Yet There Is Method In It

Australian pub bars heterosexuals (BBC)

A gay pub in the city of Melbourne has won the right to ban heterosexuals – the first time such legislation has been passed in Australia.

I heard something related to Pascal’s Wager on Thursday’s Thought for the Day (BBC Radio 4). It is a restatement of my last post but from a religious point of view.

“On the popular misconception, Christianity is just another calculation about what’s best for me – a cosmic life insurance policy: believe and you’ll live on forever and ever.

In fact, authentic Christianity is nothing like this whatsoever.

Jesus calls his followers to forget themselves, to transfer the centre of interest in their lives from self to God, to love others more than they love themselves.” Dr Giles Fraser

With that argument, Pascal’s wager of self interest would not be compatible with Christianity.

Although in a previous post I argued that no one can set a value on the world or a life, I now want to state an alternative view – religious belief in the case of “no God” in Pascal’s Wager is possibly harmful.

This is of course severely complicated by people would do good and bad acts anyway and religion gets the blame for both. How can we separate truly religious actions (good and bad) from actions justified after the fact? This is non-trivial. In fact, this discussion is broader than Pascal’s wager and would diffuse the discussion considerably. As a Wittgensteinian proposition let us consider “religion is harmful”. We won’t agree on the “truth value” or correctness of this statement, but some people have argued this case such as Sam Harris. If he is correct, the Pascals wager becomes:

An interesting question, in the case of belief/no God, would it be infinitely bad (in terms of payout in Pascal’s Wager) to waste the one and only Earthly life we have? Think of it as an investment where you lose 100% of it. I know this is not water tight but it might be a germ of an interesting argument.

I think one of your points is we can live a good live in the case of no God/belief anyway. I include this for comparison and comment.

Anti Citizen One

Here is a very short review of some cultural and political ideas put forth in the musical “We Will Rock You” by Ben Elton and based on the music of Queen. Btw it was good musically but I am not concerned with that right now!

In 2030 (I am unsure of the exact years but that is unimportant), all chart music became computer generated and in 2047 musical instrument ownership required a license. In the year 2254, the world is in the grip of a compulsory consumerist state. All music is mass produced by programmers and culture has become merged into a corporate controlled monolith (metaphorically speaking). Those who do not conform are “re-educated” – their “Seven Seas of Rhye” is the equivalent of Room 101. The plot of the show is the overthrow of the system by finding and using the last remaining instruments on Earth.

This is somewhat like the Free Software Foundations warning about the right to read and the Electronic Frontier Foundations campaign regarding freedom to innovate. More relevant to music is the website is the creative commons license (highly recommended you watch that) and the ccmixter website.

“This is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” ccmixter

Interestingly, the show links music on the Internet to be one of the forces of cultural destruction. I would agree if there is enough censorship and self-censorship that could indeed happen. The original ideal of the internet was like a printing press of every user – although it required technical expertise. Today, we have a lower barrier to entry (you are looking at it – this site is on WordPress!) and more government control.

I appreciate “We Will Rock You” for highlighting this real problem. We are progressing towards that story right now. I do wish it had more detail on how we can fight back. It will take a rocking guitar riff (as the show proposes) combined with a crack legal team, political movements or social change (which is left unstated).

I will return to this topic later so we can go into more depth as a dialog.

Anti Citizen One

Update: To do our small part in cultural freedom, myself and El Sordo have agreed to release all the content of this site under the creative commons BY license 3.0. (Comments by 3rd parties are copyright of their respective authors and are not covered.)

Stop and quiz powers considered (BBC)

“The government is considering giving police officers across the UK “stop and question” powers under new anti-terror laws, says the Home Office.” … “Anyone who refuses to co-operate could be charged with obstructing the police and fined up to £5,000, according to the Sunday Times.”

MPs probe ‘surveillance society’ (BBC)

“An inquiry into the growing use of surveillance in society is to be held by an influential committee of MPs.” “An author of the report, by a group of academics called the Surveillance Studies network, said the UK was “the most surveilled country” of all the industrialised Western states”

Why do I feel like quoting the band Radiohead? :-

And two & two always, makes up five

It’s the devil’s way now, There is no way out
You can scream & you, can shout
It is too late now, Because

You have not been, paying attention

If we are in a war of ideologies, if we sacrifice for what we stand for – whats the point in the war on “terror”?

