Anyone here into math?

[[Be...]]

Years ago I had a beautiful fractal wall calendar.  Different fractal patterns in many colors for each month.  My favorite calendar ever.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Years ago I had a beautiful fractal wall calendar.  Different fractal patterns in many colors for each month.  My favorite calendar ever.

 

i never found fractals beautiful. For that matter, I never found leaves, forests, mountains, beach lines or any of nature beautiful -- and they are all fractals of nature. The fact that you do perhaps suggests your brain uses fractal patterns in a special way to store, process and recall images (memory) -- a type of synestheisa (Vladmir Nabokov had this gift). But I might also be exaggerating -- you will have to investigate this on your own. 

 

I want to comment on your impressions of the physicist Goswami and Hagelin. No one can prove them wrong. There is a hypothesis in Physics that we are Boltzman brains, namely that we are just brains hallucinating the universe. There is another that says the universe is a simulated reality. All these are conjectures that are no different from the ancient thought called solipsism that questions if anything at all exists other than our mind? These cannot be proven wrong for there is "no way" to assert or deny them. But, since Descartes and his cogito ergo sum we have decided to participate in a shared reality. This is a metaphorical way to put things because there was never a baptism to this effect and nor are we periodically quizzed if we still believe in cartesian duality and there is nothing binding to the effect that we cannot question it (after all Descartes questioned his existence only after he had learned how to exist and Science, even today, questions its own and our existence).

 

My whole point is that everyone is free to reject cartesian duality and embrace unscientific ideas like "Hindu OM is the sound of the universe grunting and grinding" or "we are all thoughts of God." But, in my opinion, rejecting duality and embracing monism is as bad as the converse. The only benefit of embracing duality is that you get to fly in planes without fear. The downside is that we can become accidental benzo addicts. You can even scientifically argue there is no difference between dualism and monism -- true. I regularly rationalize to myself that I want to participate in the psychosis that the maximum subscribe to and even if my instinct is to stand apart from the crowd, I would rather stand apart in that participative reality. Nevertheless, it is true that you can believe Goswami is right and still be a highly participative member of the shared reality -- Steve Jobs was!

 

To quote the mathematician-physicist-philosopher Gregory Chaitin (and it is what i believe is the true reality), "things are true for no reason; they’re true by accident. And that’s why you can never find out what’s going on, and you can never prove what’s going on." And I tell myself -- nobody in the world knows what he is doing or what is going on.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Chaitin and Randomness once again, and Art

 

I believe fiction (and poetry) is a study of patterns, like mathematics, in a way that is so abstract that it transcends the highest of mathematics. I believe it transcends because in order to study, store and recall the images, or patterns, that we create in these arts, our brain requires unimaginable mathematical computation -- one of a scale that mathematics isn't yet sure of how to perform. This is just my personal opinion.

 

What Chaitin says is that were it possible for us to distance ourselves from mathematics, and observe the big picture painted by the whole of mathematics, we would see that the picture is neither linear nor homogeneous (Chaitin does this using a cantor set and a prefix free universal Turing machine). The painting would appear to be totally chaotic with no logic whatsoever. This is surprising, for, of all sciences, we had expected this the least from mathematics. So mathematics isn't as logical as we think. This painting would be rubbish actually, were it not for the fact that at the bottom of the picture is scribbled the name of the painter -- Man. What was man thinking, it makes you wonder, when he painted this -- and suddenly the painting becomes invaluable.

 

So the connection between the author and his art is not always obvious (to say nothing of the connection between mathematics and art). It is not so easy to determine these boundaries. But, this is just a construct, for even though this picture ought to be thought of as existing (as his proof shows), it remains that we cannot recede and see the big picture mathematics creates.

 

The connection between the artist and his art, thus remains an open question. We can have prejudices about how the two are connected, but never an objective reason.

 

If reality can be said to be relative to the observing consciousness (and I believe that it can because a garden slug lives in the same, yet totally different world than the gardener who plucks it from a plant), then the expression of imagination that we call art is relative to artist who creates it as well as the consumer of the art. It cannot exist on its own. One also has to wonder to what extent does mathematics really exist without a consciousness seeking to bring order to a universe that might very well not need it.

