I think in both cases, the meta argument goes like this: "If the world is like I want it to be, then everything conforms to my preferred set of values, so it's worth to follow those values. Otherwise, the world is just too appalling to think about, so let's pretend I did not mention that and stick to following my preferred set of values, ok?"
Yes, the superficial structure is similar, the content is not at all, plus your summary fits neither Pascal's wager nor my argument for empiricism, I think.
Pascal's wager assumes that there either is no god or a god that has particular values, and then deduces from that that you should follow those particular values, because, if no god exists, it won't cost you anything to have done so, while you get a big payoff if that god actually does exist. There are two big flaws in that reasoning: First, it simply ignores the possibility that a god exists, but its values differ from what you assumed them to be, in which case you presumably would lose the game, and secondly, it's kinda obvious that following certain religious doctrine can have major costs.
My argument, on the other hand, does not assume any values (except perhaps that it's advantageous to be able to influence your future - find me anyone who seriously disagrees with that and also thinks that it matters whether you believe in some god or not (if you can't influence it anyhow, why should it matter?) ...). It simply shows that as a matter of fact, almost by definition, your only chance of gaining control over you future is empiricism. Possibly, it's impossible, but if it is possible at all, then empiricism is the only way that could possibly work - just assuming some randomly made-up laws of nature instead of extrapolating from past observations can not be a more reliable way to predict the future, in the worst case your extrapolations are also completely unreliable, in which case they are no worse than randomly made-up laws.
I think your critique of Pascal's wager is correct, but you fail to see how the same logic applies to your own arguments.
1. You correctly notice that Pascal is unable to imagine a reality where there is a God, but it is not the God he happens to worship. However you fail to notice that there are many many realities where neither empiricism is "almost by definition, your only chance of gaining control over your future" or indistinguishible from "randomly made-up laws". In particular I happen to believe that empiricism is a terrific tool to investigate a subset of reality, but it may be a poor tool to investigate some other subsets (religious/spiritual experience come to mind, but does not have to be the only ones. think of the cases where you investigate phenomena that are practically unreproducible within any humanly relevant timeframe).
2. You also see quite clearly that "following certain religious doctrine can have major costs", which Pascal just hand-waves away in his wager. But you fail to notice that by embracing empiricism as your one an only measure of truthfulness, you incur into a cost of opportunity by cutting off all other possible avenues of human knowledge.
Of this last point I offer two examples. First, in your response you mention that "if you can't influence it [God] anyhow, why should it [belief in such God] matter". This is not a matter of actual reality but a matter of values. You cannot argue if this is the good thing to do (ethics) or the most humanly fulfilling thing to do (esthetics?), but just whether this will result in a tangible benefit or not (economics).
In a more mundane way, there are lots of experiences of human life that are not easily measured with a scientific mindframe (I mentioned ethics and esthetics before). So we end up reducing "what is beauty" to whatever output of a long series of A/B tests happens to output, or "what is virtue" to whatever utilitarian explanation du jour.
1. When I referred to "randomly made-up laws", I didn't mean a reality the actual laws of which are somehow random, but the rules we make up for how the world supposedly works, so the distinction is between laws we derive from past observation and laws we just make up instead.
As for your use of "investigation": Could you explain how you would investigate something that is not reproducible, or in general how you would investigate something in a way that leads to results that do not depends on empiricism?
I would think that as soon as you throw out empricism, you throw out investigation. If some event is completely random ("not reproducible"), that by definition means that you cannot know or deduce any rule for why/how it happened, which in turn means that you cannot even try to cause such an event or know where to look in order to observe it, so I don't see how you would "investigate" under such circumstances.
So, while I agree that there might be things you cannot investigate with empiricism, I would think that almost by definition, you cannot investigate those things at all, as investigation relies on empiricism.
2. No, I don't fail to notice that, very much the opposite. What I thought I stated very explicitly is that if empiricism does not work, assuming that it does work gives you the same expected outcome as assuming that it doesn't work. So, the actual outcome indeed likely would differ depending on whether you assume that empiricism works or doesn't work, so if you assume that it does work, you incur an opportunity cost of those possibilities that might lead to a better outcome - but you have no way to distinguish those from the choices that lead to worse outcome, and on average ("expected outcome"), assuming empiricism gives you as good an expected outcome as any other choice.
As for that "if you can't influence it" thing: I don't get your point, but I think I was a bit ambiguous, so let me rephrase my point: "find me anyone who seriously disagrees with that and also thinks that it matters whether you believe in some god or not and would argue about it (if you can't influence the future anyhow, and thus can't influence whether you believe or not, why should it matter?)".
As for your last example: I think you are contradicting yourself? I do understand it correctly that beauty also is one of those things that you think is not easily measured with a scientific mindframe? And yet, you explain one possible scientific approach to beauty? I would think it's almost trivial to measure all of those scientifically - in just the way you describe. It's all kinda about what people like - and the only reliable way to figure out what people like is empirical: You ask them and you observe their reactions to different circumstances. What would you suggest instead?
Really, I think you may want to think about what it actually is that you suggest to use instead of empiricism wherever you think empiricism does not apply. Just saying "something else that is not empiricism" is easy, but what would that look like? Have a close look at whatever you think the alternative is, whether there is any component of a known concept or a rule of how/why/when things happen or what some action will result in it. If there isn't, then how do you even formulate it? If there is, check whether there is any reason to prefer it over its opposite. If there isn't, then why don't you believe the opposite? If there is, that probably is where empiricism is hiding.
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