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” Benjamin Franklin (possibly)

Please, make it stop!

Anti Citizen One

Your question on measuring happiness reminded me of this scene from the TV show Frasier (series 1, final episode):

Niles: So, Frasier, now that chapter two of your life is in full swing, do you mind if I ask you something?
Frasier: No, go right ahead.
Niles: Are you happy?
Frasier thinks.
Niles: Did you hear the question?
Frasier: Yes, I’m thinking. It’s a seemingly complex question.
Niles: No, it’s not.
Frasier: Yes, it is.
Niles: No, it’s not. Either you’re happy or you’re not.
Frasier: Are you happy?
Niles: No, but we’re not talking about me.

Anyway, I think the empirical method they used was get participants to carry a personal data assistant (PDA) for a few days. It beeps a few times randomly a few times a day. When this happens, the participant marks on the PDA on a 7 point scale from one end “very unhappy” to “very happy”. This tends to get people to measure their happiness when actually living their lives instead of sitting in a lab.

You asked “What if we were unable to communicate our senses of approval or aprobation?” Unless there is a way of determining happiness in a participant using brain scan or hormone levels, this would not be measurable. This is therefore outside the scope of empirical investigation until we figure out a way to measure it. It is an interesting philosophical question which I am not going to initiate until I have some interesting ideas – but you can if you want.

The formula H=S+C+V, I think, is trying to state the following ideas:
There are various (generally) independent factors that contribute to happiness. Of course there are changes to our conditions of living (C) that we respond to in our voluntary actions (V) so admittedly they are not completely independent.
Most contributing factors to happiness are outside our control (S and C)
Since most external factors in our life conditions (C) get normalized in the long term (we eventually get used to most things), they do not give long term happiness/unhappiness. They tend to zero contribution. (Note: there is nothing wrong with short term happiness! It’s just short!) The Happiness Hypothesis does list some factors that are not normalised by time.
Our set point (S), which is “hard wired” in our body/mind is more or less constant.

For more information check out this Discover magazine article.

Anti Citizen One

Amnesty’s annual report attacks anti-terror laws (Guardian). Amnesty International today accused armed groups and the British government, among others, of eroding human rights and creating an increasingly polarised world.

Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion (The Onion). CHICAGO—In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago’s School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

NHS urged to reject homoeopathy (BBC) A group of leading scientists are stepping up their campaign to get the NHS to turn its back on homoeopathy.

A book by Jonathan Haidt, reviewed by me.

The author sets out the historical and current theories on happiness. It is an interesting mix of science, psychology, divinity, ethics and at times humour. He makes a strong case for the total hypocrisy of humans (even when we are not aware of it) and how we always seem to be driven by short term goals. His argument is based on scientific studies and religious teaching. Remember the famous line:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Matthew 7:3

The metaphor that is references throughout the book is a persons mind is like a rider and elephant. The rider represents the rational conscious mind and the elephant is our animalistic self, full of urges and short time goals. Interestingly, this is similar to the allegorical novel “The Life of Pi”. The rider has some control of the direction but if the elephant wants something (cake, drugs, prestige, love, etc) then the rider can loose control for a short while. This is not necessarily a bad thing or course but it explains why it is so hard to give up an addiction (see the film Requiem for a Dream).

A good insight was ancient philosophers where good intuitive psychologists while the recent batch have been very rational based. Any system that denies the existence of “the elephant” is doomed to fail – such as the corruption of communism (people are self interested) and the flaws in market based social solutions (people don’t work for their long term self interests) (those where my examples and are not in the book). The book has the example of dieting I think. One route to happiness is to accept and train the elephant so it can be directed to more sustainable goals.

For the main modern routes to improving your happiness you have a choice of:

• Cognative behaviour therapy
• Prozac and related drugs
• Meditition

All these work directly on the elephant and can bring an long term improvement in happiness and are mentioned several times! There is an amusing description of the author taking prozac but it is told best in the book.