 

superb!!

[Guest [ba...]]

If reality can be said to be relative to the observing consciousness (and I believe that it can because a garden slug lives in the same, yet totally different world than the gardener who plucks it from a plant), then the expression of imagination that we call art is relative to artist who creates it as well as the consumer of the art. It cannot exist on its own. One also has to wonder to what extent does mathematics really exist without a consciousness seeking to bring order to a universe that might very well not need it.

 

fwiw - I believe that consciousness/awareness is a necessary condition for the existence of the cosmos.

[[Ma...]]

You guys r just too damn smart but we r so lucky u r here.  We r so jealous 

[Guest [Kp...]]

If reality can be said to be relative to the observing consciousness (and I believe that it can because a garden slug lives in the same, yet totally different world than the gardener who plucks it from a plant), then the expression of imagination that we call art is relative to artist who creates it as well as the consumer of the art. It cannot exist on its own. One also has to wonder to what extent does mathematics really exist without a consciousness seeking to bring order to a universe that might very well not need it.

 

fwiw - I believe that consciousness/awareness is a necessary condition for the existence of the cosmos.

 

There is a problem the moment we have a "belief," ha ha. This is what Godel Incompleteness or Tarski theorem (Godel rephrased) says. Because we now know, through Math, that our system (logic) is broke and if Physics thinks, "that means dualism is broke... that means monism is correct," then it is again wrong. It does not matter where we start from (as in consciousness creates the universe as opposed to the converse) because we will still end up back where we started (or its logical contradiction cloaked in complex grammar -- same thing really). Godel theorems and Chaitin theorem say that our axioms will be challenged at every step in math and as its grammar gets complicated, we will sometimes accept the same axiom rephrased, and sometimes reject it -- there seems to be absolutely no logic as to when we accept and when we reject. And if we change the first axiom (Peano arithmetic is not true OR solipsism is true OR the pen that I hold is the universe and I am its ink), we will still end up where we started, because our grammar (logic) hasn't changed and it cannot change. And if we are always moving in circles then something is horribly wrong because the universe, or our consciousness, is suggesting to us that superdeterminism is real and that, when taken to its logical end, suggests that nothing at all is ever happening in the universe because it can't (think snake eating its tail -- Ouroboros). And if nothing is happening, then yes consciousness is hallucinating. And if consciousness is hallucinating, then where is this consciousness located? So we are back to there being something in nothing, or, as physics says today, a random perturbation in an ocean of tranquility (which is, if you think about it, "something in nothing" rephrased in very complex grammar). BTW, it is not possible for us to deconstruct our propositions to understand its grammar and its first axioms because it requires infinite computation -- but because Chaitin construction is perfectly random, sometimes it is possible to deconstruct, as in the last proposition and in "consciousness creates matter" (rejection of or tautology of first axiom, solipsism is false, depending on the way you read it). 

 

Math only says that we do not know and we cannot know. If you feel that the poor man on the street exists then he does and there is pain else there isn't -- be suspicious of reason, says Math, to infer that the poor man is a collateral damage of democracy, or the steep end of a binomial distribution and that you have no obligation to help him (our theory of democracy might be returning us a contradiction and we don't know).  Yes, after 52 years I am very angry at myself and at reason for lying to me but I have now come to forgive myself. It is just that my tomorrow will no longer be the same. Reason might lie, but it is the only friend we have in this universe, says Math --  if and only if the universe exists that is. It is just that we should not surrender blindly to our friend. And the way I see it, if I have to trust anyone at all, I will trust only Math. Math will find the truth, and that too using logic, even though it might seem to be taking infinite time. You might find this mathematical model of reality interesting (note: real numbers are amenable to being discrete and continuous, both, in Math): banach-tarski paradox

 

Quantum computers use electrons and positrons to compute. They, you can say, rock back and forth in time and use 2^n states to compute using n integers and output n integers. They are a frightening concept (as are we because we are, probably, quantum computers too, and we both can create the most elusive thing in physics, time). Because of their lightning speed, QC might be able to compute the Chaitin number for the first few digits at every fork. But then the problem is that the universe is finite whereas our brain is computationally infinite. Even if we use two electrons to compute, we need a huge house to house them in (Physics says the further we go down to observe and manipulate, the more energy we need as per the equations -- example Large Hadron Collider). So we will quickly run out of matter in the universe as we compute more and more digits of Chaitin number using QC. Even speed, it seems has a limit and the limit is our brain! We can exceed the speed of light but not the speed of our brain it seems. Anyway, a Chaitin tomorrow will find a solution I believe.

