Re: what makes it true?

Timothy Little <tim-usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> The problem is that I don't think that there is any such thing as
> "the" natural numbers as distinct from any formal theory. "The"
> natural numbers are partially refined by the properties that are
> proved of them.

This philosophical doctrine is not easy to grasp. The "as distinct
from any formal theory" is particularly puzzling. Just what do you
take to be the relation between formal systems and the natural
numbers? You spoke earlier of the possibility of GC being
"undecidable in whatever system one is using for the standard model",
a formulation that makes me reluctant to assume that I at all
understand what you have in mind.

.

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