From a Neitzchean perspective, he does describe Buddhism as an “over-reaction” to the unpredictable world. Nietzsche would also call this world denying. The book quotes “what does not kill me makes me stronger” and the author qualifies this by saying we don’t want to induce post traumatic stress in people!

“When Harry Harlow took his students to the zoo, they were surprised to find that apes and monkeys would solve problems just for the fun of it”… “Psychologists would refer to this basic need as a need for competence, industry or mastery.”… “The effectance motive helps explain the progress principle: We get more pleasure from making progress towards our goals than we do from achieving them because, as Shakespeare said, ‘Joy’s soul lies in the doing.’” Jonathan Haidt

I find this is a personal driving force, and very Will to Power sounding! Why do you think I am writing this article? Because I CAN

Also note that happiness in this book is simply a psychological measure and the book seems silent on if they are either a means or an end.

Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that. TotI, Nietzsche

A final area I found particularly interesting was the happiness formula (which is an idea in positive phychology):
H=S+C+V
H is happiness
S is a biological set point (is constant and at least partly genetic as it seems to be inheritable)
C is conditions of your life (most of these get normalized in the long term)
V is voluntary activities (Prozac, meditation, therapy and others)

A good read in all.

I just finished “Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction” by A C Grayling and am on “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” by some bloke called Lugwig Wittgenstein. I need to consult with you (El Sordo) about discussion without straw-manning Wittgenstein.

Anti Citizen One

I think I can paraphrase the previous conclusion.

Pascal identifies a paradox. Reason does not justify Faith. The role of reason is to ask questions of this world and to find answers to those questions within this world. Therefore reason cannot be discarded.

Not wishing to discard faith, Pascal attempts to resolve the paradox. He proposes that his wager allows us to live a good Christian life as if God does exist, (a christian eudamonia) whilst continuing to use reason for the purposes of this world (i.e. the Natural Sciences). (The schizophrenic approach).

But Pascal fails in his attempt to resolve the two by recourse to his ethical grounds, because he makes assumptions concerning the nature/character of God and what belief in such a God entails. Assumptions that cannot be reasonably assumed, and values that cannot be confidently justified.

The good Christian life may well be justifiable, as God may exist, but through his appeal to probabilities and his acceptance of the rational we cannot accept assumptions such as revelation as the basis for living this good life. Eudamonia along with Reason is perhaps a seperate sphere and language game from Faith altogether. The good life may well be based on principles of Utility or Hedonism, science may continue to be understood through reason and God may exist, but all three belong to seperate realms of understanding.

Actually Richard Dawkins makes a good point, thankyou for raising it. I probably should have placed more emphasis on this in the first post. Because the sincerity (or lack) of belief has some implications for ethics, and believe it or not Pascal did see an ethical element to his argument and did not expect it to be used as a straightforward or simple argument for the existence of God. Which I rejected out of hand anyway.

Pascal is an interesting character to investigate, mathematician, genuis of physics, religious thinker, anti-establishment Christian; nothing is ever as it at first may seem with Pascal. Reading his works he does seem to be a proto-existentialist who at least partially pre-empts the works of Wittgenstein as well. Many of the philosophical approaches to the ‘God question’ that have seen theologic philosophy vs scientific materialism seem to have found an early expression in Pascal. The best way to describe it is that Pascal’s writings were full of tension (a tension that he was aware of) between the rational, the limits of knowledge, and the spiritual or mystical experience.

I’ll give a very brief account of what he said on these matters, with an even shorter conclusion.

As a Scientist Pascal rejected a Natural theology.

“Nature presents to me nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.

It is inconprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that He should not exist; incomprehensible that the soul should be joined to the body, and incomprehensible that we should have no soul; incomprehensible that the world should be created, and incomprehensible that it should not be created.“

This sounds like existential angst/indeterminacy, but what he was saying in a poetic fashion, was that the theological arguments for the existence of God through natural evidence, was unsatisfactory to the rational scientific mind. As a man of faith he wanted to believe through reason, but as man of science he felt that reason could not justify his belief. This is his tension, Heart vs Mind.

