• L3dpen@lemmy.ml
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    26 days ago

    Isn’t 1 and +1 well defined by the Peano Axioms by using the intersection of all infinite successor functions and starting at the empty set?

    • Kogasa@programming.dev
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      25 days ago

      It depends on what you mean by well defined. At a fundamental level, we need to agree on basic definitions in order to communicate. Principia Mathematica aimed to set a formal logical foundation for all of mathematics, so it needed to be as rigid and unambiguous as possible. The proof that 1+1=2 is just slightly more verbose when using their language.