FOM: The meaning of truth

[Kanovei]

> From: "charles silver" <silver_1 at mindspring.com>
> Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 05:54:15 -0800
 
>     In other words, does it make sense (without a proof)
> to make this prediction: "No matter how large 2n is (where
> n is > 1), 2n will always be the sum of two primes"?  If so,
> would it be acceptable to abbreviate this prediction
> as "GC is true (though not provable)"?
 
You can possibly abbreviate it even as 
"Silver's Greatest True Prediction" 
but most likely whichever way you abbreviate it 
it does not gain any meaning this way. 
It was only in the Middle Ages that chemists could make 
something from nothing, now times are different. 

If seriously, a rigorous scientific formulation like 

"during the whole future history of the mankind it will 
never happen that a number 2n is presented which is not 
a sum of two primes 
(and this its property is correctly demonstrated), 
and on the other hand it will never 
happen that the Goldbach is mathematically solved in the 
affirmative"

can be considered as meaningful ONLY in the assumption that 
the mankind will have some finite history, for instance, 
due to the barion destruction in some zillion of ys from now 
which will make existence of bodies of atoms impossible. 

V.Kanovei