Pascal’s existential angst drives him to ‘search’ for God outside of reason.

“The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it does not see so far as to know this.”

This where he believes reason in faith comes to an end. It is almost like Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. He knows that his reason cannot explain everything, and he also knows that his reason cannot justify his belief. So he confronts his existential angst.

“The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.”

Kolakowski, with more than a hint of Wittgenstein and his language games, follows this up.

“The Philosopher serves to demonstrate that all empirical attempts to present our world as a rational meaningful order are doomed to failure. Existence does not have a meaning which we could infer as it were by experiment. Anyone who says that our existence has meaning moves outside the sphere of philosophical thought. That is certainly not forbidden, provided that you sense that you are leaving the sphere of reason and entering that of myth… Myths are all spiritual constructions which give purpose and meaning to our life and our intellectual efforts. Without that we could not survive. It is essentially a religious matter.”

The story so far: the natural sciences do not provide a compelling argument for the existence of God, even though ‘creation’ appears to have the imprint of being created. This appearance of something ‘beyond’ that which reason can satisfactorily explain can only be explained through non-sensical religious language and myths. The motivation for creating these myths and language games lies within the human character, this existential angst that there must be ‘something’.

Wittgenstein (of which more in a different post) lends support to this theory, that of which nothing can be said, can be known, it is the inexpessible, this he calls the mystical. Pascal seems to have reached the same conclusions when he says.

“There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.”

Although one could disagree with the notion that those who do not know him seek him, it is an interesting expression of thought. The first type of reasonable person is the sort that does not seek recourse to rationalise their belief because their belief is existential, a leap of faith. The second type, who do not know him because of the limits of reason and the unintellibility of God, seek through reason to understand the world and its surroundings.

Conclusion.

I’m sure this is still unsatisfactory to materialist atheism, for whom the ‘urge’ to seek God is unnecessary, and to whom the association with the rational sciences as an existential quest for meaning may also be offensive. But in Pascal’s defence I do not think this was his intent at all, rather he was attempting to justify his non-rational faith within his rational framework of thinking about the world. How to be a scientist and a believer. The position he takes could be compared to that of Einstein, although the spiritual concepts that they held were very different indeed. Understanding that oversteps its limits is arrogant (“Religion without science is blind”), but understanding which does not go to it’s limits is weak (Science without religion is lame“).

Pascal then, understanding this tension between faith and reason attempts to formulate an approach that proves the compatibility of faith and reason, without them engaging in the mutual contradictions that would otherwise apply. Some have called this a schizophrenic approach. Pascals approach through his wager is not to postulate that God exists, but to postulate that God may exist and that if this is the case then the rewards for belief (infinite and heavenly) outweigh the opposite. Therefore he states we should live our lives as if God exists, and by this he is inferring that one should lead a life of ‘holiness’.

It is an interesting and at times convincing position, especially if one could live the existential life of the here and now by those values. But therein lies the problem, if we are accepting the unintelligibility of religious belief then surely he is making a number of assumptions that are unworkable. As postulated in the previous post, if we cannot know God’s purpose, how do we know we are acting correctly and to our benefit?

I have to say this is a fairly comprehensive overview of Pascal’s Wager! I only have some additional thoughts to add.

If there is a God, he might find Pascals wager a fairly insincere basis for belief, i.e. the starting point in belief just to get reward in heaven and avoid hell.

“Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will.” …. “Pascal’s wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God.” Richard Dawkins.

You have covered the point about the assumptions in Pascal’s Wager but I could not miss this quote:

“And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we’re just making God madder and madder!” Homer Simpson

We can try to assign assumed scores to each of the possibilities in Pascal’s Wager. Heaven would presumably be infinately good and hell infinately bad. But what if there was no God? Which is better – belief or unbelief?

“We invented the concept ‘purpose’: in reality, ‘purpose’ is absent… One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole—there is nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our Being, for that would mean judging, measuring, comparing, condemning the whole….But there is nothing apart from the whole!” Nietzsche

I need more time to read someone other that Nietzsche! I am working on it!

Anti Citizen One