 

By the bye, Chaitin did approach Wheeler to enquire if uncertainty was incompleteness and Wheeler approached Godel and Einstein spoiled the party in Wheeler's opinion, LOL. The anecdote is googleable. Chaitin did not persist after that -- he was a small fry among big fish -- but then Bell's theorem is the equivalent of Godel theorem in Physics I think and I am sure Chaitin the Physicist must have had this at the back of his mind and which might be why he did not persist. Chaitin did speak to Godel once, on phone, but about his own theorem, and Godel gave him time, but, as fate would have it, Godel did not turn up on the appointed day because it was snowing in Princeton.

[[Be...]]

Fractals are from nature.  Snowflakes, flowers, quart crystals, rocks, etc, but they don't really exist except in our minds.  All of nature and reality is geometrical mathematical form.  All is consciousness from what I glean from quantum physics from reading Goswami and Hagelin, the Alan Aspect experiment, etc.  We are living in a reality that is not real; it's an illusion.  When we aren't observing an object, then it doesn't exist, except in possibilities.  All hard objects etc. are just energy. The experiments have already shown this. 

[Guest [Kp...]]

If reality can be said to be relative to the observing consciousness (and I believe that it can because a garden slug lives in the same, yet totally different world than the gardener who plucks it from a plant), then the expression of imagination that we call art is relative to artist who creates it as well as the consumer of the art. It cannot exist on its own. One also has to wonder to what extent does mathematics really exist without a consciousness seeking to bring order to a universe that might very well not need it.

 

fwiw - I believe that consciousness/awareness is a necessary condition for the existence of the cosmos.

 

I am sorry sir. I think I grossly misread you. If you mean consciousness is necessary for the universe to exist as we see the universe in our minds then you are obviously correct!

 

Profuse apologies.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Math only says that we do not know and we cannot know. If you feel that the poor man on the street exists then he does and there is pain else there isn't -- be suspicious of reason, says Math, to infer that the poor man is a collateral damage of democracy, or the steep end of a binomial distribution and that you have no obligation to help him (our theory of democracy might be returning us a contradiction and we don't know). 

 

This reminds me... as the story goes, Einstein and Godel were great friends. Einstein accompanied Godel for his citizenship interview in Princeton (or NYC),  and when the immigration officer asked Godel what he thought of America, Godel started saying that he had found a contradiction in the American constitution, that could be exploited to usurp power. Einstein had to jump from his seat to shut Godel up and the immigration officer, pretending to have heard nothing, went about routinely stamping the documents. So, it is inevitable that the legislative will keep adding laws to the constitution that contradict the constitution, from time to time. If the constitution says all men are born equal, then it is a matter of pages, before we run into an article that follows it, or is incorporated centuries later as a bill, that states, some men are not born equal (they are born with billion dollar inheritances) and after that, yet again, that even such men are equal (90% estate tax). When the contradictions or tautologies will be adopted is never known -- they appear to follow no logic... just as they follow none in the theorems and postulates man adopts in mathematics from time to time. It is so random that it is possible that the next set of theorems and hypotheses might come from Sub Saharan Africa, and in a dense bundle, as once did from the areas of Auschwitz (Godel, Einstein and several others).

 

Because Godel did not have internet, he never could share what he thought of the social sciences (of course he was aware of the repercussions of his theorem -- as the above citizenship anecdote shows). And because he was a mathematician, he would never generalize as loosely as we do. The story goes that Wittgenstein wrote to him saying that his incompleteness theorems were rubbish because language contained epistemological truths. Godel angrily wrote back saying that his theorems were about a very specific area in mathematics called finitary number theory dealing with permutations and combinations and not about the philosophy of language! And he added that Wittgenstein might stop misunderstanding his theorems if he attempted to understand them first!

