282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity

<p>The philosophy of mathematics would be so much easier if it weren't for infinity. The concept seems natural, but taking it seriously opens the door to counterintuitive results. As mathematician and philosopher Joel David Hamkins says in this conversation, when we say that the natural numbers are "0, 1, 2, 3, and so on," that "and so on" is hopelessly vague. We talk about different ways to think about the puzzles of infinity, how they might be resolved, and implications for mathematical realism.</p> <p>Blog post with transcript: <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/07/15/282-joel-david-hamkins-on-puzzles-of-reality-and-infinity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/07/15/282-joel-david-hamkins-on-puzzles-of-reality-and-infinity/</a></p> <p>S<em>upport Mindscape on </em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Patreon</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p>Joel David Hamkins received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Logic at the University of Notre Dame. He is a pioneer of the idea of the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4223" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">set theory multiverse</a>. He is the top-rated user by reputation score on <a href="https://meta.mathoverflow.net/a/1902" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MathOverflow</a>. He is currently working on <a href="https://www.infinitelymore.xyz/s/the-book-of-infinity" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The Book of Infinity</em></a>, to be published by MIT Press.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://jdh.hamkins.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li> <li><a href="https://philosophy.nd.edu/people/faculty/joel-david-hamkins/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Notre Dame web page</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.infinitelymore.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Substack</a></li> <li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MHLQDYQAAAAJ&amp;hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li> <li><a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/joel-david-hamkins" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">PhilPeople profile</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_David_Hamkins" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></li> </ul> <p><br /></p>