[FOM] Why not NF?
Martin Davis
martin at eipye.com
Mon Feb 20 00:26:00 EST 2006
Hendrik wrote:
>Martin Davis wrote:
>> NF suffers from at least two grave faults:
> >1. It's inconsistent with AC
> >2. Cantor's theorem 2^x > x fails.
>And why are those two sacred?
Sacred? Not at all. An integral part of contemporary mathematics? Yes.
NF is certainly interesting to study, and Specker's result that ~AC holds
is neat. But these two facts make it a very odd choice as a foundation of
mathematics.
Martin
Martin Davis
Visiting Scholar UC Berkeley
Professor Emeritus, NYU
martin at eipye.com
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http://www.eipye.com
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