Patri's Journal: Current
This is Patri's current journal. It is kept on LiveJournal as patrissimo, but you are reading the archived copy on patrifriedman.com.
Tabarrok's Wager (comment on this entry at LiveJournal)
Entry Date: 2004-08-23 17:46:00
Logged: 2004-08-23 17:50:50
Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: VA-Deep Dance 89-Deep Dance 89
An economists counteroffer [PDF] to Pascal's Wager. A nice demonstration of how infinite payoffs distort the analysis of games. The summary is that the author offers a recommendation on his direct line to God that you should get into heaven - at the cost of all your worldly goods. If you believe there is a non-zero chance that he is telling the truth (however small), it is correct for you to take him up on it. Can be considered a reductio ad absurdum of Pascal's Wager, basically saying that if the payoff to getting into heaven really is infinite, then no amount of worldly resources/happiness are too much to sacrifice for an increased chance, no matter how small, of getting there. The fact that people don't act this way is strong evidence that they don't consider a happy afterlife to have infinite value.
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