Do you believe in god or math?

[CliveStaples]

Care to "prove" that 1+1=3 for somebody somewhere? Any given persons score on a math test has absolutely no bearing over whether or not math is different, that's a measurement of an individual's aptitude and memory with regards to a system.

You're talking about utterly simple arithmetic there.

Moreover, 1+1=3 or even 1+1=2 is utterly meaningless until those numbers are actually associated with physical quantities.

Here's an equation for you of the form of 1+1=3 that is actually true.

1 pint of milk + 1 cup of milk = 3 cups of milk.

That's 1+1=3 and it's a TRUE statement.

You're using a bad notation system, then, because the first "1" means something different than the second "1".

Math doesn't need to refer to physical objects in order for the logic to work out.

You can just say something like this:

1. There is a collection of objects, call it C.
2. There is a way to associate pairs from C with single elements of C; if (x,y) is related to (z), we write f(x,y)=z, or for simplicity write x+y=z
3. In C there exists an object, call it 0, such that for any object c in C, c+0=0+c=c


And so forth. Arithmetic on the natural numbers doesn't work "because" it refers to physical objects; it works because of how it is defined to work.