How many hours do you think a reasonable person is obligated to spend investigating religions before rejecting the wager?
Great question.
Let me offer the idea of “universal common sense.”
“Common sense” is “the way most people look at things.” The way people commonly use this phrase today is what we might call “local common sense.” It is the common sense of the people who are currently alive and part of our culture.
Local common sense is useful for local questions. Universal common sense is useful for universal questions.
Since religion, as well as science, claim to be universal questions, we ought to rely on universal common sense. The galactic wisdom of crowds, if you will.
Of course, we can’t talk to people in the past or future. But even when we rely on local common sense, we are in some sense making a prediction about what our peers would say if we asked them the question we have in mind.
We can still make a prediction about what, say, a stone age person, or a person living 10,000 years in the future, would say if we asked them about whether Catholicism was real. The stone age person wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. The person 10,000 years in the future, I suspect, wouldn’t know either, as Catholicism might have largely vanished into history.
However, I expect that science will still be going strong 10,000 years in the future, if humanity lives to that point. And I expect that by then, vastly more people will believe (or have believed) in a form of scientific materialism than will believe in any particular religion. Hence, I predict that “universal common sense” is that we ought not spend much time at all investigating the truth of any particular religion.
I think imagining that current view X is justified, because one imagines that future generations will also believe in X is really unconvincing.
I think most people think their views will be more popular in the future. Liberal democrats and Communists have both argued that their view would dominate the world. I don’t think it adds anything other than illustrating the speaker is very confident of the merits of their worldview.
If for instance, demographers put together an amazing case that most future humans would be Mormon, would you change your mind? If you became convinced that AI would kill humanity next decade and we’re in the last generation so there are no future humans, would you change your mind?
If for instance, demographers put together an amazing case that most future humans would be Mormon, would you change your mind? If you became convinced that AI would kill humanity next decade and we’re in the last generation so there are no future humans, would you change your mind?
I’ve had a little more chance to flesh out this idea of “universal common sense.” I’m now thinking of it as “the wisdom of the best parts of the past, present, and future.”
Let’s say we could identify exemplary societies across the past, present, and future. Furthermore, assume that, on some questions, these societies had a consensus common sense view. Finally, assume that, in some cases, we can predict what that intertemporal consensus common sense view would be.
Given all three of these assumptions, then I think we should consider adopting that point of view.
In the AI doom scenario, I think we should reject the common sense of the denizens of that future on matters pertaining to AI doom, as they weren’t wise enough to avoid doom.
In the Mormon scenario, I think that if the future is Mormon, then that suggests Mormonism would probably be a good thing. I generally trust people to steer toward good outcomes over time. Hence, if I believed this, then that would make me take Mormonism much more seriously.
I have a wide confidence interval for this notion of “universal common sense” being useful. Since you seem to be confidently against it, do you have futher objections to it? I appreciate the chance to explore it with a critical lens.
I’m not against it- I think it’s an okay way of framing something real. Your phrasing here is pretty sensible to me.
“Let’s say we could identify exemplary societies across the past, present, and future. Furthermore, assume that, on some questions, these societies had a consensus common sense view. Finally, assume that, in some cases, we can predict what that intertemporal consensus common sense view would be.
Given all three of these assumptions, then I think we should consider adopting that point of view.”
But I have concerns about the future perspective, in theory and practice.
I think people will just assert future people will agree with them. You think future people will agree with you, I think future people will agree with me. There’s no way to settle that dispute conclusively (maybe expert predictions or a prediction market can point to some answer), so I think imagining the future perspective is basically worthless.
In contrast, we can look at people today or in the past (contingent on historical records). The widespread belief in the divine is, I think, at least another piece of (weak?) evidence that points to taking the wager. This could be weakened if secular societies or institutions were much more successful than their contemporaries.
“My view makes perfect sense, contemporary culture is crazy, and history will bear me out when my perspective becomes a durable new form of common sense” is a statement that, while it scans as arrogant, could easily be true—and has been many times in the past. It at least explains why a person who ascribes to “social intelligence” as a guide might still hold many counterintuitive opinions. I agree with you though that it’s not useful for settling disputes when people disagree in their predictions about “universal common sense.”
If you believe that current and past common sense is a better guide, then doesn’t that work against Pascal’s Wager? I mean, how many people now, or in the past, would agree with you that Pascal’s Wager is a good idea? I think it has stuck around in part because it’s so counterintuitive. We don’t exactly see a ton of deathbed conversions, much less for game-theoretic reasons.
I would say if we use other people’s judgment as a guide for our own, it’s an argument for the belief in the divine/God/the supernatural and it becomes hard to say Christianity and Islam have negligible probability. So rules that are like “ignore tiny probability” don’t work. Your idea of discounting probability as utility rises still works but we’ve talked about why I don’t think that’s compelling enough.
I don’t have good survey evidence on Pascal’s Wager, but I think a lot of religious believers would agree with the general concept- don’t risk your soul, life is short and eternity is long, and other phrases like that seem to reference the basic idea.