 

[Guest [Kp...]]

It is entirely possible (and this is what art and fiction is all about) that the Fermi paradox (or mathematical  contradiction), Where are other intelligent life in this universe? might be rephrased in the future as -- Where is the universe? Why are we surrounded by only intelligent life? This could happen if the garden slug, as alohafromhawaii states, could be living in a parallel universe located in the same space that ours is. In the slug's world, we might be its domesticated animals and it might be harvesting our souls for energy. But if the paradox does get inverted, we would probably not be able to deconstruct it because a new paradox would have emerged based on Fermi's and Fermi's paradox might still be relevant then and it is just that "universe" might have forked into shell universe and kernel universe etc.

 

But if we can imagine what the universe might be, then there is a high probability that the universe isn't that way.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Chessplayer and Outis,

 

I know I must have made mistakes in my mathematical interpretations up thread, but that is only because I have been in a hurry to get to the bottom of things, ever since I realized I did not understand real numbers as well as I thought. I had a bit of foreboding, but also a relentless death wish to investigate the bottom. Despite the mistakes I might have made in my interpretations, I am convinced that there is no bottom and there isn't likely to ever be one. All my notions of reality have been shattered. But like a stubborn horse, I refuse to move away from these rootless theorems and all my efforts to pull this horse away have been futile. I have given up trying to use reason. I have also given up trying to meditate, take a vacation and getting engrossed in work. This horse only likes to only contemplate in the cemetery. I do not even feel that science has cheated me for how can I call that divine product of reason, by which I have lived 52 years, a cheat!

 

My simple question to you two is -- how do you cope? Do you believe in God?

 

I am wondering if I am making a mistake not believing in God.

[Guest [ch...]]

1. I only believe in God when I gaze at a beautiful woman and think there must be a God to have created such beauty in the world.

2. How do I cope? See answer to #1

 

[Guest [Kp...]]

1. I only believe in God when I gaze at a beautiful woman and think there must be a God to have created such beauty in the world.

2. How do I cope? See answer to #1

 

:laugh: :laugh:

 

If there is one more person in the universe who does not want to believe in God, then I guess that is enough. I am sure that my fixation will pass  -- I only have to cope while it lasts.

[Guest [ba...]]

I think that I'm too much of an 'NT-rational' to buy into the concept of deities.  It would be nice if there was some loving, almighty entity out there that we could count on to help us, but I just don't see it.

[Guest [Kp...]]

I think that I'm too much of an 'NT-rational' to buy into the concept of deities.  It would be nice if there was some loving, almighty entity out there that we could count on to help us, but I just don't see it.

 

I can emote to that. If it means intuitive, I think I am like that too for reason does not work on me and I doubt if I have free will (but obviously I do not doubt completely). If there is an entity, I can sense what it is like. It is the most acute form of benzo withdrawal: terrifying, bad ass, perverted and irrational. There isn't a chance in infinity that I can win with a reflection that will incessantly argue with me in paradoxes and say stupid stuff like -- well, how do you know this is acute pain if you can no longer imagine what happiness is? Maybe it *is* happiness and you just insist on calling it pain? I know only one thing -- I wasn't in pain for the billion billion years that I never existed (and I really don't care for happiness). The only thing I cannot do in life is accept there is an entity for more than a few hours because the moment I imagine that the entity exists, I just feel like throwing up. I am having a momentary lapse of reason, where I am unable to slip back into an imperfect illusion, but I do not think it will last.

[Guest [ba...]]

I maybe agree with you about free will.  Maybe (probably?) it doesn't happen in an absolute sense.  Maybe it cannot happen.  But I do think that we get to choose sometimes.  I don't think that we do that often.  Mostly, I think we let situations dictate our actions based on some logic that we apply.  But on the rare occasion, I think we are capable of throwing logic out the window.

[Guest [Kp...]]

I maybe agree with you about free will.  Maybe (probably?) it doesn't happen in an absolute sense.  Maybe it cannot happen.  But I do think that we get to choose sometimes.  I don't think that we do that often.  Mostly, I think we let situations dictate our actions based on some logic that we apply.  But on the rare occasion, I think we are capable of throwing logic out the window.

