72. Arif Ahmed | Religion, Decision Theory

Arif Ahmed is a philosopher at the University of Cambridge. He is a Reader in Philosophy, University of Cambridge, and is Nicholas Sallnow-Smith Lecturer in Philosophy, Gonville and Caius College. His work focuses on decision theory, philosophy of religion, Wittgenstein, and other topics.

My links: https://link.space/@Friction.

00:00 - Introduction
02:09 - Habermas and the resurrection of Jesus
04:47 - Testimony and the Humean argument
06:30 - Near-death experiences
09:46 - Choosing between miracle hypotheses
11:29 - Religious belief
16:44 - Sufficient condition vs. necessary condition
18:43 - Vagueness of mental categories
20:23 - Potential criticisms
24:40 - Cautious conclusion
25:39 - Applicability elsewhere
28:04 - Approach to fine-tuning
35:58 - Design hypothesis
41:20 - Difficulties with priors
42:02 - Ahmed's response to fine-tuning
44:15 - The space of possibilities
47:07 - Decision theory as overly idealized
51:06 - Expanding the theory
53:24 - Richard Pettigrew and Choosing for Changing Selves
57:16 - No need to change standard decision theory
59:13 - The Value of the Future and discounting
1:06:46 - Relevance to extended life
1:08:27 - Confession of a causal decision theorist
1:12:02 - Causalism and one-boxing in Newcomb's problem
1:13:08 - Determinism, Counterfactuals, and Decision
1:17:30 - Motivating the view
1:22:02 - Argument for two-boxing
1:24:36 - Analyzing the conditionals
1:27:28 - Fatalist argument
1:28:51 - Salvaging Pascal’s Wager
1:32:45 - Deciding between actions with infinite utility
1:37:38 - Issue with infinite utilities
1:39:12 - Responses
1:42:28 - Value of philosophy
1:45:44 - Conclusion

Music: PaulFromPayroll - High Rise