Examining Pascal's Wager

[Paul of Tarsus]

(My treatment of Pascal's Wager will be a bit technical in this OP, but please bear with me because my examination of Pascal's Wager should be informative.)

According to Wikipedia:

Pascal's wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, theologian, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

What decision should we make regarding the existence of God, and what are the potential consequences of that decision?

To answer this question, we should start with the "null hypothesis" (so named because of it's negation, "not.")

H0: God does not exist.

Note that this null hypothesis can be true or false, and we can reject it or fail to reject it. A summary of the four combinations of these possibilities are the following:

We reject the null hypothesis (we believe in God) and
A. The null hypothesis is true in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type I" error.
B. The null hypothesis is false in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type B correct decision."

We fail to reject the null hypothesis (we don't believe in God) and
C. The null hypothesis is true in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type A correct decision."
D. The null hypothesis is false in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type II" error.

So if theists err because God doesn't exist, then they commit a Type I error. If atheists err (God does exist), then they commit a Type II error.

Which of these two errors has more serious consequences? As pascal points out in his wager, the gains of believing in God are infinite while the gains of doubt are finite. So if we doubt God's existence, then we better make darn sure we are right. If we believe in God, on the other hand, then the probability of being wrong need not be so low. So contrary to Pascal, I won't tell anybody that it's better to believe in God or not; it's just best to make sure you are making the correct decision whether you believe in God or not. Atheists appear to need to make sure that the probability of being wrong is lower than the theist's probability of being wrong.

[brunumb]

I laughed when I read this comment. Is it supposed to be a joke? "That's not a bacterial flagellum--it's just a picture of one"? You evidently don't trust diagrams.

Laugh away. When an object is re-imagined and drawn with labels with the deliberate intent to impose the impression of design, how is that an argument for the original object being designed.

[Paul of Tarsus]

You missed the word "intelligent", as has been pointed out in other posts, and the fact that evidence of past life is what is being looked for, not evidence of present life and certainly not intelligent life.

It seems reasonable to me that if NASA is looking for life on Mars, then they'd look for any kind of life there--past or present, intelligent or atheistic.

And I don't need to contact NASA ... I worked at a NASA center (JPL) for 15 years and designed and built two sensors for the Mars Polar Lander (MVACS) during 1995-1999. We got the lander to Mars and a software bug caused it to crash (we lost the orbiter for that mission as well). I'm very familiar with what NASA has done (and is doing) at Mars, and was involved in another instrument on the Curiosity rover that has performed well since its landing, and am still involved. They know my phone number and email addresses, but I don't think I could save them any tax dollars.

Frankly, I find this hard to believe.

You (as brunumb has also pointed out several times) are using things known to be designed by humans such as paintings and sculptures and suggesting that these are somehow analogous to the cosmos and its designer, or support the idea that the cosmos is designed. Not the case.

So you know that the universe is not designed. That settles the whole matter, then! You may wish to publish a paper on that for peer review.

Elsewhere I've mentioned DNA as a possible design not made by humans. It has organized structure and purpose far beyond human invention yet is not designed or created by people. If DNA is not designed, then how did it come about?

Where did you get that "logic", since it didn't come from my post? Here is what I actually said: "If any god ever invented by humans is ever shown to actually exist then you would have a point." And you translate that as "We cannot know what evidence for God is unless we already know he exists." The statements don't have even roughly similar meanings.

Great! In that case you concede my point that we can know design without previously knowing the designer.

I became an atheist after being immersed in Christianity from birth to 18, getting an education and meeting people of other religions and deciding to study religion in more depth in my late 20s (not just Christianity, but many religions). That is when I became convinced that gods are not really real, humans don't really have afterlives, and most likely all of the gods humans ever invented were simply made up entities.

So studying religion and meeting people of religions not yours convinced you that God doesn't exist. That kind of evidence doesn't make doubters out of everybody, obviously. God might exist, and there might be many religions. All you're demonstrating is that at least some religions are wrong about God.

Add the lack of any physical evidence for the existence of gods, and you have someone who lacks the belief that gods exist (ie. an atheist).

Until very recently physicists lacked tangible evidence for the Higgs boson, but they didn't lack belief that it existed. This example demonstrates that sensible, informed people can and do believe in things for which we have no physical evidence. The fact that the Higgs Boson is called "the God particle" is telling, is it not?

