Re: is mathematics just a tautology?

In <1145905055.894522.234760@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, on
04/24/2006
at 11:57 AM, matt271829-news@xxxxxxxxxxx said:

Right... I meant "tautology" in the sense of saying something
appearing to be new but actually with no information content beyond
what we already had.

Well, tautology is the wrong word, but it is true that every
mathematical theorem is a consequence of the relevant axioms and rules
of inference. The validity of a proof has no implication as to the
theorem's utility in modelling physical systems. Mathematics is not
Physics.

That said, the consequences of a simple axiom system may be far from
obvious.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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