I'm curious as to why this is an interesting subject. Afaik, infinity only ever exists as an abstraction, and the existence is an axiom of ZFC; which is to say you're just saying "infinity exists!" and crossing your arms and hoping it doesn't explode. So my point here is, who in the world is both mathematically literate, and not an "infinite set atheist" to the extent that they refer to infinity as something other than an abstraction? Magfrump 20:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm given to understand that many take the possibility of an infinite universe seriously. Cf. Bostrom's "Infinite Ethics" (PDF) Zack M. Davis 14:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yuck. This whole main paragraph is based on the misconception that cardinality is the only measure of size. I want to fix this but I don't see how without killing that whole paragraph. Anyway, do we really need to call this "infinite set atheism" just because Eliezer Yudkowsky calls himself an "infinite set atheist"? Can't we just say "finitism"? Looking it up, I guess this is more of what's called "strict finitism" - but this isn't really a subject I know... Sniffnoy 13:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
If you think the paragraph is better off dead, then by all means kill it: wiki is the medium in which nothing is sacred. Although this does seem patchable---something like, one generalization of the "size" of the set is called the cardinality. Untutored intuition (&c., &c.)." On reflection I am inclined to agree with you that this should be moved to finitism or suchlike. (We already have enough insider jargon, best not to create more unnecessarily.) I might do this a little bit later when I've looked up common usage of finitism. Zack M. Davis 14:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
From the old discussion page:
Talk:Infinite set atheism
I'm curious as to why this is an interesting subject. Afaik, infinity only ever exists as an abstraction, and the existence is an axiom of ZFC; which is to say you're just saying "infinity exists!" and crossing your arms and hoping it doesn't explode. So my point here is, who in the world is both mathematically literate, and not an "infinite set atheist" to the extent that they refer to infinity as something other than an abstraction? Magfrump 20:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm given to understand that many take the possibility of an infinite universe seriously. Cf. Bostrom's "Infinite Ethics" (PDF) Zack M. Davis 14:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yuck. This whole main paragraph is based on the misconception that cardinality is the only measure of size. I want to fix this but I don't see how without killing that whole paragraph. Anyway, do we really need to call this "infinite set atheism" just because Eliezer Yudkowsky calls himself an "infinite set atheist"? Can't we just say "finitism"? Looking it up, I guess this is more of what's called "strict finitism" - but this isn't really a subject I know... Sniffnoy 13:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
If you think the paragraph is better off dead, then by all means kill it: wiki is the medium in which nothing is sacred. Although this does seem patchable---something like, one generalization of the "size" of the set is called the cardinality. Untutored intuition (&c., &c.)." On reflection I am inclined to agree with you that this should be moved to finitism or suchlike. (We already have enough insider jargon, best not to create more unnecessarily.) I might do this a little bit later when I've looked up common usage of finitism. Zack M. Davis 14:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)