Virgil
Posts:
8,833
Registered:
1/6/11
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Re: Is it possible that 3+4=8?
Posted:
Jan 24, 2011 2:58 PM
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In article
<a14152a8-3fbc-4766-9a28-dcf5853575c4@w2g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
Han de Bruijn <umumenu@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 24, 11:02 am, LudovicoVan <ju...@diegidio.name> wrote:
> > On Jan 23, 8:31 pm, LudovicoVan <ju...@diegidio.name> wrote:
> >
> > > On Jan 23, 7:47 pm, Craig Feinstein <cafei...@msn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > [...]
> > > > In our real world, it is a known fact that 3+4=7. But how can we be
> > > > sure that there are no invisible pixies running around taking balls
> > > > away from us causing us to think that 3+4=7 when really 3+4=8?
> >
> > > > My point is that mathematics is considered a deductive science, in
> > > > which everything is absolutely certain. But how can mathematics prove
> > > > that the above scenario cannot be true?
> >
> > > I don't think mathematics is a deductive science: mathematics is
> > > hardly a science at all. OTOH, in a world were 3+4=7, I'd also expect
> > > 1=/=0: i.e. no mathematical fact exists in isolation...
> >
> > Thinking: It is logic that grounds mathematics, i.e. it is logic that
> > gives mathematics its initial premise and final validation.
> >
> > -LV
>
> How can that be, if Mathematical Logic is a branch of mathematics ?
> It is NOT logic that grounds mathematics. It is rather mathematics
> that grounds logic. (And physics grounds mathematics, but that is ..
> quite another story)
Except that, at least historically, mathematics preceded physics.
Agriculture and Commerce, but not physics, preceded mathematics
(agriculture gave rise to geometry and commerce to arithmetic).
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