Pascal's mugging

Abstract

The article presents a dialogue between a mugger and the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, in which the mugger attempts to rob Pascal using mathematical arguments and Pascal’s own ethical principles. Pascal has an unbounded utility function and doesn’t believe in risk aversion or temporal discounting. The mugger speculates whether Pascal is confused about infinities or infinite values and offers Pascal a deal: if he hands over his wallet, the mugger will perform magic to give him an extra 1,000 quadrillion happy days of life. The mugger calculates that this would give Pascal an expected utility surplus of nearly 100 utils, which is a good deal for Pascal. However, Pascal eventually hands over his wallet because he’s having doubts about infinity and is unsure whether the deal actually makes sense. – AI-generated abstract.