The Name of the Game

I’ve been meaning to start a blog for quite some time now and I’m glad I have gotten around to it. I suppose, as well as many other bloggers, that the best way to kick off my blog would be to explain the name and nature of it.

The name for my blog didn’t come to me right away. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even thought of it if it wasn’t for my fellow blogging friend, Tommy. He too has a rather imaginative spin on a well known philosophical concept. His blog is called Occam’s Shaving Cream, which is a spin on Occam’s Razor. I was tickled by the name and decided that I should try to come up with something similar that had some meaning as well.

I’m sure most of you have heard of Pascal’s Wager, but if not, just follow the link. Blaise Pascal first came up with the wager to defend religious belief, or a general belief in a god. I hope to have a post in the near future about this wager and also like-minded uses of bad reasoning that need debunking.

The debunking of bad reasoning is the essence of what I want my blog name to mean. I strive to make the nature of my blog the conscience of reason (to some degree anyways), so the name Pascal’s Bookie, in a sense, means that to me. The bookie is the person who takes wagers and then pays winnings depending on the results and the odds. What this means to my blog is that I wish to give credit to reason and discredit to ill-reason after thorough inspection. The Bookie reasons out “odds” and applies them to “wagers”. In much the same way, I hope to use reason to determine what is most likely and what is not, or what is reality versus unreality.

Still don’t know what I mean? It will become clearer in future posts so stick around!