(September 27, 2018 at 11:41 am)robvalue Wrote: It's easy to show it's possible that there is no greatest being, using whatever metric you like, with the maths we have already used.
Let's say it so happens that there are an infinite number of beings that exist, numbered 1,2, and so on. We've numbered them so that there "score" according to this metric is equal to their number. So score(being 1) = 1, score(being 2) = 2, and so on.
Which being has the greatest score? There isn't one.
This is just one possible scenario, out of infinitely many, in which you end up with no greatest being. I expect the counter will be that there cannot be infinitely many beings. Scrabbling around with science isn't going to help you. Science can never be used to definitively discount any possibilities entirely, it just gives us a "best guess" as to what is going on. We certainly can't reliably extrapolate what we know outside of whatever section of reality we inhabit, let alone even assume what we think we know applies to everything within it.
Just stating things are impossible because they don't seem logical to you isn't evidence either. He who lives by pure philosophy dies by it. If we're interested in our "best guess" then we use science, and this produces zero gods due to zero evidence.
I think you make a good point. I will note, however, that Steve categorically rejects the possibility of an actual infinity.