 

yes, i have the exact same feeling.

[Guest [Kp...]]

I think that I'm too much of an 'NT-rational' to buy into the concept of deities.  It would be nice if there was some loving, almighty entity out there that we could count on to help us, but I just don't see it.

 

I can emote to that. If it means intuitive, I think I am like that too for reason does not work on me and I doubt if I have free will (but obviously I do not doubt completely). If there is an entity, I can sense what it is like. It is the most acute form of benzo withdrawal: terrifying, bad ass, perverted and irrational. There isn't a chance in infinity that I can win with a reflection that will incessantly argue with me in paradoxes and say stupid stuff like -- well, how do you know this is acute pain if you can no longer imagine what happiness is? Maybe it *is* happiness and you just insist on calling it pain? I know only one thing -- I wasn't in pain for the billion billion years that I never existed (and I really don't care for happiness). The only thing I cannot do in life is accept there is an entity for more than a few hours because the moment I imagine that the entity exists, I just feel like throwing up. I am having a momentary lapse of reason, where I am unable to slip back into an imperfect illusion, but I do not think it will last.

 

And I disagree with myself. I am a possibilian. I logically cannot commit to any theory about God (including negation) and must remain open to all possibilities. And for the future that lies before me, there is absolutely no doubt that the past resembles the future, albeit to an uncertain degree and proof of this proposition is in the fact that I have lived 52 years guided entirely by this belief.  When it does not resemble the future, I have to explore and develop my own private causality for it or simply accept it. 

 

So reason helps me claw out of this metaphysical confusion after all.  It is weird that I am open to accepting all possibilities for my fixations, except benzo withdrawal! And if that is a mistake, it isn't any longer for withdrawal could be the sleight of hand responsible for my looping thoughts.  One has to put one stubborn foot in front of the other.

 

If you feel you are in a black hole, don't give up. There's a way out. -- Hawking

[[Es...]]

It is strange that I have believed in benzos all my life, yet I cannot bring myself to believe in any kind of god. Must be genetics. I cannot negate the existence of a god either. I think believing in the existence of god is a sort of metaphysical optimism. And it’s definitely worth more than being an atheist or an agnostic. I think Pascal’s Wager really makes sense. Somehow cannot put it into practice. Maybe I’m genetically programmed to sabotage myself by doubting in the existence of god... Isn’t it more believing that god doesn’t exist, however? Kind of metaphysical pessimism? Why this pessimism? Why did I start benzos in the first place? Accidentally, I was sick. Why didn’t I quit them for good when I learnt from experience how dangerous they are. Why did I come back to them. These are to me more pressing questions than the existence or inexistence of god. I just regret I’m unable to believe in some metaphysical power guarding and protecting me all my life. I will be dying without the knowledge if a god exists or not. One thing I know for sure. At the moment of death, I’ll start to believe in god. Like everyone here. That’s really curious. Inability to accept or imagine that my consciousness will cease to exist one day.

[Guest [Kp...]]

It is strange that I have believed in benzos all my life, yet I cannot bring myself to believe in any kind of god. Must be genetics. I cannot negate the existence of a god either. I think believing in the existence of god is a sort of metaphysical optimism. And it’s definitely worth more than being an atheist or an agnostic. I think Pascal’s Wager really makes sense. Somehow cannot put it into practice. Maybe I’m genetically programmed to sabotage myself by doubting in the existence of god... Isn’t it more believing that god doesn’t exist, however? Kind of metaphysical pessimism? Why this pessimism? Why did I start benzos in the first place? Accidentally, I was sick. Why didn’t I quit them for good when I learnt from experience how dangerous they are. Why did I come back to them. These are to me more pressing questions than the existence or inexistence of god. I just regret I’m unable to believe in some metaphysical power guarding and protecting me all my life. I will be dying without the knowledge if a god exists or not. One thing I know for sure. At the moment of death, I’ll start to believe in god. Like everyone here. That’s really curious. Inability to accept or imagine that my consciousness will cease to exist one day.

