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There is truth outside of mathematics, as philosophers have fought toiled with this idea. Famously Descartes with his root of skepticism being a kind of Identit

There is truth outside of mathematics, as philosophers have fought toiled with this idea. Famously Descartes with his root of skepticism being a kind of Identity/Existence truth. I mean in some ways Mathematics is just like a completely made up world that is internally consistent so saying it is "truth" is the same as me saying "in a made up world where truth exists, truth exists"

blamestross 6y ago
Descartes based his entire concept of the existence of truth on the fact God exists and doesn't hate him. I don't think we have any good arguments for the existence of truth or even consensus reality beyond simple pragmatic acceptance of it as an assumption without evidence.
- onethought 6y ago
  Not quite true. He used it as proof of gods existence. But his logical premise holds, and has yet to be countered in any meaningful way. Our awareness of our existence proves our existence.
  - blamestross 6y ago
    Sure but I wasn't questioning my existence. Only yours and everybody and everything else's. Descartes still would need to believe in God in order to believe in you. It doesn't seem like a particularly good argument.
    - onethought 6y ago
      I was only saying it is a truth. It's a small truth. But truth non-the-less.
klyrs 6y ago
A physicist once blew my mind with the following observation. "Mathematicians always get it wrong when you talk about the relationship between position and velocity. You say that velocity is the derivative of position, acceleration the derivative of velocity, etc. And that's all fine, down to 16 decimal places, give or take. Past that, quantum effects become significant. You don't have a clean mathematical identity: perhaps velocity is approximately the derivative of position, acceleration is approximately the derivative of velocity, but below the Planck scale, these quantities aren't even continuous!"

blamestross 6y ago

Descartes based his entire concept of the existence of truth on the fact God exists and doesn't hate him. I don't think we have any good arguments for the existence of truth or even consensus reality beyond simple pragmatic acceptance of it as an assumption without evidence.

onethought 6y ago
Not quite true. He used it as proof of gods existence. But his logical premise holds, and has yet to be countered in any meaningful way. Our awareness of our existence proves our existence.
- blamestross 6y ago
  Sure but I wasn't questioning my existence. Only yours and everybody and everything else's. Descartes still would need to believe in God in order to believe in you. It doesn't seem like a particularly good argument.
  - onethought 6y ago
    I was only saying it is a truth. It's a small truth. But truth non-the-less.

klyrs 6y ago

A physicist once blew my mind with the following observation. "Mathematicians always get it wrong when you talk about the relationship between position and velocity. You say that velocity is the derivative of position, acceleration the derivative of velocity, etc. And that's all fine, down to 16 decimal places, give or take. Past that, quantum effects become significant. You don't have a clean mathematical identity: perhaps velocity is approximately the derivative of position, acceleration is approximately the derivative of velocity, but below the Planck scale, these quantities aren't even continuous!"