PI

"Study math kids; key to the universe." smirks Gabriel in a film Max Cohen has never seen (The Prophecy 1995). We know Max has never seen it because, well, why would he have? Film, the arts in general are not where answers are to be found for Max. Everything can be described/explained/answered with numbers and in that his faith is absolute. The Prophecy's blunt instrument approach to faith would have been lost on Max, even had he been forced to sit through it.

"As soon as you discard scientific rigor, you're no longer a mathematician, you're a numerologist." says Max's only friend Sol. His obsession is a perversion of their true faith, just as Lenny's cabal holds a perversion of theirs. Do the Wall Street traders hold a perversion of theirs? What does Lenny care?

As with anyone it's an open question whether Max could be said to have chosen his faith. He's a numbers man after all. When a choice "can be represented and understood through numbers" can it be categorised apart from any other event. Before we drill down to the numbers it would seem that it can be.

Of the volume of literature on the merits of reductionism Max is oblivious but were his faith not so strong, he would hardly need such study to seriously reevaluate his life. His war with the ant infestation doesn't consist of calculating the ant's velocity, the distance and his finger's acceleration; it consists of a practiced swipe. This could have been Max's starting point.

But Max's faith was strong and whatever the correct interpretation of the events lead him to be sat on the park bench, watching the leaves, they were extreme and though he appears at peace, the uncertain void will take some filling.