Pascal’s wager is about belief in God, not about belief in the afterlife, so that phrase is a bit clumsily inserted there; unless he’s telling us that we’re going to hell as soon as we believe we’re dead, which is a rather strong disincentive to pursue the truth of the matter...
Anyway, I’m not certain I understand the scenario. If we assume he provides no false evidence, then the mere statement “You are dead” should be already considered sufficient evidence, no? (For the sake of simplicity I’m currently ignoring minor scenarios where he’s himself mistaken or deluded)
Now, if we don’t assume perfect truthfulness, the question becomes more difficult. But at the point where we can be allowed to witness our funeral, converse with the souls of other dead (and ask them in regards to several historical mysteries as well), etc and see that the whole thing fits together as well and as badly as history should, then certainly we’d have increased reason to believe in the existence of afterlife.
We know he doesn’t provide false evidence, but the person in the scenario doesn’t know that. How could they distinguish between that scenario and the scenario where the gentleman lies when says he will always tell the truth.
If we assume he provides no false evidence, then the mere statement “You are dead” should be already considered sufficient evidence, no? (For the sake of simplicity I’m currently ignoring minor scenarios where he’s himself mistaken or deluded)
I think this is a meta-level restriction. That is, we (outside the hypothetical) know that he isn’t going to present any false evidence. But the you who is sitting in the room doesn’t know that.
I’m not sure what the no false evidence rule adds to the situation.
It’s base covering, there may be false statements he could make to convince you but being uninterested in them, I decided to exclude any which may exist. The non-undermining rule serves the same purpose.
. If we assume he provides no false evidence, then the mere statement “You are dead” should be already considered sufficient evidence, no?
Even if not, the next natural inclination would be to demonstrate power over souls/minds. This would most easily be done simply by causing me to believe in the afterlife directly and making me aware of this causation of belief while doing so. (This doesn’t, I feel, impede rationality because it does not prevent me from reassessing the situation based on my newfound set of priors.) Alternatively, causing me to experience mindspaces hitherto unavailable to me would also help in demonstrating a separation of traditional physiology and mentality. Witnessing all places on Earth simultaneously, or other such parlor tricks, would also do nicely there.
Would they prove the legitimacy of the supernal claim of an afterlife? No, not at all. But they would demonstrate a separation between cognition and physiology, from which the extraordinary nature of a specific afterlife would be lessened to the point where merely being shown it would qualify as justification for naive belief.
Pascal’s wager is about belief in God, not about belief in the afterlife, so that phrase is a bit clumsily inserted there; unless he’s telling us that we’re going to hell as soon as we believe we’re dead, which is a rather strong disincentive to pursue the truth of the matter...
Anyway, I’m not certain I understand the scenario. If we assume he provides no false evidence, then the mere statement “You are dead” should be already considered sufficient evidence, no? (For the sake of simplicity I’m currently ignoring minor scenarios where he’s himself mistaken or deluded)
Now, if we don’t assume perfect truthfulness, the question becomes more difficult. But at the point where we can be allowed to witness our funeral, converse with the souls of other dead (and ask them in regards to several historical mysteries as well), etc and see that the whole thing fits together as well and as badly as history should, then certainly we’d have increased reason to believe in the existence of afterlife.
We know he doesn’t provide false evidence, but the person in the scenario doesn’t know that. How could they distinguish between that scenario and the scenario where the gentleman lies when says he will always tell the truth.
I think this is a meta-level restriction. That is, we (outside the hypothetical) know that he isn’t going to present any false evidence. But the you who is sitting in the room doesn’t know that.
I’m not sure what the no false evidence rule adds to the situation.
It’s base covering, there may be false statements he could make to convince you but being uninterested in them, I decided to exclude any which may exist. The non-undermining rule serves the same purpose.
Even if not, the next natural inclination would be to demonstrate power over souls/minds. This would most easily be done simply by causing me to believe in the afterlife directly and making me aware of this causation of belief while doing so. (This doesn’t, I feel, impede rationality because it does not prevent me from reassessing the situation based on my newfound set of priors.) Alternatively, causing me to experience mindspaces hitherto unavailable to me would also help in demonstrating a separation of traditional physiology and mentality. Witnessing all places on Earth simultaneously, or other such parlor tricks, would also do nicely there.
Would they prove the legitimacy of the supernal claim of an afterlife? No, not at all. But they would demonstrate a separation between cognition and physiology, from which the extraordinary nature of a specific afterlife would be lessened to the point where merely being shown it would qualify as justification for naive belief.