God's Existance - A Management Perspective.

Management courses - well, I'm quite ashamed to admit it, but I rather like the thing, you know. It teaches you things that have such wide application. Admittedly, it's generally in fields that are unrelated, albeit interesting - but still... For example, in our Decision Analysis class we learnt a nifty little tool known as Payoff Matrices (well, actually it's neither nifty nor very small), and I thought this up the other day - although I still haven't quite figured out how to use the damn thing to make Management decisions.

Anyway, without further ado:

Use of Payoff Matrix to Prove That it is Man’s Optimum Strategy to Believe in God’s Existence.

Introduction And Background:

The question of the Existence of God is one that has been debated endlessly. Various religions make various claims, but ultimately it is a matter of faith – using science, one cannot pick any religion that has an edge over the other. Here I will prove that although it is unknown that God does exist, it is Man’s Optimal Strategy to believe in His Existence. The assumptions made are as follows:

Man will choose a strategy that has the best payoff and the least penalty.

• When Man believes in the Existence of God, he will do his best to act according to His teachings i.e. he will shun violence, do what is right etc. Although this may not be true in every case, it will be true on average, as Man will be motivated to do good by a higher calling, with the aim of going to Heaven in his mind.
• When Man believes in the Existence of God, and he does his best to follow God’s teachings, he will go to Heaven. Here, Heaven is considered as the maximum payoff.
• When Man does not believe in the Existence of God, he may still believe in God’s teaching, believing them to be good. However, he will not be bound to follow them, and in cases of adversity or moral choice, he may choose the option which will offer him a larger payoff.
  If Man does not follow God’s teaching and commandments and He does exist, then Man will have to face the maximum penalty that is going to Hell.
• The case of one believing in the Existence of God but not following His teachings cannot be considered as it will mean that the payoff will not be maximum (here Heaven), hence violating the first rule.
• If God does not exist, there are zero payoffs for Man in either case.

For Man who does not believe in the Existence of God, but chooses to follow His teachings, when he is faced with a situation where he has to make a choice between doing something that violates God’s teachings and following it, he will choose whichever option that offers him maximum payoff, in accordance with the first point. This may, however, be subjective and depend on each individual. However, since he is not bound to make the choice, unlike the Man who believes in God, it is safe to assume that he will violate the teachings at some point i.e. when the payoff offered is sufficiently high.

However, in the case of Man who does believe in the Existence of God, it is assumed that he will make a decision following God’s teachings as the relative weight of anything offered will be less that the maximum payoff, i.e. Heaven.

Construction of the Payoff Matrix can be made considering two strategies – Man believing in God’s Existence and Man not believing in God’s Existence. Similarly, there are two states of nature by which Man can choose his strategy – God Existing and God not Existing.

• If God exists, and Man believes, since he will follow His teachings, as proved above, the payoff for this is Heaven (+ ∞).
• If God exists and Man does not believe in it, then he is likely not to follow his teachings, and hence the payoff will be Hell (- ∞).
• If God does not exist, and Man believes then the payoff is zero.
• If God does not exist, and Man does not believe then the payoff is zero.

Thus our Payoff Matrix looks as such:

Now there are three decision rules one can adopt depending on the personality that one is considering. The strategies, in most cases, are different; but in cases where they are all the same, the strategy is known as a dominant strategy and is the one that will always be selected.

The different rules are:

• The MaxiMax Decision Rule
• The MaxiMin Decision Rule and
• The MiniMax Regret Decision Rule.

MaxiMax Decision Rule:

The MaxiMax Decision Rule consists of identifying the maximum payoff for each alternative and choosing the alternative with the largest maximum payoff.

Using the MaxiMax Decision Rule, for each of the strategies that can be adopted, we have the maximum payoffs as such:

Thus by using the MaxiMax Decision Rule, Man ought to choose the strategy of believing in the existence of God.

MaxiMin Decision Rule:

The MaxiMin Decision Rule consists of identifying the minimum payoff for each alternative and choosing the alternative with the largest minimum payoff.

Using the MaxiMin Decision Rule, for each of the strategies that can be adopted, we have the minimum payoffs as such:

Thus by using the MaxiMin Decision Rule, Man should once again choose the strategy of believing in the existence of God.

MiniMax Regret Decision Rule:

The MiniMax Regret Decision Rule consists of computing the possible regret for each alternative under each state of nature, identifying the maximum possible regret for each alternative and choosing the alternative with the smallest maximum regret.

Using the MiniMax Regret Decision Rule, for each of the strategies adopted, we have the payoffs as follows:

By using the MiniMax Regret Decision Rule, Man should choose the strategy of believing in the existence of God.

Conclusion:

We see that whichever approach is used for decision making, we see that the dominant strategy in all cases is to choose the strategy of believing in the existence of God.