A Mathematician’s View of God and the Goal of Life

Here is a fascinating piece I read in My Brain is Open. I made a simple substitution of one word to be politically correct.

When asked what is the purpose of life, Erdos would reply: “To prove and conjecture and to keep the God’s score low”. He imagined that humans were constantly engaged in a deadly serious game with God in which, “if you do something bad the God gets at least two points. If you don’t do something good which you could have done, the God gets at least one point. And if you are okay nobody gets any point. Humanity cannot win this game, so that the goal of life is not victory. “The aim is to keep the God’s score low.”

It is simple enough. I especially like the part about “if you don’t do something good which you could have done”.