Allow me to conclude with an amazing image of an apparent design, the bacterial flagellum. It looks much like something we humans would have designed, but humans did not design it. Do you conclude that it cannot be designed because we don't know who or what designed it?

...no ... I would not conclude that it cannot be designed because we don't know who designed it, but rather would conclude that it was not designed because we know enough about how evolution works to make a better guess that it evolved to serve a purpose for the organism.

What evidence do you have that the bacterial flagellum evolved? It appears that you are assuming that it evolved.

[Paul of Tarsus]

I laughed when I read this comment. Is it supposed to be a joke? "That's not a bacterial flagellum--it's just a picture of one"? You evidently don't trust diagrams.

Laugh away. When an object is re-imagined and drawn with labels with the deliberate intent to impose the impression of design, how is that an argument for the original object being designed.

Actually, that diagram is from Simon Fraser University and was used in their article to demonstrate that the bacterial flagellum could have evolved. So nobody was trying to mislead the viewer to think it was designed.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #215]

It seems reasonable to me that if NASA is looking for life on Mars, then they'd look for any kind of life there--past or present, intelligent or atheistic.

Except that we know that no intelligent life exists on Mars now, or likely ever did given the complete absence of any structures or any other evidence that intelligent beings such as atheists may have left (to counter your obvious slur against atheists in the above quote). So it would not be at all reasonable to spend time and money developing instrumentation and getting it to Mars to look for intelligent life (athiests or theists).

The basic idea is that microbial life may have once existed there because liquid water once existed there, and they are looking for evidence of that as on past missions. Since the global average surface pressure on Mars today is almost exactly equal to the triple point of water (6.1 mbar ... less than 1/100 of Earth's surface pressure), and the atmospheric composition is about 95% CO2, liquid water is very scarce and can only exist above its triple point pressure. The possibility of intelligent life existing on Mars now is essentially zero, and there is no point wasting money (tax dollars given that is how NASA is funded) looking for it.

Frankly, I find this hard to believe.

Irrelevant, but I can prove it easily enough (PM me).

So you know that the universe is not designed. That settles the whole matter, then! You may wish to publish a paper on that for peer review.

I never made any such claim. Just another example of misunderstanding the point (or intentionally misrepresenting it).

Elsewhere I've mentioned DNA as a possible design not made by humans. It has organized structure and purpose far beyond human invention yet is not designed or created by people. If DNA is not designed, then how did it come about?

It evolved of course. How else? What happened during the roughly 3 billion years that single-celled organisms ruled the domain of life on this planet, all the while reproducing, processing mutations and genetic drift, etc. We don't yet know how the first life forms formed, or exactly what their genetic makeup was, and it could have been an "RNA World" prior to DNA. These are unsolved scientific problems. But as with all unsolved scientific problems, the default answer is not "a god did it."

Great! In that case you concede my point that we can know design without previously knowing the designer.

Not at all what I said or implied.

So studying religion and meeting people of religions not yours convinced you that God doesn't exist. That kind of evidence doesn't make doubters out of everybody, obviously. God might exist, and there might be many religions. All you're demonstrating is that at least some religions are wrong about God.

No, it showed the huge inconsistencies across religions in terms of their definitions of gods, number of gods, the characteristics and histories and powers of these gods, etc. It is impossible for all religions and god concepts to be correct, obviously. If only one of them is correct (and ask any devout practitioner of any religion and they will claim only their religion or god is "true") then which one it is? The only answer that is consistent in every way with every claim about all the different religions and gods is that none of them are really "true", and that gods don't actually, really, truly exist. That is the one scenario that has no inconsistencies with observation, and eliminates the discrepencies across religions and god concepts (at least it seems that way to me, hence I am an atheist).

Until very recently physicists lacked tangible evidence for the Higgs boson, but they didn't lack belief that it existed. This example demonstrates that sensible, informed people can and do believe in things for which we have no physical evidence. The fact that the Higgs Boson is called "the God particle" is telling, is it not?

Oh ... where to start with this one. Peter Higgs wrote a paper in 1964 predicting the boson that now bears his name. Here it is if you want to read it:

https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.110 ... ett.13.508

It is very short and sweet. The reason that scientists "didn't lack belief that it existed" was because of this paper (and a few others, one in that same journal issue on p. 321). Higgs had a good case for it. What didn't exist in 1964 was a collider large enough to produce the energies needed to see it. So what happened? The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built to get more energies for the colliding particles, partly to look specifically for the Higgs boson because it was a key "missing" particle in the Standard Model of Physics. It was eventually found of course, and calling it the "God" particle is purely a press name. That comes from a physicist calling it the "God*mn" particle and the press took license. So it isn't at all telling that it is called the "God" particle, and the belief that it may exist was not without reason (ie. Higgs paper .. and he eventually won a Nobel Prize of course).

