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What is truth?

lostmyway

Curt Godel, the famous mathematician, showed that in any sufficiently complex system of mathematics, there are statements that are true in the sense that they work and describe a pattern of nature that is consistent, but that cannot actually be proved mathematically using the internal logic of the axioms involved.

So, my question is, how can we know that mathematics really describes reality and that reality may simply be a construct that human beings invent on order to stay alive? In other words, more or less "subjective" representations of the way evolution has shaped our perceptions?

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  • I know nothing of maths but this is a fun question I posed to readers: 'if two people are on a desert island and an observor claims one is 'mad', whose reality is the true one?' The best explanation of any kind of 'truth' is the one accepted by the majority in that particular society; it would not apply to every society.

    ps I envy you maths genii! I find it hard balancing my bank account, let alone complex calculations. I wish there were a microchip you could insert, to make you expert in a chosen field.

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  • I know nothing of maths but this is a fun question I posed to readers: 'if two people are on a desert island and an observor claims one is 'mad', whose reality is the true one?' The best explanation of any kind of 'truth' is the one accepted by the majority in that particular society; it would not apply to every society.

    ps I envy you maths genii! I find it hard balancing my bank account, let alone complex calculations. I wish there were a microchip you could insert, to make you expert in a chosen field.

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