Kupczyński's Wager

Kupczynski's Wager (PL. Kupczyński's Wager) is an argument posed by a Polish philosopher Mirek Kupczyński that underscores the incompleteness of Pascal's Wager. It was set out in correspondence with a University of Gdańsk professor Dr. Marta Barańska.

Background

The main argument agrees with Pascal in principle that the Existence of God cannot be determined through reason but it offers an expansion of the argument by inclusion of one of Pascal's elements that aren't in his wager, namely Life On Earth.Pascal's Wager simplified is this:

God Exists and there is eternal life (which is granted by God to all believers if they lead a religious life)

God doesn't exist and there is no eternal life.

Pascal's Wager concludes that it's better to believe in God because you only lose your Life on Earth (because of service to God) in return for infinite time in heaven. If there is no heaven then you didn't lose all that much by living a pious life.

The main body of Kupczyński's Wager is actually divided into 6 parts:

A- There is a God

B- There is eternal life

C- There is no God

D- There is no eternal life

L- There is life on earth (the pursuit of happiness and joy)

N- There is no life on earth (religious life devoid of pleasure associated with free will)

The Kupczyński wager makes a point in illustrating that Pascal's Wager could be completely wrong because of a simple possibility :

A=D (A- There is a God and D- There is no eternal life),

B=C (C- There is no God and B- There is eternal life which is granted to anyone that had a life).

The Wager

Allowing for that possibility the Wager states:

A + B + L = 100% probability that we lose B; 100% probability that we have L

A + D + L = 100% probability that we lose B (because D= B doesn't exist), 100% probability that we have L

A + B + N = 100% probability that we lose L, 100% probability that we have B

A + D + N = 100% probability that we lose B(doesn't exist), 100% probability that we lost L(by having N)

C + B + L = 100% probability that we have both B and L

C + D + L = 100% probability that we lose B(doesn't exist), 100% probability we have L

C + B + N = 100% probability that we lose L(by having N), 100% probability that we have B

C + D + N = 100% probability that we lose both B and L

We should understand that D is actually negative B and N is actually negative L.

Outcome

Using a simple scoring technique where "have" = 1 point and "lose" = 0 points and taking into the account all the possibilities the conclusion is as follows:

L - life on earth - 5 points

N - No life - 2 points

Having understood that D is actually negative B and N is actually negative L the conclusion also states the probability of existence of B (eternal life) is at best 50/50, whereas the probability of L is a 100%. 100% probability of losing something that gives you a score of 5 to gain a 50% chance of gaining something that gives you a score of 2 is not a valid proposition.

See also

*Blaise Pascal
*Bertrand Russell
*Probability Theory