What evidence do you have that the bacterial flagellum evolved? It appears that you are assuming that it evolved.

Bacteria and/or archaea that did not have flagella, their progeny that do have flagella.

[Tcg]

...NASA is not looking for life of any kind on Mars.

So now you're doing it to NASA.

Mars 2020 Mission Contributions to NASA's Mars Exploration Program Science Goal

Goal 1: Determine whether life ever existed on Mars
The mission of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover focuses on surface-based studies of the Martian environment, seeking preserved signs of biosignatures in rock samples that formed in ancient Martian environments with conditions that might have been favorable to microbial life.

It is the first rover mission designed to seek signs of past microbial life. Earlier rovers first focused on and confirmed that Mars once had habitable conditions.

'nough said.

"It is the first rover mission designed to seek signs of past microbial life."

Yes, not present life.


Tcg

You did it again! I didn't say "present life." You stuck the word "present" into what I said.

Is this how new atheists are born?

As before, I never claimed you said this. I was simply explaining what I meant given that you misunderstood my statement. Given that I had already documented NASA's goals, it's meaning should have been clear without clarification. In any case now you know, or at least should know, exactly what I meant by my statement.


Tcg

[Tcg]

It seems reasonable to me that if NASA is looking for life on Mars, then they'd look for any kind of life there--past or present, intelligent or atheistic.

What may or may not seem reasonable to you is irrelevant. NASA has explained quite clearly what they are looking for. Here is the data I shared previously that ends all questions about their goal.

Searching for Life in NASA's Perseverance Mars Samples

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will be the agency’s ninth mission to land on the Red Planet. Along with characterizing the planet’s geology and climate, and paving the way for human exploration beyond the Moon, the rover is focused on astrobiology, or the study of life throughout the universe. Perseverance is tasked with searching for telltale signs that microbial life may have lived on Mars billions of years ago. It will collect rock core samples in metal tubes, and future missions would return these samples to Earth for deeper study.

<bolding mine>

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8863/searchi ... s-samples/

Signs of past microbial life. Not present life. Not intelligent life. Signs of past life.


Tcg

[brunumb]

Actually, that diagram is from Simon Fraser University and was used in their article to demonstrate that the bacterial flagellum could have evolved. So nobody was trying to mislead the viewer to think it was designed.

Except for yourself of course.

[Paul of Tarsus]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #215]

It seems reasonable to me that if NASA is looking for life on Mars, then they'd look for any kind of life there--past or present, intelligent or atheistic.

Except that we know that no intelligent life exists on Mars now, or likely ever did given the complete absence of any structures or any other evidence that intelligent beings such as atheists may have left (to counter your obvious slur against atheists in the above quote). So it would not be at all reasonable to spend time and money developing instrumentation and getting it to Mars to look for intelligent life (athiests or theists).

Didn't this thread start out examining Pascal's wager?

Anyway, I see no reason why the current Mars mission could not look for any kind of life on Mars. If there is or was life on Mars that might be visible, then all you need is a camera mounted on the rover to check for it. It seems awfully foolish to me to risk missing such life there when it's so easy and relatively inexpensive to take a look for it. Besides, such an effort is multipurpose in that it can not only check for visible life but other things on the surface of Mars that we may not know about.

Of course, that's what NASA is in fact doing!

Frankly, I find this hard to believe.

Irrelevant, but I can prove it easily enough (PM me).

No thank you. I remember getting trolled by some guy in another forum who claimed he was a professional mathematician and a former NASA employee. I thought it was really bizarre that NASA had produced at least one worker who ended up spending his time in an online forum harassing somebody who said something to upset him. I didn't believe him either.

If DNA is not designed, then how did it come about?

It evolved of course. How else?

Uh--God designed and created it, perhaps. So I see you recognize only one possibility regarding how DNA came about. You've ruled out theistic design from the outset.

What happened during the roughly 3 billion years that single-celled organisms ruled the domain of life on this planet, all the while reproducing, processing mutations and genetic drift, etc. We don't yet know how the first life forms formed, or exactly what their genetic makeup was, and it could have been an "RNA World" prior to DNA. These are unsolved scientific problems. But as with all unsolved scientific problems, the default answer is not "a god did it."

