• SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    26 days ago

    Godel’s second theory of incompleteness states that a formal system cannot prove its own consistency

    I think that’s as close as you can get to “math is not objective”

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      before gödel’s theorems can be formally stated, you have to make a lot of assumptions about axioms, and you have to pick which kinds of logical rules are “valid”, etc. and that all feels way more dicey to me than the actual content of gödels theorems.

      i definitely agree that gödels theorems can help to undercut the idea that math is this all knowing, objective thing and there’s one right way to do everything. but to me personally, i feel like the stuff that’s very close to the foundations is super sketchy. there are no theorems at that level, it’s just “we’re going to say these things are true because we think they are probably true”.