Re: what makes it true?


>> 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?

The natural numbers are formally *defined* via some formal system.

--Dan Grubb

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