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A Man from the Future: Why Johnny Can't Stop Abstracting

26 points aray07 1 hour ago 7 comments

FLeXMurphy 43 minutes ago | parent

> Johnny remained a game theorist to the end. After a lifetime of culturally Jewish atheism, he asked to be baptized. His daughter attributed it to Pascal's Wager: a small probability of a much better afterlife, against a trivial cost.

The house always wins.

roarcher 36 minutes ago | parent

I've always thought that surely an all-knowing god would consider Pascal's Wager to be rather mercenary and insincere, and it wouldn't count.

jrochkind1 22 minutes ago | parent

Or maybe he'd even penalize you for it.

It's important to recall that an all-knowing God isn't necessarily very compassionate, or even rational. Some of the people I've known who knew the most have been the biggest assholes. Or insane.

What if there's a god, but he punishes humans for believing he exists, just for fun? Where's your wager now?

TimTheTinker 8 minutes ago | parent

> What if there's a god, but he punishes humans for believing he exists, just for fun? Where's your wager now?

That's the equivalent of Russell's teapot - an imagined, unfalsifiable proposition.

But Pascal's wager was anchored to specific attested propositions: specifically, the gospel of Jesus (repent of sin and call to him, he's paid for it and will save you from judgment and eternal separation from God if you do) rooted in the historical events of his verbal claim to be the son of God, followed by his death and resurrection. You may agree or disagree, but what you are affirming or denying is at least concrete and specific.

willguest 28 minutes ago | parent

I recently read 'Maniac' by Benjamin Labatut, which also tracks the life of Johnny von Neumann. It is a wonderful read - very eloquently put together, giving accounts of the man from the perspectives of several people in his life.

Not only does it capture the alien-like genius of the protagonist, but also described his particular emotional and social character in a way that I have not seen written elsewhere. Highly recommended.