Positive Atheism

[Purple Rabbit]

We can be 100% certain of mathematical truth, since it's an entirely human invention. We made it, we control it. That's the difference here.

I don't think the human origin of math guarantees anything. For one thing, it means math is relative to man, not an absolute. And what about human fallibilty? Has it evaporated overnight? Furthermore, math is based on axiomas, basically premisses we take for granted but have no proof of.

Math appears to work within the bounds of logic. But because there are things that are not logical... i hardly think mathematics aren't relative to the universe we are attempting to calculate for.

Math and the reality are separate things that do not necessarily relate to one another. You cannot find one perfect mathematical circle in the whole universe as we understand it now for instance. Math essentially makes no statements about reality at all. It just happens to be so, nobody knows why really, that some math is applicable to our reality (someone called it the ''unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics''). And when it doesn't fit we go looking for other math that does fit. So can reality be illogical? Dunno.

And at the same time, it is possible that math could be right 100% of the time in every universe (if there is more than one, as seems likely?) and the nothingness beyond! We can rule out math being wrong... but should we find reason to doubt its unfailablity: we should be open to a new interpretation of it, or perhaps even a scrapping of it if someday it proves to be that bad :S

Math is not absolute truth, since it hinges on axiomas (unproven assumptions) and because of Gödel's Incompletenes Theorems (GIT). It will always have undecidible statements.

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NB: Found this rather nice article in NYT on math versus reality.