ULTIMATEDEADHow many of you are actually chatbots?
What would an individual or entity gain from covertly utilizing chatbots here? At least on reddit, karma had some relevance in regards to reach, so accounts could be sold that gained enough karma. But no such system exists here. Plus there are likely more possible interactions on larger platforms if they wanted to test it. I mean so many posts here get zero comments to begin with. Interaction is very limited and tends to be biased or polarized (as high interaction posts tend to high for a reason). And when it comes down to it, Pascal's wager sort of comes into play. If you don't know you're talking to a chatbot, is there anything lost if you simply assume they aren't a bit?
hoodatninjaIt’s interesting you bring up pascal’s wager, because the first time was introduced to me it was basically a clear-cut example of a logical fallacy. If you inverse it and say “anti-god will reward me for non-belief in god” the logic is equally valid, right?
So my response to this would be twofold.
1 (response to wager): I am here to interact with people. I do not derive joy when I am not talking to people. Because there is a nonzero possibility, I will discover I was talking to a bot, it is reasonable to assume I will eventually be unhappy, because I realized I was talking to one. Pascal’s wager doesn’t apply because there isn’t a post-state (life/death after) where I am happy. It is about whether or not. I am driving joy now.
2: it is reasonable to assume that the deployment of these bots may be intentionally malicious by some actors, even if we do not recognize it. So the net impact on my enjoyment of the site and my goal of human interaction may be reduced overtime steadily by these bots. Belief that they are human will not change that.
That's not the inverse of Pascal's Wager. "If p then q" has an inverse of "if not q then not p". Plus you need to take into account the premises of the argument. There's definitely a premise that if there is a god there is only one god. It doesn't hold up otherwise. So the inverse of "if there is a god, then living this way gets me a good afterlife" is "if I dont get an afterlife, there is no god." Which is still just fine. So there's no real logical fallacy. The only subjective component the cost of living such a way. If it costs you nothing, then the argument states you should definitely act as if there is a god. If it costs a lot, then it becomes less obvious. The Wager is based off the idea that you don't lose much by acting in accordance with the required lifestyle. It does ignore the concept that if there is a god, said god would likely have access to your thoughts and make it all moot.
That being said, I'm still an atheist. But my point is that if I don't know its a robot, I get the same result. Malicious actors can deploy bots, but there are also just as many malicious actors acting as trolls. So worrying about future unhappiness isn't worth it in my opinion.
It is actually a logical fallacy. It’s not really matter of opinion tbh. By saying it is distinct from believing in “not God“ you are implying that there is a reason to believe in God and not a reason to believe in not-god when they are actually on the same playing field. I am also not religious, but I had a Catholic upbringing, and even theologians acknowledge Pascal’s wager is flawed because of this reason. It begs the question outright.
Again, it's not belief in something else. It's not believing in God. Belief in "not-God" or "anti-God" is logically a different concept entirely. It's simply belief versus not believing. The major flaw is that it only works if there's only one God and it's the God that aligns with whatever belief system you're claiming said God wants you to follow. If you use the premise of "if there is a god, it's the Christian god", and the premise "it costs very little to live a life according to God", then the two loses are "I acted as if there was a god, lost a little bit of leisure, but no payoff" vs "I acted as if there was no god and now I'm doomed to eternal damnation." The problem isn't the logic. It's the premises that are fallacious.
Ok I'm going to sort of lay this out because I know what you're referring to but it's a distinct counter argument that's different from the one I'm bringing up.
We have no proof of god therefore we have 4 options:
Ergo, since only one outcome leads to eternal happiness - which is infinitely better than any other option - you should go with option 4.
However, conversely one can say (because we have no proof/evidence and are going with theoreticals and a mathematical approach:
Ergo, since only one outcome leads to eternal happiness - which is infinitely better than any other option - you should go with option 4.
Except that isn't a converse. It's relying on the false premise of another god. The inverse of god existing is God not existing. You're just making up a new proof that isn't the converse, inverse, or contrapositive. You're literally just saying what happens if there's a different god.
Pascal's wager suffers from faulty premise, not logical inconsistency. You're just doing a whole bunch of nonsense and extra work to say the same thing.
No you’re missing it: “god” and “not god” are equally valid assertions. The whole point is to disprove the absurd logic of Pascal’s wager.
Yes, but your "not god" is simply a different deity. So it's a different proof. We're back to the faulty premise.
"God X" and "God Y" are equally valid assertions which violates the premise. I don't care that you call it "anti-God" since you're making it equivslent to a god and able to offer eternal rewards. Your entire logical argument is absurd. Pascal's wager is famously know for suffering from false premise of finite loss and infinite reward. All of the absurdity of the wager comes from the premises which you continually ignore.
Yes it is a faulty premise that’s the point! I guess I wasn’t clear there. It’s designed to point out the issue with the logic.
Faulty premise isn't a logical fallacy though. That's my whole problem here. False premise doesn't mean the logic is invalid. This is an important concept in formal logic. The argument is fine. The foundation is not. You're just now agreeing with what I originally said.