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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Torek's wager and its rationality
Message-ID: <748@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 14:51:40 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.748
Posted: Mon Feb 11 14:51:40 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Feb-85 06:26:14 EST
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 85

[Rosen and his merry band of naive realists -- engarde!]

From: rlr@pyuxd
> > believing in free will is OBjectively better because it carries no 
> > penalty (of avoidable error) if mistaken but does carry a benefit 
> > (avoiding avoidable error) if correct.  [TOREK]
> Didn't someone else already explain this as analogous to Pascal's reasoning
> for believing in god?  And didn't that person explain that, objectively and
> rationally, one doesn't choose beliefs based on their utility, but rather
> on their correctness?  [RICH ROSEN]

And didn't I explain that that's a false dichotomy?  (How can a belief be 
"correct" if we ought to believe the opposite???)

> > > Our observations do not make the universe what it is.  ... the universe
> > > is not the same as our observations of it ... [ROSEN]
> > Yeah, yeah.  All of which ignores my point that the "outside world" is
> > interesting, if at all, only insofar as it relates to us and we can relate
> > to it.  Thus the sinlessness of (some variants of) "anthropocentrism".
> > [TOREK]
> Sorry, Paul.  Interestingness or noninterestingness have no bearing on
> reality. ... Your anthropocentrism (and that of others) is hardly 
> "sinless".  [ROSEN]

Rich, you naive realist:  If there are realities which are unknowable and
hence uninteresting, then so much the worse for *them*.  Where is my "sin"
(my mistake)? 

From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
> ...if I "believe" something, that means I think it's *true* ...
> Now, as far as I can see, the desirability, or lack of it, possessed
> by the notion of "free will", has no bearing on the likelihood of its
> being *true*. So what I get from your argument, is either that "believing"
> something DOESN'T mean thinking it's true, or that the desirability of
> a proposition (like free will) constitutes evidence for its being true.

The former, given what you mean by "*true*".  But first to correct your
terminology here:  it is *not* the desirability of "free will" that is
crucial but the can't-lose nature of *believing* in it.  Furthermore
the "gain" or "loss" involved is *knowledge*:  if you believe in free
will and are right you gain knowledge; if wrong your lack of knowledge
was inevitable anyway so no loss.
	Now on to "*true*".  If truth is construed as "what we ought to
believe", a la William James, then I am saying that "desirability" is
relevant to truth.  Note that James's definition is a *reforming*
definition, not a *reporting* one.  If you reject it in favor of a 
"correspondance theory" of truth, then you face exactly two possibili-
ties:  either all such truths are what we ought to believe, or some 
aren't.  If some aren't, THEN SO MUCH THE WORSE FOR THOSE TRUTHS.
	Look at it this way:  accepting a hypothesis is a *decision*.
There are two things relevant to a decision -- the consequences of the
decision under each possible "way the world is", and the probability
of each of those possible ways the world is.  The decision is clearcut
in case either:  there is only one possible way the world is, given the
evidence, in which case the consequences of each alternative are known
with certainty; or:  one alternative has consequences *at least as good*
in every possible case and better in at least one, in which case it is
superior and the evidence for probabilites is irrelevant.  This second
case applies to free will.

From: rlh@cvl.UUCP (Ralph L. Hartley)
> The problem here is that there are realy more than two choices: believe
> in free will, believe there is no free will, or believe that you don't
> know. Regardless of wether free will exists or not the last choice gets
> you closest to the truth. 

No; we know we have free will because we know we can rationally evaluate
options and act accordingly.  This point is independent from my comments 
above.

> Knowing with any certianty wether one has free will or not is like
> proving within a system that the system is consistent ...

No it's not.  Consistency is not required for free will; I know that at
least one of my [other] beliefs is mistaken (this belief contradicts the 
conjunction of my other beliefs), yet I'm still free.  All that is required
is a modicum of rationality in my beliefs, not perfection.

> If you do have free will then you were free to make the wrong choice
> [in belief about free will].

Maybe I was free to, but I didn't.
					"The adventure continues ..."
				Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
Don't hit that 'r' key!  Send any mail to this address, not the sender's.