Mathematical mythologies

MaRDI QIDQ4037515zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Edward Nelson

Publication date 18 May 1993

zbMATH Keywords

consistencyintuitionismnonstandard bounded arithmetic

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

First-order arithmetic and fragments (03F30) Intuitionistic mathematics (03F55) Nonstandard models of arithmetic (03H15)

Review text

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0758.00020.] Peano arithmetic is consistent because its axioms are true when interpreted in the set of natural numbers. This is a Platonic argument appealing to the mythical belief in existence of infinite entities. Nelson traces the same myth in finitary and intuitionistic proof of consistency of Robinson's arithmetic \(Q\). David Nelson's proof of consistency of an intuitionistic axiom system for arithmetic, based on Kleene's notion of realizability, is examined in detail to uncover its mythical elements. A case is made for nonstandard bounded arithmetic as being both (potentially) demonstrably consistent, and ``an adequate foundation for contemporary mathematics.

Recommendations

• A marriage of Brouwer's intuitionism and Hilbert's finitism. I: Arithmetic
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Cited in

(5)

• On the untenability of Nelson's predicativism
• Mythematics. Solving the twelve labors of Hercules
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1009600 (Why is no real title available?)
• THE OEDIPUS MYTH AS MATHEMATICAL ALLEGORY
• Do the integers exist? The unknowability of arithmetic consistency

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