This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warton.

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Can God cook a breakfast so big he can't eat it? That's just one of the

paradoxes thrown up by the troubling concept of infinity. Professor Adrian

Moore is at Oxford University his knowledge knowledge of the infinite knows no bounds.

Adrian Moore, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thanks very much, Nigel.

Now the topic we're going to talk about today is infinity.

What exactly is infinity.

What exactly is infinity?

There are two reasons I think why that's a difficult question

right from the outset.

One problem, basic paradox that arises in connection with infinity is that some people would want to say that it can't be defined almost by definition.

The point about the infinite is that it resists being pinned down and if

you're trying to define a concept what you're trying to do is to pin it down in some way,

circumscribe it, give it parameters.

And so a lot of people say, well, that's exactly what you can't do with the infinite.

You can't define it.

So there's a problem that confronts us right at the outset.

And then there's another problem, which is not quite so peculiar to infinity.

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