4 ms·
Something I like about this is that whatever number you imagine as the greatest number signifying god, your conception is still much lower than Graham’s number.
by b_tterc_p 7y ago
Something I like about this is that whatever number you imagine as the greatest number signifying god, your conception is still much lower than Graham’s number. Graham’s number is the terrifying giant that reminds you that the limits of your conception are that of a weak human mind.
No I don’t care to debate technicalities :)
- shkkmo 7y agoIf you are postulating that "greatness" is infinitely conceivable, then defining "God is the greatest thing that can be conceived" would mean that god, like the largest number, does not exist.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoNo actually the opposite. I’m saying we have a finite capacity to imagine magnitude, though it’s not readily apparent. Infinite is easy conceptually, but most people’s pragmatic place holder for “basically infinite” is going to be a really big number. Very big to be sure. But Graham’s number is so large it’s beyond the scope of numbers you’re likely to have conceived could exist. It’s not something you can quite fit in your head even reading about it, like something out of Lovecraft. Whatever you imagined in imagining God as the greatest thing, Graham’s number is inconceivably larger still. And that is why Cthulhu wins.
- shkkmo 7y ago> Whatever you imagined in imagining God as the greatest thing, Graham’s number is inconceivably larger still. And despite that, there are still more numbers between 0 and 1 than increments required to reach Graham's number. It seems to me like you are assuming that conceptions of god and integers share the same cardinality when I'm not so sure that is clearly the case.