 

Beautifully expressed! Well, just know that you are not alone in thinking such. These are the bewildering questions about benzos that I ask of myself too. I think there is comfort in learning that whatever is happening, or will happen, will happen to all of us and we are never alone (even when it might seem we are alone).

[[Bl...]]

My simple question to you two is -- how do you cope? Do you believe in God?

 

I am wondering if I am making a mistake not believing in God.

 

Why do you ask if it would be a mistake? Just wondering.

 

I look at it as an opportunity that we all have for the time being.....coming to believe that there is a God who is, in fact, very much concerned about our individual lives. I did not always believe this way.....and I did not arrive at this conclusion on my own. Accurate knowledge was important. Just like math...it builds on previously understood conclusions.

 

I was raised in a house where this discussion NEVER got brought up.

[Guest [Kp...]]

I am wondering if I am making a mistake not believing in God.

 

Why do you ask if it would be a mistake? Just wondering.

 

BlueRose, the reason I started doubting myself is because I realized there was no logical (or even mathematical, perhaps) reason to doubt the existence of God. As Estee states above, the argument is better known as Pascal's Wager :

 

--------------------

Pascal's Wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–62).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

 

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]

--------------------

[Guest [Kp...]]

Maybe I’m genetically programmed to sabotage myself by doubting in the existence of god...

 

I feel your assessment of yourself is correct. I feel we reject what is true simply because it is human nature to seek to transcend whatever is in front of us, even if it is the truth. I am not saying that genetics has sealed the fate of each and ever one of us and we can never know this. What I am saying is that just because it is true that no generalization about human behavior can be true for all humans, it does not follow that a human cannot generalize accurately about himself.

 

I will be dying without the knowledge if a god exists or not. One thing I know for sure. At the moment of death, I’ll start to believe in god. Like everyone here. That’s really curious. Inability to accept or imagine that my consciousness will cease to exist one day.

 

Again, don't be so sure. If you are human then you are bound to contradict yourself. : )

 

(Sorry, even I am not sure what I am trying to say.)

[Guest [Kp...]]

It is strange that I have believed in benzos all my life, yet I cannot bring myself to believe in any kind of god. Must be genetics. I cannot negate the existence of a god either. I think believing in the existence of god is a sort of metaphysical optimism.

 

Yes, I think it is metaphysical optimism. very well put!

 

Isn’t it more believing that god doesn’t exist, however? Kind of metaphysical pessimism? Why this pessimism?

 

I would disagree. Being atheist is also metaphysical optimism. It requires a lot of conviction to completely reject God. Such conviction, I do not feel, has any logical substrate.

 

Actually, I do not think hues like optimism/pessimism can be applied to one's position with respect to God. I feel faith (or lack of it) is aesthetically neutral. You can believe in God and still be a rank pessimist. I find the "genetic explanation" more cogent! It's funny but what you say is same as what I wrote elsewhere:

 

If I say I was less restless once because I was an atheist, then I would be wrong. If I said I am more restless now because it frightens me to know that God exists, then I am wrong. The truth is in neither of the two propositions. The truth is that I am restless for no reason and I will probably die this way.   

It is possible that I had your post at the back of my mind when I composed it.

 

Why did I start benzos in the first place? Accidentally, I was sick. Why didn’t I quit them for good when I learnt from experience how dangerous they are. Why did I come back to them. These are to me more pressing questions than the existence or inexistence of god.

 

Again, I could have written this. I had no psychiatric issue. Yet I got addicted, quit, got addicted, quit -- for no rhyme or reason. It is so confusing that if I look back at myself, I wonder if, maybe, I always needed it and just that I was in denial?

 

I will be dying without the knowledge if a god exists or not.

 

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago: my biggest regret on deathbed (it wasn't God though). I wrote down my thoughts then. I will try to post them here later.

[[Bl...]]

I am wondering if I am making a mistake not believing in God.

 

Why do you ask if it would be a mistake? Just wondering.

 

BlueRose, the reason I started doubting myself is because I realized there was no logical (or even mathematical, perhaps) reason to doubt the existence of God. As Estee states above, the argument is better known as Pascal's Wager :

 

--------------------

Pascal's Wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–62).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

 

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]

--------------------

 

Do you base your belief that God exists on Pascal's reasoning alone?