10 comments

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  CarlM

  1 year ago

  I'm not convinced that Scott Adams ever gave his personal beliefs on the matter. Certainly he never claimed to.
  
  As you know, he discussed Pascal's Wager recently. But, as I read it, it was merely a statement of the idea. I don't think (though I may be misremembering) that he ever said "I believe that this shows that it is best to believe in God .. just in case." He may have said (in the context of the discussion) that it is better to believe in God because ... but I took that to be a statement of the sort "given the premises we have been discussing, it follows that ..."
  
  In any case, calculation of expected value breaks down (or at least becomes more complicated) when infinite quantities are involved.
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  Daniel Miessler

  1 year ago

  He most certainly did.
  
  "The phrase “weak atheist” is apparently nothing but a weasel self-label for agnostics who have picked a side and don’t want to be seen as giving any opening to religion. It is politics disguised as philosophy."
  
  He's very clearly making claims about the distinctions between atheism and agnosticism.
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  Daniel Ketamine

  1 year ago

  I've always seen being a "100% atheist", or a religious extremist as unintelligent. I don't mean that every person who believes in a religion is stupid; I have major respect for those who keep their minds open. Those who learn - from non-bias sources - about many different belief systems and then choose the one that's right for them. These people are intelligent (or are making an intelligent decision in that respect), no matter what they believe in (if any). Simply accepting the religion you're born into and only viewing other belief systems through that religion's (often very bias) lens shows me that you're not intelligent.
  
  When asked what I believe in, I usually explain that I don't believe in Gods and I don't follow any particular religion; That I am too inexperienced to come up with a conclusion on whether God exists or not, and that self-transcendence is a lifelong process, not something you attain by praying five times a day or going to Church every Sunday. I keep my mind open to new ideas and experiences.
  
  Remain cautious not to use words like agnostic or atheist, which simply place a generic label on your belief system. It's like being 100% democratic or republican. Extremes are impractical in practice.
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  arikb

  1 year ago

  Hey Daniel,
  
  Don't worry about Scott Adams. He has already half admitted to write all of it as a satire and because he enjoys getting people all riled up about it.
  
  -- Arik
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  Zhasper

  1 year ago

  Scott Adams is the worlds biggest, and most successful, troll. The people who get all worked up and spend inordinate amounts of time writing reasoned responses to jokes he takes half an hour to write (which completely contradict the joke he made the week before) are what makes him amusing.
  
  Thanks :)
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  CarlM

  1 year ago

  You're getting bent out of shape about a semantic argument (which would delight Scott Adams). You're defining 100% certainty in one way and Adams is defining it CORRECTLY. You don't get to say things like "When I say 100%, I really mean anything over 99.99%" -- not in a semantic argument (which is all this is). The whole point of the Adams post (other than the bit about antagonizing those whose buttons are easily pushed) relies on the fact that 100% MEANS 100%. It's the basis of Pascal's wager too. It uses the same sort of calculation that you routinely give (for example when you calculate risk as a product of two quantities). The key is that one of the quantities in Pascal's wager is INFINITE (which, as I said in an earlier reply, needs to be dealt with rather carefully). A tiny risk of an ETERNITY IN HELL .. what does that product come to? THAT is the point. It's an intellectual game! As long as that tiny risk is NON-ZERO (even if it is VERY VERY close to zero), that infinite factor makes the product VERY NON-ZERO.
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  Maxo

  1 year ago

  I think the idea that agnosticism is stupid is as good of a judgement as the idea that atheism is stupid. The idea that one can say, "There probably is a supernatural context to this existance, but I don't have a concrete idea of how this works." is any more or less crazy than, "There is no supernatural context to this existance."
  This is just more throwing stones for the purpose of throwing stones at people who disagree with us. We should let people have their own opinions in peace as long as those opinions are not designed with the intent of hurting others (racism, bigotry, etc.)
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  CarlM

  1 year ago

  To summarize an offline discussion (my point of view):
  
  The original Pascal's Wager consisted of a choice between two possibilities:
  Possibility ONE: There is no God (or at least not one who will punish non-believers)
  Possibility TWO: There is a God who punishes nonbelievers with eternal agony (and rewards believers with the lack thereof)
  
  Choosing to believe in Possibility ONE __might__ result in eternal agony (something we want to avoid) while choosing to believe in Possibility TWO has no such possibility. In this case, one can eliminate the possibility of eternal agony by choosing to believe in Possibility TWO. In the language of "expected value", choosing to believe in Possibility TWO results in an expected amount of AGONY that is NON-infinite while choosing to believe in Possibility ONE results in an expected amount of AGONY that is infinite (if we grant only that the possibility of the truth of Possibility TWO is non-zero).
  
  But things get funny as soon as more choices are included in the mix. If two or more possibilities exist which promise eternal agony for the non-believer, then there is NO WAY TO AVOID the dire result that the expected amount of agony is INFINITE. This doesn't mean that there's nothing to say in this case, it simply means that the game has changed from avoiding eternal agony to decreasing the probability that one is subject to it. The way to minimize the probability of suffering eternal agony is to choose to believe in the option that promises infinite agony that is most likely to be true. How one decides which is most likely to be true is another question entirely, but (at the very least) one decreases ones probability of suffering eternal agony by choosing to believe ANY possibility (that promises eternal agony to non-believers).
  
  That is the end of it ONLY IF the only goal of the game is to avoid eternal agony. I maintain that there is more to life than that. Imagine that you could seal yourself in an underground bunker safely in a bubble .. protected from accidents, lightning strikes, bacteria, etc. Others would bring you food and take care of your every need. Your own risks are minimized to the fullest possible extent. You could perhaps increase your life expectancy by 10 years or more (a pretty substantial percentage of your life). Would you do it? At what cost do those extra years of life come? I would maintain that it is NOT irrational to opt not to take this option with ones life (even if not doing so results in a shorter life).
  
  In the same way, it may not be irrational to NOT believe in a religion that promises eternal agony if one judges that the probability of that religion being true is sufficiently small. Remember, we can't avoid the result of having an expected amount of agony that is infinite (if two or more religions promising eternal agony have non-zero probability of being true). So, the game becomes that of minimizing the probability of suffering eternal agony. I am not sure that it is irrational to conclude that the (perhaps miniscule) decrease in this probability is worth all that would go into adhering to that particular religion.
  
  I'm going to risk posting this without proofreading it. I hope that it is clear. If not, please feel free to ask for clarification. (And, of course, feel free to tell me that I'm an idiot.)
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  kundi

  1 year ago

  well, you can say by his own principle scott adams cannot make his claim; because he cannot be 100% sure. In fact, by his reasoning, nobody can make a statement on anything.
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  Silwane kaNjila

  1 year ago

  I think Scott Adams's response to this would be a one-liner along the lines of; "Thanks for that hallucination of what I said."
  
  Seriously now - being worked up over anything Adams writes has the same effect as farting during a tonardo. I think Scott Adams calls it the 'Dance, monkey, dance' effect.
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