This guy converted on his deathbed because of the wager (John von Neumann).
Great question.
Let me offer the idea of “universal common sense.”
“Common sense” is “the way most people look at things.” The way people commonly use this phrase today is what we might call “local common sense.” It is the common sense of the people who are currently alive and part of our culture.
Local common sense is useful for local questions. Universal common sense is useful for universal questions.
Since religion, as well as science, claim to be universal questions, we ought to rely on universal common sense. The galactic wisdom of crowds, if you will.
Of course, we can’t talk to people in the past or future. But even when we rely on local common sense, we are in some sense making a prediction about what our peers would say if we asked them the question we have in mind.
We can still make a prediction about what, say, a stone age person, or a person living 10,000 years in the future, would say if we asked them about whether Catholicism was real. The stone age person wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. The person 10,000 years in the future, I suspect, wouldn’t know either, as Catholicism might have largely vanished into history.
However, I expect that science will still be going strong 10,000 years in the future, if humanity lives to that point. And I expect that by then, vastly more people will believe (or have believed) in a form of scientific materialism than will believe in any particular religion. Hence, I predict that “universal common sense” is that we ought not spend much time at all investigating the truth of any particular religion.
I think imagining that current view X is justified, because one imagines that future generations will also believe in X is really unconvincing.
I think most people think their views will be more popular in the future. Liberal democrats and Communists have both argued that their view would dominate the world. I don’t think it adds anything other than illustrating the speaker is very confident of the merits of their worldview.
If for instance, demographers put together an amazing case that most future humans would be Mormon, would you change your mind? If you became convinced that AI would kill humanity next decade and we’re in the last generation so there are no future humans, would you change your mind?
I’ve had a little more chance to flesh out this idea of “universal common sense.” I’m now thinking of it as “the wisdom of the best parts of the past, present, and future.”
Let’s say we could identify exemplary societies across the past, present, and future. Furthermore, assume that, on some questions, these societies had a consensus common sense view. Finally, assume that, in some cases, we can predict what that intertemporal consensus common sense view would be.
Given all three of these assumptions, then I think we should consider adopting that point of view.
In the AI doom scenario, I think we should reject the common sense of the denizens of that future on matters pertaining to AI doom, as they weren’t wise enough to avoid doom.
In the Mormon scenario, I think that if the future is Mormon, then that suggests Mormonism would probably be a good thing. I generally trust people to steer toward good outcomes over time. Hence, if I believed this, then that would make me take Mormonism much more seriously.
I have a wide confidence interval for this notion of “universal common sense” being useful. Since you seem to be confidently against it, do you have futher objections to it? I appreciate the chance to explore it with a critical lens.
I’m not against it- I think it’s an okay way of framing something real. Your phrasing here is pretty sensible to me.
“Let’s say we could identify exemplary societies across the past, present, and future. Furthermore, assume that, on some questions, these societies had a consensus common sense view. Finally, assume that, in some cases, we can predict what that intertemporal consensus common sense view would be.
Given all three of these assumptions, then I think we should consider adopting that point of view.”
But I have concerns about the future perspective, in theory and practice.
I think people will just assert future people will agree with them. You think future people will agree with you, I think future people will agree with me. There’s no way to settle that dispute conclusively (maybe expert predictions or a prediction market can point to some answer), so I think imagining the future perspective is basically worthless.
In contrast, we can look at people today or in the past (contingent on historical records). The widespread belief in the divine is, I think, at least another piece of (weak?) evidence that points to taking the wager. This could be weakened if secular societies or institutions were much more successful than their contemporaries.
“My view makes perfect sense, contemporary culture is crazy, and history will bear me out when my perspective becomes a durable new form of common sense” is a statement that, while it scans as arrogant, could easily be true—and has been many times in the past. It at least explains why a person who ascribes to “social intelligence” as a guide might still hold many counterintuitive opinions. I agree with you though that it’s not useful for settling disputes when people disagree in their predictions about “universal common sense.”
If you believe that current and past common sense is a better guide, then doesn’t that work against Pascal’s Wager? I mean, how many people now, or in the past, would agree with you that Pascal’s Wager is a good idea? I think it has stuck around in part because it’s so counterintuitive. We don’t exactly see a ton of deathbed conversions, much less for game-theoretic reasons.
I would say if we use other people’s judgment as a guide for our own, it’s an argument for the belief in the divine/God/the supernatural and it becomes hard to say Christianity and Islam have negligible probability. So rules that are like “ignore tiny probability” don’t work. Your idea of discounting probability as utility rises still works but we’ve talked about why I don’t think that’s compelling enough.
I don’t have good survey evidence on Pascal’s Wager, but I think a lot of religious believers would agree with the general concept- don’t risk your soul, life is short and eternity is long, and other phrases like that seem to reference the basic idea.
This guy converted on his deathbed because of the wager (John von Neumann).