17697
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The existence of an arbitrarily large number refutes the idea that numbers come from experience [Hilbert]
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Full Idea:
The standpoint of pure experience seems to me to be refuted by the objection that the existence, possible or actual, of an arbitrarily large number can never be derived through experience, that is, through experiment.
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From:
David Hilbert (On the Foundations of Logic and Arithmetic [1904], p.130)
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A reaction:
Alternatively, empiricism refutes infinite numbers! No modern mathematician will accept that, but you wonder in what sense the proposed entities qualify as 'numbers'.
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20713
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God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
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From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
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A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
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