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by cpa
4446 days ago
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Mathematicians say that formula F is true in system S iff one can find a proof of F in the context S. So truthness is always considered with respect to some system.
Thus, there are no formula which is "true" but that one can't prove, by definition. (That's the kind of smartassery mathematicians like.) But the Godel's incompleteness theorem states that for all system that includes (Peano's) arithmetic, one can find a formula in this system that has cannot be proved and whose contrary cannot be proved either. And to answer your question, Godel's proof explicitly shows such a formula. |
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A more model-theoretic approach says that a formula is true in a theory (not a system, although the word choice doesn't matter) if it is true in all models of that theory—a statement that can (in principle) be concretely verified simply by testing in each such model. Then it may (and will) be true that a statement is true in "all possible worlds", but that there is no way of proving it from the rules that constrain 'possibility'.