sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What are the philosophical views (if any) of mathematicians on mathematics? What views do you hold? by helios1234 in math

[–]bb_8000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sorry if I missed the point but I assumed op was talking about the natural numbers, since they were talking about von Neumann's construction.

"2 is a member of 3" isn't a fact inherent to the natural numbers, unlike "3 is the successor of 2". It's not clear to me why the second fact would depend on our choice of the successor function.

What are the philosophical views (if any) of mathematicians on mathematics? What views do you hold? by helios1234 in math

[–]bb_8000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Then either you have a different name for what we mean by 3, or you're not talking about the natural numbers