Eugine_Nier comments on A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path - Less Wrong
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Ok, but what is the test which distinguishes between accurate and inaccurate maps? It seems to me that the reasoning here has become circular: It is asserted that the number 2 exists because otherwise, formal system X would be unable to prove it; and also that formal system X is a good test because the number 2 exists. I feel that at this point, you ought to abandon the formal systems and just go for straightforwardly asserting that the number 2 exists in a mystical, intuitive sense which is not open to rational disproof, but which you can use to test formal systems for accuracy.
Because this does not seem to me to match the meaning of the word 'exists'. If I say that Planet X exists, I can point to it with a telescope and I expect in principle to be able to travel there. If I say that a species of animals exists, I am asserting the possibility of shooting one and eating it. What am I asserting when I say that a number exists? If it's that a particular computer will print so many numbers and then stop, then I think this is not the same class of assertion as in the two previous examples, and it ought to have a different word.
Both maps are accurate maps of different parts of the territory.
Yet they both make assertions about the number 0, its successor, and its successor's successor.
They use the word 'successor' to mean slightly different things.