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Welcome to Philosophy is not boring by kidopoly.com.
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I'm Mira! And I'm Finn! Before we dive into today's big mystery, we have a very special shout out.
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A huge hello to seven-year-old Alexander in Las Vegas, Nevada!
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Yeah! Huge congratulations to you, Alexander, on winning your third grade math contest! That is seriously impressive.
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It really is.
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And Alexander, your math skills are actually perfect for today's episode.
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Because we are talking about a world-famous mathematician and how he used numbers to think about the biggest mystery of all.
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Oh, and real quick, if you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode.
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Okay Finn, picture this.
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Imagine you are playing a giant complicated game, and you have to make a choice that changes absolutely everything.
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But here is the catch.
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You don't know all the rules, you can't see the whole board, and you aren't even completely sure if the prize at the end is real.
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That sounds like a terrible game.
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How are you supposed to know what to do if you don't have all the facts?
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I would just refuse to play.
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Well, what if I told you that refusing to play isn't an option?
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What if I told you that every single person on Earth is already playing it right now?
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Wait, what?
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We are?
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We are! Today we are asking a massive question.
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Can you choose what you believe, the same way you pick a side in a game?
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And why did a brilliant mathematician from the past say that you should treat your belief in God like a giant bet?
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Betting on God?
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That sounds kind of dangerous.
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And also really fascinating.
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Wait, so when you say betting, do you mean like flipping a coin or rolling dice at a casino?
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Kind of.
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To understand this, we have to travel back in time to France, all the way back to the 1600s, to meet a man named Blaise Pascal.
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Blaise Pascal?
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Was he a philosopher?
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He was, but he was also an absolute genius at mathematics.
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He lived from 1623 to 1662, and he actually helped invent the math of chance and probability.
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You mean the math that explains how likely something is to happen?
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Exactly.
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He even built one of the very first mechanical calculators in history, called the Pascaline, just to help his dad do tax computations.
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So he was a guy who really, really understood numbers and logic.
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Okay, so he was a super smart math guy.
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But what does that have to do with believing in God?
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Well, Pascal was also deeply interested in religion and the meaning of life.
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He spent years writing down his deepest, most complicated thoughts on little scraps of paper.
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After he died, his friends gathered all these notes together and published them in 1670.
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The book was called The Ponse, which is French for thoughts.
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And what was his biggest thought?
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Pascal was chewing on a really massive problem.
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He looked around and realised that nobody can use math or science to prove, 100%, whether God exists or doesn't exist.
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Right, because it's a mystery.
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You can't put God in a science lab and measure it with a ruler.
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Exactly.
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But Pascal said, even though you can't prove it, you are still alive.
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You have to live your life one way or the other.
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Because you have to make choices every single day.
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You are forced to place a bet.
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I don't get it.
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How do you bet on a belief?
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You can't just put a coin on a table and say, I bet on this.
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Think about it like deciding whether to bring an umbrella on a cloudy day.
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You don't know for sure if it will rain, but you weigh what you might gain against what you might lose.
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Okay.
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If I bring the umbrella and it rains, I stay dry.
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That's a huge win.
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If it doesn't rain, I just had to carry around a mildly annoying umbrella all day.
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Not a huge loss.
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Exactly! You just did a probability calculation.
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Now, scale that up to the biggest question ever.
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This idea became known as Pascal's Wager.
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Pascal said, Imagine you bet that God exists and you live your life that way.
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If you are right, he believed you gain an infinite reward, like eternal happiness in heaven.
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Load full transcript
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And if I'm wrong, like what if I bet God exists, but it turns out there is no God?
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Pascal argued that if you are wrong, you only lose a little bit.
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Maybe you gave up a few selfish choices, or spent some time praying, but it's a small, finite loss.
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But wait, what if I bet that God doesn't exist?
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Ah, Pascal said, if you bet God doesn't exist and you're right, you gain a little bit of worldly freedom.
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But if you are wrong, you miss out on that infinite reward forever and suffer a boundless loss.
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Oh wow.
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So because he was a mathematician, he's looking at it purely like a math problem.
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Yes, he's saying that whenever you multiply any chance by infinity, the math gets crazy.
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The risk of losing out on infinity is just too massive.
