Notes No. 2 on Debatalist No. 1 - Epistemic Wager Argument
Are there propositions that one should take to be true independent of their truth?
Foreword
Warning
This dialogue, and all Notes entries, are an unstructured and unedited collection of notes concerning a concept considered in Debatalist No. 1.
The content of Notes is at large exploratory, rather than exhaustive—they do not claim to define the scope of consideration for the concept and certainly warrant further inquiry (perhaps by others).
We believe certain claims here are refined. We will defend them and export them for mainline dialogues. In this dialogue, we believe all enumerated concepts are finished and broadly applicable in theoretical contexts.
These Notes should be considered more advanced and difficult to read than mainline Debatalist dialogues. It is not advisable for people confused about central concepts to continue reading if they cannot easily discard what they have read here.
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Axioms
The same axioms as Debatalist No. 1 are imported here.
Consideration
Consider the question of whether one is an agent. Now consider that we are trying to convince one that they are an agent.
An agent can select between different conduct.
If one is an agent, they can decide whether they are an agent. If one is not an agent, one cannot decide—no consideration influences the decision one attempts to make, nor does it influence any decision one makes.
If one is an agent, there is potentially some value Y accessed by one conducting oneself as if one is not an agent. This conduct is not developed to procure valuational content that arises from one’s agency, so it is random in some sense. One merely happens to access some value that arises from one’s status as an agent, when one conducts oneself falsely as if one is not an agent.
If one, however, rationally conducts oneself as if one is an agent and one is an agent, one accounts for the circumstances and selects the option that has the best value. This can include choosing the conduct that led to the value Y, or if one is rational, it could bring about a net value greater than Y. Here’s a helpful table of the situation:
Thus two propositions arise:
If one has any doubt about not being an agent whatsoever, they ought to conduct themselves as if they are an agent.
One should conduct oneself as if one is an agent to the best of one’s ability.
This same graph easily transfers over to the existence of at least one true ethical proposition, instead of one’s agency. Absent a true ethical proposition, there is no value to be procured. However, truthfully conducting oneself as if an ethical proposition is true can procure value equal to or greater than Y.
Thus, we believe it is axiomatic that the following are true:
One should conduct oneself as if they have agency.
One should conduct oneself as if at least one ethical proposition is true.
It seems straightforwardly true that, for one who should conduct oneself as if a proposition is true, it is an axiom for them that that proposition is true.