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Sep 28, 2024 at 10:33 comment added Kotlopou This kind of language sometimes comes up even today, see for example Scott Aaronson here: scottaaronson.blog/?p=4974 "The devout Cantor thought his discovery illuminated the nature of God; it’s never been entirely obvious to me that he was wrong."
Sep 14, 2021 at 17:34 history edited Rodrigo de Azevedo
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May 1, 2018 at 9:59 answer added Mikhail Katz timeline score: 7
Apr 30, 2018 at 13:10 comment added Carl Witthoft Any attempt to connect math, science, or other realities to theology is guaranteed to fail. Each person performs his own interpretation, or cognitive dissonance, to justify his personal acceptances.
Apr 27, 2018 at 18:31 comment added Franz Kurz @ Nick R: When "untearable ties" connect metaphysics and theology, in that the "latter is the lodestar according to which the former is adjusting", then there is at least some inclusion.
Apr 27, 2018 at 18:13 comment added nwr Your claim that $M$ (metaphysics) is a subset of $T$ (theology) is, well, doubtful. Are you claiming that this was Cantor's belief? There may be connections as Cantor states, but proper inclusion does not follow. Certainly no philosopher would have made such a claim.
Apr 27, 2018 at 17:53 comment added Franz Kurz @ Nick R: I know. But Cantor did not use it before 1886 in a letter to Cardinal Franzelin.
Apr 27, 2018 at 17:39 comment added nwr According to available online etymology cardinal number was first used in the 1590's and so may be unrelated to Cantor's addressing a Cardinal. Latin cardinalis meaning "principal, chief, essential".
Apr 27, 2018 at 14:08 comment added Franz Kurz @J.G. I do not ask about the axioms which were introduced by Zermelo in 1908 in his Grundlagen. I am asking whether the axioms were modelled on religious belief (like Euclid's geometric axioms were modelled on plane and space). In particular the existence of more real numbers than ever could be defined in the universe is a hint to God.
Apr 27, 2018 at 13:44 comment added Franz Kurz @Alexandre Eremenko : Have you ever read Cantor's "Mitteilungen zur Lehre vom Transfiniten"? Do you know that the name cardinal numbers appears for the first time in correspondence with a Cardinal?
Apr 27, 2018 at 13:42 answer added Alexandre Eremenko timeline score: 13
Apr 27, 2018 at 12:26 comment added J.G. Are you asking when the choice of axioms of set theory transitioned from what Cantor was convinced followed from his religious views to a shortlist mathematicians share? Probably around the time anyone other than him treated ST as axiomatic.
Apr 27, 2018 at 11:24 review Close votes
May 2, 2018 at 3:02
Apr 27, 2018 at 8:26 history asked Franz Kurz CC BY-SA 3.0