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<blockquote data-quote="Sir Whiskers" data-source="post: 911922" data-attributes="member: 6941">Kingpaul, I agree math is based on faith, but not your example. 1+1=2 is true since we have first defined what 1 and 2 mean. Two is always equal to 1+1 because that's part of the definition of &quot;2&quot;.Where I believe math begins to take on elements of faith is our belief that mathematical formulas can represent reality. We can prove formulas to be accurate to our heart's content (within their narrow definitions), but so what? They're only important if they tell us something about the universe, and *that* we take on faith. (&quot;What Mr. Einstein? All this math of yours defines how space-time works? How do you *know* that? Prove it.&quot;)Of course maybe the real benefit is that we can never prove these things 100% - and all the arguing brings us closer to the truth, whatever that is.Okay, enough metaphysics for one day...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes&nbsp; &nbsp; :rolleyes:"&nbsp; data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sir Whiskers, post: 911922, member: 6941"] Kingpaul, I agree math is based on faith, but not your example. 1+1=2 is true since we have first defined what 1 and 2 mean. Two is always equal to 1+1 because that's part of the definition of "2". Where I believe math begins to take on elements of faith is our belief that mathematical formulas can represent reality. We can prove formulas to be accurate to our heart's content (within their narrow definitions), but so what? They're only important if they tell us something about the universe, and *that* we take on faith. ("What Mr. Einstein? All this math of yours defines how space-time works? How do you *know* that? Prove it.") Of course maybe the real benefit is that we can never prove these things 100% - and all the arguing brings us closer to the truth, whatever that is. Okay, enough metaphysics for one day...:rolleyes: [/QUOTE]

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