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So he argued the only logical bet is to believe.
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Wait, hold on.
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I have a major problem with this.
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Ooh, I love a good objection.
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Let's hear it.
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You can't just decide to believe something just because the prize is really good.
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Like, if you offered me a million dollars to believe the sky is green, I could say the words out loud.
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But deep down inside my head, my brain still knows it's actually blue.
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That is a brilliant point, Finn.
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And philosophers have argued that exact thing for hundreds of years.
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They call it the problem of inauthentic belief.
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Can you really trick your own brain into believing something just to win a giant cosmic bet?
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Yeah, and wouldn't an all-knowing God totally know that you were just faking it for the reward?
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Pascal actually had an answer for that.
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He said that belief isn't just a switch in your brain.
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He argued that if you start by acting like you believe, going to church, following the traditions, spending time with people who believe, eventually genuine faith might grow naturally.
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Hmm.
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I don't know how I feel about that.
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It still feels a little bit like tricking yourself.
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Also, what if you pick the wrong religion?
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There are so many different beliefs and traditions in the world.
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Another amazing point! Critics call that the argument from inconsistent revelations, or the many gods objection.
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If there are lots of different belief systems, how do you know which one you are supposed to bet on?
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Exactly.
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It's not just a coin flip between two things.
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It's like a giant wheel with a hundred different options.
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If you guess the wrong one, you still lose.
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And that is exactly why this is such a profound question.
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Nobody actually knows for sure.
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And it is perfectly okay to sit with that discomfort.
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We don't have to have all the answers today.
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And that's why Pascal's wager is so fascinating.
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It doesn't actually give us a final scientific answer about the universe, but it forces us to think deeply about how we make choices when we don't have all the facts.
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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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Sometimes you just have to weigh the risks and make a brave choice.
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Right.
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Think about your real life.
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Maybe you're scared to try out for the school play, or to say hi to a new kid at the playground.
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You can't know for sure if it will go perfectly.
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But you weigh it.
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If I try, I might gain an amazing new friend.
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If I don't try, I avoid being nervous, but I miss out on the friendship for sure.
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Exactly! You are making a wager.
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You're betting on the choice that gives you the best chance at something beautiful.
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Okay, time for some fun facts.
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Did you know Pascal was a major child prodigy?
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He wrote his first major mathematical paper on geometry when he was just 16 years old.
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Whoa, 16?
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Alexander from Las Vegas and I better step up our math games.
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You still have time.
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Also, his wager is actually considered one of the very first formal applications of decision theory in history.
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Wait, what is decision theory?
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It's the mathematics of making choices under uncertainty.
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The exact same logic Pascal used to think about God in the 1600s is used today to program artificial intelligence, predict the weather, and make stock market choices.
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That is wild! He invented the math of modern risk while sitting at his desk thinking about philosophy.
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Alright, Finn, time for the quiz.
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Are you ready?
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Okay, I'm ready.
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Alright, first question to test your memory.
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Who was the famous mathematician we talked about today?
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Next one.
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This is a quick geography check.
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What country was he from?
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Question three.
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We know he was great with numbers, but what specific thing did he help invent the math of?
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Here's number four.
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What was the name of his famous book of notes published after he died?
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Last question.
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What year was that book published?
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Great job! Let's see how you did.
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The first answer is Blaise Pascal.
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For question two, he was from France.
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Number three, the answer is he helped invent the math of chance and probability.
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Question four.
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His book of notes was called the Ponse, which means thoughts.
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And the final answer is, it was published in 1670.
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You know, I am still not completely sure if you can really choose to believe something, just like placing a bet at a carnival.
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It feels way more complicated than that.
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But it is definitely incredibly fun to think about.
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And that is exactly why we do this show.
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It is always okay to wonder.
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And it's completely okay not to have all the answers wrapped up in a neat little bow.
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Hey, if you liked betting your brain on big ideas with us today, please leave us a five-star review.
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Yes, just scroll down and tap the stars.
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Also, tap follow wherever you're listening, so new episodes just magically appear in your app.
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Oh, and we have sister shows too.
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History and science is not boring, and maths is not boring.
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Go give those a listen and a follow as well.
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Want your name on the show?
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Send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com.
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See you next time on Philosophy is not boring.
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Bye.