection. For each argument, I quickly think of a counter argument and my dilemma goes on and on.In practice, I live as an atheist and I don’t stop anyone from eating pork (although I once almost had an anxiety attack when my father ate bacon in front of me).
I know that people presenting Pascal’s wager usually claim that the utility of being accepted to their favorite heaven or their least favorite hell is infinite—but I don’t think it is. But we’ll leave that aside, because as you point out other people believe that the utility of heaven is infinite and I could be mistaken.
(For the counter-argument that two people going to hell is worse than one, I would tend to think of it as some infinities being greater than others (as in mathematics).)
If different infinities are allowed to be better or worse than each other, than you shouldn’t need to worry about heaven or hell! You should be focused on maximizing your odds of infinite utility by doing the things most likely to lead to such a state.
The odds of any given religion being true is very, very small. Especially considering that they are all logically inconsistent. The odds of me being an extraterrestrial being of phenomenal power, able to create heavens and hells, is substantially higher than Sunni Islam or the Church of England having the right of things. Because at least the idea isn’t logically impossible. So making me happy with you is more important than abiding by the laws of any earthly religion. The chance of you being yourself an omnipotent alien who’ll come into your power once you feel less tormented is larger than the odds of an earthly religion being true—because while it’s a silly idea with no evidence backing it and the entire edifice of science flatly refuting it, at least it doesn’t contradict itself.
But now that we’re focusing on maximizing our odds of getting infinite utility, there are even more promising prospects than supposing impossible things about strangers or ourselves. The odds of future humans reversing entropy (or finding a way to make infinite computations using finite resources, or any other solution given trillions of years to think about it) is much higher than the odds of any of Earth’s religions being true. So if we take that view, the most important thing one can do is maximize the odds of human civilization surviving and maximizing the daily positive utility of that future civilization.
Thank you very much for your answer. It seems to me very convincing :-)
As explained above, I won’t be spending much more time here in the next few days because my psychologist has wisely advised me not to think about these issues until my condition improves considerably.
But you have lucidly answered some of my fears. Which I can’t do right now. I hope to be able to discuss these issues with you or with other members of this community in the future.
I don’t think that infinite utility or disutility is a common feature of Pascalian wagers, only a very large amount of utility or disutility. For instance, myself going to Hell isn’t infinite disutility—there are worse things, such as two people going to hell.
(Unless we consider a finite amount of utility or disutility extended perpetually to be an infinite amount, in which case everything we do is equally infinitely positive or negative utility and no good or bad deed is better or worse than any other good or bad deed. Which seems very wrong to me, though I admit I don’t have a reason off the top of my head why that’s the case.)
Once you’ve accepted Hell as a finite (though very large) disutility, you can multiply it by the (utterly minuscule) odds of a logically inconsistent religion being true and everything anyone knows about physics being wildly off base.
Thanks for your answer :-)
I thought that in the classic presentations of the bet, the usefulness of heaven was infinite: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/
Even assuming I consider it finite, I make a reasoning like “some people consider hell to be of infinite utility, so there is a tiny probability that hell is of infinite utility so the number one moral priority is to try to prevent as many people from going there”
For the counter-argument that two people going to hell is worse than one, I would tend to think of it as some infinities being greater than others (as in mathematics).
I don’t really understand the argument of finite utility that continues to infinity. It seems to me that this is the key point of the argument. Hell would be a torture that lasts forever. I don’t quite see what would be similar in our physical universe where all conscious life will eventually die out in several billion years.
Sorry if I have misunderstood and if I am not explaining myself clearly. My mind is anything but clear.
I just want to clarify that I am a very strong atheist and I am not trying to convince anyone here. But I have heard believers defend Pascal’s wager in defense of their religion and I have never really found a fully satisfactory objection. For each argument, I quickly think of a counter argument and my dilemma goes on and on.In practice, I live as an atheist and I don’t stop anyone from eating pork (although I once almost had an anxiety attack when my father ate bacon in front of me).
I know that people presenting Pascal’s wager usually claim that the utility of being accepted to their favorite heaven or their least favorite hell is infinite—but I don’t think it is. But we’ll leave that aside, because as you point out other people believe that the utility of heaven is infinite and I could be mistaken.
If different infinities are allowed to be better or worse than each other, than you shouldn’t need to worry about heaven or hell! You should be focused on maximizing your odds of infinite utility by doing the things most likely to lead to such a state.
The odds of any given religion being true is very, very small. Especially considering that they are all logically inconsistent. The odds of me being an extraterrestrial being of phenomenal power, able to create heavens and hells, is substantially higher than Sunni Islam or the Church of England having the right of things. Because at least the idea isn’t logically impossible. So making me happy with you is more important than abiding by the laws of any earthly religion. The chance of you being yourself an omnipotent alien who’ll come into your power once you feel less tormented is larger than the odds of an earthly religion being true—because while it’s a silly idea with no evidence backing it and the entire edifice of science flatly refuting it, at least it doesn’t contradict itself.
But now that we’re focusing on maximizing our odds of getting infinite utility, there are even more promising prospects than supposing impossible things about strangers or ourselves. The odds of future humans reversing entropy (or finding a way to make infinite computations using finite resources, or any other solution given trillions of years to think about it) is much higher than the odds of any of Earth’s religions being true. So if we take that view, the most important thing one can do is maximize the odds of human civilization surviving and maximizing the daily positive utility of that future civilization.
Thank you very much for your answer. It seems to me very convincing :-)
As explained above, I won’t be spending much more time here in the next few days because my psychologist has wisely advised me not to think about these issues until my condition improves considerably.
But you have lucidly answered some of my fears. Which I can’t do right now.
I hope to be able to discuss these issues with you or with other members of this community in the future.
Thanks for your time :-)
I’m very glad to have helped in any way. Take care of yourself!