4 ms·

Pascal's wager (the original) has a flaw in it. One doesn't know and or can prove if God is evil. So I don't really know how else to respond to what you wrote.

by sysbin 7y ago

SkyBelow 7y ago
Free will as a concept is much simpler than God as a concept, and thus the flaws in the original wager don't apply (as far as I can tell, if you can find one that does apply let me know).
- sysbinn 7y ago
  > Free will as a concept is much simpler than God as a concept How so? I assume the opposite when it comes to what's simpler. A person sees creation by God as cause & effect. The free will concept doesn't even make sense if thought about. Your actions are cause & effect from the summation of all events experienced.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    For starters, generally the view is that free will either exists or doesn't exist with free will being the concept that we have some control over our actions. Compare this to God, where you have plenty of religions, many with their own distinction God, some with many, some with concepts that may or may not quite count as God. Even with just Christianity, you have God, but then you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit which makes up God. With some belief systems you have spirits which are kinda like a god but kinda not and with other systems you have demigods which are part human. So with free will, you options are: Option | Free Will 1 | N 2 | Y With gods, you options are Option | God | Trinity | Allah | Shiva | Zeus | Thor | ... 1 | N | N | N | N... 2 | Y | N | N | N... 3 | N | Y | N | N... ... And that isn't even counting the difference within a given religion. It is like comparing the cardinality of boolean options with the cardinality of the reals.
- bena 7y ago
  It's impossible to actually know whether or not we have anything approaching free will. We could be a simulation, there could be an omnipotent deity, we could be the product of a bunch of processes unique to ourselves. None of it matters. We can only act on the world as we perceive it. If the world is controlled by some outside force that can manipulate it at will, including our perception and memory of events, there is nothing we can do about that. We are merely constructs under something else's control. If we were ever capable of "piercing the veil" so to speak, the controller could just roll us back to when we didn't know. If gravity was too much, they could change it. Etc. However, we're going to do our best to understand the world as perceived. And that's the best we can do. We have to operate as if the universe is not being arbitrarily modified according to unknowable rules. And it's not like any sort of record will prove that it's not. Because the capability of creating this universe also includes the capability of altering the past as well as the present and future. Similar with free will. Like I explained elsewhere, if free will does not exist, then you can either be persuaded by an argument or not. For any position. Maybe you're predestined to like Joe Dirt. No matter what anyone says about it. You don't get the choice. Same thing regarding the concept of free will. If it does not exist, you don't actually have a choice in whether you can accept that it doesn't. Either you're predestined to believe in it or not. Because all of your actions are the results of the forces that act upon you, all of which are also the results of actions, etc, etc, all the way to the initial big bang. That one moment essentially wrote it's own epitaph as everything goes back to that moment. Without free will, me writing this and you reading it isn't a chance or coincidence, it's just the result of the forces from the big bang. So. If free will doesn't exist, it doesn't change anything. Because we cannot change the path we're on. We have no choice. Even if you say, "Yeah, well, I'm going to do X and save the world". Well. You were going to say that in response to this post. I didn't convince you anymore than any other object in motion "convinces" any other object it collides with to change direction. It's what always was going to happen.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    >So. If free will doesn't exist, it doesn't change anything. Because we cannot change the path we're on. We have no choice. Which is why if I say there is free will and I'm right, then I'm right, and if I'm wrong, then I never had a choice and so right and wrong doesn't apply.
bena 7y ago
One of the flaws in Pascal's wager is that it is equally applicable to any religion where the punishment for disbelief is eternal torture. Another is that an omnipotent being can be fooled by worship without belief. Pascal's wager is essentially a long-winded "Yeah, but what if you're wrong?"

Pascal's wager (the original) has a flaw in it. One doesn't know and or can prove if God is evil. So I don't really know how else to respond to what you wrote.

by sysbin 7y ago

Pascal's wager (the original) has a flaw in it. One doesn't know and or can prove if God is evil. So I don't really know how else to respond to what you wrote.

SkyBelow 7y ago

Free will as a concept is much simpler than God as a concept, and thus the flaws in the original wager don't apply (as far as I can tell, if you can find one that does apply let me know).

sysbinn 7y ago
> Free will as a concept is much simpler than God as a concept How so? I assume the opposite when it comes to what's simpler. A person sees creation by God as cause & effect. The free will concept doesn't even make sense if thought about. Your actions are cause & effect from the summation of all events experienced.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  For starters, generally the view is that free will either exists or doesn't exist with free will being the concept that we have some control over our actions. Compare this to God, where you have plenty of religions, many with their own distinction God, some with many, some with concepts that may or may not quite count as God. Even with just Christianity, you have God, but then you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit which makes up God. With some belief systems you have spirits which are kinda like a god but kinda not and with other systems you have demigods which are part human. So with free will, you options are: Option | Free Will 1 | N 2 | Y With gods, you options are Option | God | Trinity | Allah | Shiva | Zeus | Thor | ... 1 | N | N | N | N... 2 | Y | N | N | N... 3 | N | Y | N | N... ... And that isn't even counting the difference within a given religion. It is like comparing the cardinality of boolean options with the cardinality of the reals.
bena 7y ago
It's impossible to actually know whether or not we have anything approaching free will. We could be a simulation, there could be an omnipotent deity, we could be the product of a bunch of processes unique to ourselves. None of it matters. We can only act on the world as we perceive it. If the world is controlled by some outside force that can manipulate it at will, including our perception and memory of events, there is nothing we can do about that. We are merely constructs under something else's control. If we were ever capable of "piercing the veil" so to speak, the controller could just roll us back to when we didn't know. If gravity was too much, they could change it. Etc. However, we're going to do our best to understand the world as perceived. And that's the best we can do. We have to operate as if the universe is not being arbitrarily modified according to unknowable rules. And it's not like any sort of record will prove that it's not. Because the capability of creating this universe also includes the capability of altering the past as well as the present and future. Similar with free will. Like I explained elsewhere, if free will does not exist, then you can either be persuaded by an argument or not. For any position. Maybe you're predestined to like Joe Dirt. No matter what anyone says about it. You don't get the choice. Same thing regarding the concept of free will. If it does not exist, you don't actually have a choice in whether you can accept that it doesn't. Either you're predestined to believe in it or not. Because all of your actions are the results of the forces that act upon you, all of which are also the results of actions, etc, etc, all the way to the initial big bang. That one moment essentially wrote it's own epitaph as everything goes back to that moment. Without free will, me writing this and you reading it isn't a chance or coincidence, it's just the result of the forces from the big bang. So. If free will doesn't exist, it doesn't change anything. Because we cannot change the path we're on. We have no choice. Even if you say, "Yeah, well, I'm going to do X and save the world". Well. You were going to say that in response to this post. I didn't convince you anymore than any other object in motion "convinces" any other object it collides with to change direction. It's what always was going to happen.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  >So. If free will doesn't exist, it doesn't change anything. Because we cannot change the path we're on. We have no choice. Which is why if I say there is free will and I'm right, then I'm right, and if I'm wrong, then I never had a choice and so right and wrong doesn't apply.

bena 7y ago

One of the flaws in Pascal's wager is that it is equally applicable to any religion where the punishment for disbelief is eternal torture. Another is that an omnipotent being can be fooled by worship without belief. Pascal's wager is essentially a long-winded "Yeah, but what if you're wrong?"