3 ms·
" “what is the largest number anyone has thought of?” I would have to interrogate your motives to know why you would want to ask such a question..." I ask beca
by mike00632 6y ago
" “what is the largest number anyone has thought of?” I would have to interrogate your motives to know why you would want to ask such a question..."
I ask because it's absurd. A particular large number is a logical thing regardless of whether a person thought of it before or whether it describes a distinct natural phenomenon. This follows from the set theory axioms, as well as Real numbers and infinitely many other number systems. To restrict our capacity to think of numbers to only numbers that people can enumerate or numbers that describe natural phenomena seems arbitrary and onerous. We construct the Real number simply by considering the limits of convergent sequences to be numbers. I don't see anything transgressive about this idea. Sure, some numbers are not computable, and other numbers can't be represented with marbles; they still have utility and there is no reason to make the concept of "numbers" exclusive.