Numbers are not truths; they are agreed upon symbols for the world around us. Just like the word “dog” has no truth, it is simply a symbol for the animal that we identify it with. Hence we all agree that if we add a symbol “2” to a symbol “2” the result would be the symbol “4”.
An example,
We see a number of apples. We identify the fact and use the noun “two” because it best describes the quantity of apples before us. We see two more apples and using predetermined symbols state that there are now “four” apples before us.
Yet what if we didn’t see one apple because it was behind another and there were actually 5 apples before us? What if one of the apples wasn’t real (plastic), or was a rather round looking pear? As you see there is no truth to 2 + 2 = 4, it is simply an agreed upon set of symbols that we hope capture our perception of the world around us.
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