Heaven or Hell, Let's Rock!

Anyone who has studied mathematics is probably familiar with the name Pascal (and a fair portion of them know that the name that comes before it is Blaise). A major contributor to physics as well, Pascal is noted for his work on hydrodynamics and his proofs against the Aristotelian notion that nature abhors a vacuum. [True Fact: He also invented the syringe. Maybe.] His work in mathematics included both Pascal's Triangle (which never struck me as more than mildly clever, but maybe it has implications...) and significant advancements in probability theory.

Later in life (say, after he turned 24), Blaise Pascal became a deeply religious man, devoting much of his efforts from that time onward to the study of theology and philosophy. I suppose it was only natural that he end up combining his two talents. In a short note not published until after his death, Pascal outlines what would come to be known as "Pascal's Wager":

"God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?"

The argument is essentially that, while believing in a god that does not exist would be inconvenient, after you die it will hardly matter. On the other hand, disbelieving in a God that does exist carries with it the penalty of infinite unhappiness (aka Hell). Furthermore, belief in an existant God is rewarded with infinite happiness (Heaven), while disbelieving in a nonexistant god just saves you a little time and energy. Therefore, from a probabalistic, expected-value point of view, the most logical choice would be to wager that God exists.

Needless to say, there was a major fuss thrown by all parties involved. The religous folks didn't like it, because it seemed to reduce faith to a matter of numbers. The atheists didn't like it, of course, because it disagreed with them. It was derided as "indecent and childish" by Voltaire (but then, Voltaire was a bit of a prick). I used to consider it similarly, but upon further analysis, I've come to believe the notion has merit. The main arguments against Pascal's Wager are as follows:

0) While we're still talking about him, Voltaire's other complaint was that "the interest I have to believe a thing does not prove that it exists." He's right, but he's wrong, in that no-where does Pascal propose to be 'proving' the existence of God. He is simply making an argument for the belief in the existence of God. Pascal's Wager is an early example of a pragmatic approach to reasoning, and was used in later texts by pragmatist William James (who I'm sure I'll talk about later).

1) The Argument from Inconsistent Beleifs: Usually the first one that comes to mind, this essentially goes, "but wouldn't other religons be just as correct when argued from this perspective?" In fact, the Wager was indeed formulated nearly 600 earlier by a Muslim. However, only those religons which reward correct belief with infinite happiness would have an effect on the expected value (or similarly, infinite unhappiness as punishment for wrong belief.

You should then, mathematically, believe in all non-mutually-exclusive, infinite heaven/infinite hell theologies. More simply, perhaps, would be to take the Wager as advocating a sort of general theism, and leave the details out for the time being.

A note: Pascal himself probably didn't worry about this; the rest of his writings already contained his own proofs as to why, if any faith were correct, it would be Christianity.

2) A counter-argument offered by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion is that, essentially, the costs of false belief are high (wasted time praying, monetary offerings, dying in a crusade...) and therefore invalidate Pascal's argument. Dawkins, it appears, is not familiar with the concept of infinity; let nothing more be said on the matter.

3) "God rewards belief infinitely" is an assumption of the Wager that is not backed up in any way whatsoever. It is, from a purely rationalistic standpoint, just as likely (or at least, just as possible) that there is a God, but he rewards disbelief, probably out of a sense of cosmic irony. As arbitrary as that sounds, it is probably a valid point: accepting Pascal's own admittance that God is unknowable and incomprehensible, it seems as though he has made unjustifiable leaps in presuming to know the payouts of each outcome of the Wager.

4) The Wager assumes one can choose their belief based on a rational set of arguments. This is, at least for most of humanity (including Pascal himself, I dare say), quite untrue. Belief is based on a set of life experiences that either encourage or discourage such faith, and to think that these experiences could be overcome with mere logic is foolish. Further analysis of this counter-argument would require us to delve into the realm of psychology; for the time being, I will assume that whether or not Pascal's Wager is an effective tool for conversion (Spoiler: It's not) has no effect on its validity as an argument.

Of these, #3 seems the most compelling. Determining between a benevolent and a malicious (or at the very least, pernicious) God falls solidly into the realm of theology. At another time, perhaps I'll deal with that subject.

Next Time: NaNoWriMo & The End of the World

P.S.
My apologies to anyone who had expected this post to contain any relation to the Guilty Gear series of fighting games. I know the title may have mislead you. For the uninitiated, "Heaven or Hell, Let's Rock!" is the phrase used to start off a fight in most Guilty Gear games.