How do we resolve the fact that our finite brains can conceive of mental spaces

How do we resolve the fact that our finite brains can conceive of mental spaces

How do we resolve the fact that our finite brains can conceive of mental spaces far more vast than the known physical universe and more numerous than all of the atoms? For example, the total possible state-space of a game of chess is well defined, finite, but much larger than the number of atoms in the universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number). Obviously, all of these states "exist" in some nebulous sense insofar as the rules of chess describe the boundaries of the possible space, and any particular instance within that space we conceive of is instantly manifest as soon as we think of it. But what is the nature of this existence, since it is equally obvious that the entire state-space can never actually be manifest simultaneously in our universe, as even the idea of a board position requires more than one atom to manifest that mental event? Yet through abstraction, we can casually refer to many such hyper-huge spaces. We can talk of infinite number ranges like the integers, and "bigger" infinite ranges like rational numbers, and yet still "bigger" infinite ranges like the irrationals. In what sense can we say all of these potential huge spaces exist (and they must, since we can so easily instantiate well-formed members of them, at will) yet we don't have even the slightest fraction of sufficent space for them in our known universe?

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