I see tons of speculation here but no evidence. And you assert that God did not create DNA which is consistent with your assertion that he does not exist. I say keep an open mind to all the possibilities. If a mind is closed, then you can't get anything into it.

All you're demonstrating is that at least some religions are wrong about God.

No, it showed the huge inconsistencies across religions in terms of their definitions of gods, number of gods, the characteristics and histories and powers of these gods, etc. It is impossible for all religions and god concepts to be correct, obviously. If only one of them is correct (and ask any devout practitioner of any religion and they will claim only their religion or god is "true") then which one it is?

Again, it's entirely possible that God exists, but most people get the wrong ideas about him. Disagreement about something's nature does not mean it doesn't exist. The history of science bears that fact out.

The reason that scientists "didn't lack belief that it existed" was because of this paper (and a few others, one in that same journal issue on p. 321). Higgs had a good case for it.

You seem to be arguing here for what I've been saying all along. People like Higgs can use reason to conclude something exists by using inference even if there is no direct evidence for that thing.

I'm glad you're starting to see things my way!

[brunumb]

Again, it's entirely possible that God exists, but most people get the wrong ideas about him. Disagreement about something's nature does not mean it doesn't exist.

It's entirely possible that God does not exist. Any ideas about him or his nature are purely speculative and there's no wonder disagreement occurs. What is missing is any demonstration that the ideas and nature have any basis in reality.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #221]

If there is or was life on Mars that might be visible, then all you need is a camera mounted on the rover to check for it.

Of course they examine anything and everything the various cameras see! If bigfoot came marching through the frame I can assure you someone would notice it. But given the complete lack of any evidence from all the prior Mars missions of any intelligent life, or anything big enough to be visible to the human eye, it doesn't make sense to design a mission to hunt for bigfoots (or ants).

No thank you. I remember getting trolled by some guy in another forum who claimed he was a professional mathematician and a former NASA employee. I thought it was really bizarre that NASA had produced at least one worker who ended up spending his time in an online forum harassing somebody who said something to upset him. I didn't believe him either.

Well ... I wasn't "produced" by NASA I just worked for a NASA center (the only one where the employess are not civil servants, but technically work for the California Institute of Technology). People generally get educated somewhere that has nothing to do with NASA, then work there if hired by NASA. I don't think NASA has yet figured out how to produce people. Do you think I'm harassing you or that I am upset? Neither are the case ... I'm just challenging some of your comments on a debate forum. But what you "believe" about my work history or education is irrelevent to the debate.

Uh--God designed and created it, perhaps. So I see you recognize only one possibility regarding how DNA came about. You've ruled out theistic design from the outset.

Which god? Until one of these entities can be demonstrated to exist, I don't see how it makes any sense to attribute anything to them. First show the existence of any god (pick one), then we can talk about what it might have designed and created. Why not attribute it to bigfoot, or aliens, or leprachauns?

I see tons of speculation here but no evidence. And you assert that God did not create DNA which is consistent with your assertion that he does not exist. I say keep an open mind to all the possibilities. If a mind is closed, then you can't get anything into it.

I'm open minded with respect to gods existing ... I just have never seen any convincing evidence that they do. Still waiting.

Again, it's entirely possible that God exists, but most people get the wrong ideas about him. Disagreement about something's nature does not mean it doesn't exist. The history of science bears that fact out.

Sure, but there is just no evidence that gods exist so why hang your hat on that idea when it is pure speculation? What basis is there to believe that gods actually exist?

You seem to be arguing here for what I've been saying all along. People like Higgs can use reason to conclude something exists by using inference even if there is no direct evidence for that thing.

Higgs did not "conclude" that the boson he postulated existed. He described how mass could arise in gauge particles via a process called spontaneous symmetry breaking. This led to description of a gauge field (Higgs field) and its corresponding boson (now called the Higgs boson) and suggested that the boson must have a high mass-energy. So his analysis predicted the existence of this high mass-energy boson, but it was not concluded that it existed until it was actually found by LHC.

Many people have predicted the existence of gods over the millennia, but none have yet to be demonstrated to exist. That is the difference between Higgs using reason to suggest the existence of something and it being confirmed decades later, and someone predicting the existence of some sort of god. The confirmation-of-existence part is missing for the latter after not mere decades, but millennia.