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.
I also wrote about why I liked the book so much:
https://henrikwarne.com/2024/07/07/john-von-neumann-the-man-...
FLeXMurphy•58m ago
The house always wins.
roarcher•52m ago
jrochkind1•37m ago
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•23m ago
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, witnessed by many. You may agree or disagree, but what you are affirming or denying is at least concrete and specific.
roarcher•17m ago
Right, but that's the problem with it. It assumes that there are only two possibilities: no god, or the god of the New Testament.
Betting that Pascal's god exists isn't the safe choice that the wager makes it out to be, because it's equally possible that some other god exists (or just some other version of the Abrahamic god, say Allah or the pre-messiah god of Israel) and your faith in Jesus is just going to piss him off.
Believe in Jesus all you want, but Pascal's Wager is a pretty terrible reason to do so.
Edit to add: Your description is also not even the only possible New Testament god. Some would argue that that particular image of god was painted more by Paul than by Jesus.
Maxatar•16m ago
lazyasciiart•9m ago
TFNA•5m ago