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Excuse me, if the question sounds too naive.

Non-standard models of PA will have statements of non-standard lengths, basically infinite. And it is also true that every statement of a theory will have a truth value in a model satisfying it. So will these non-standard statements also have truth values ?

If they do, then they must also have truth values in standard models ( if i am not being totally wrong ) since all are models of arithmetic, so what's true or false in one model, must also be either true or false in other models although the truth values might change.. So does the above question makes any sense ? Are there any books or papers dealing with this matter...

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not a logician so take this with a grain of salt. I believe you may be mixing up theory and metatheory here. The nonstandard statements are not "really" statements of PA, from our external, meta-theoretic perspective. So it does not make sense to talk about their truth value in other models. They are only internal to the model they arise in. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 12 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ @SamHopkins but there is a number in non-standard models which encodes proof of $G$ where $G$ is godel's sentence, that number is non-standard , therefore the length of the proof is non-standard. if the non-standard statements don't even have truth-values then it should be meaningless to say that a non-standard proof exists for a standard statement ( $G$ ) (which does have a truth value in both models), since the non-standard proof will have atleast one non-standard statement $\endgroup$
    – Amiren
    Commented Feb 12 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ I left an answer, but for future reference: you may find math.stackexchange.com to be a better place to go than mathoverflow.net. This site is intended for research-level questions, and math.stackexchange.com is more likely to have someone who will give a good answer. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 12 at 16:44
  • $\begingroup$ This is a fun question, but it’s definitely not research-level, which is what MathOverflow is for. I’ve voted for migration to math.stackexchange (our sibling site for questions at all levels), as I think it’d be a good question there! $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 12 at 17:46
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    $\begingroup$ @PeterLeFanuLumsdaine but infact i posted this question on the stackexchange site at first, it actually got deleted after few hours, with no comments at all. That's why i had to post it here... $\endgroup$
    – Amiren
    Commented Feb 12 at 19:17

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The short answer is it depends on just what you mean. The long answer:

When you're looking at a nonstandard model of arithmetic, there's two perspectives from which you might make a definition: externally or internally. From the external perspective, the only real formulae are the finite, well-founded ones, those with a Gödel code in $\mathbb N$. So it doesn't make sense to ask whether some nonstandard $\varphi$ is true or not, since it's not really a formula in the real world.

From the internal perspective, you're looking at what is expressible in the model. A nonstandard model $M$ of PA doesn't know that $\varphi$ is really a weird infinite "formula"; from $M$'s perspective $\varphi$ satisfies the definition of being a (Gödel code of) formula in the language of arithmetic. So does $M$ think $\varphi$ is true?

Since we're thinking from the internal perspective, we must confine ourselves to what $M$ can express. And this is where we run into a difficulty. It's a theorem of, as I recall, Mostowski that if $k$ is a standard integer then the truth predicate restricted to formulae of depth $\le k$ is definable. (The notion of depth that's usually most useful is the number of alternating unbounded quantifier blocks.) For standard formulae $\varphi$ we can make sense of truth internally. (Though not uniformly across all formulae, only across a bounded class.) But if $\varphi$ is nonstandard it won't have standard depth, so we can't use any of those.

Indeed, it's a corollary of Tarski's theorem on the undefinability of truth that you cannot have a definable truth predicate for all formulae of depth $\le e$ for some nonstandard $e$. The reason is, if it were definable, then it'd be definable by some formula $\theta(\varphi,x)$, but $\theta$ is a real formula and so $M$ thinks it has depth $\le e$, and then you can diagonalize. In short, if we just look at what $M$ alone can see then it doesn't make sense to ask whether $\varphi$ is true or not.

But we can expand a bit. We can look instead at $M$ adjoined with a class $T \subseteq M$ so that $T$ satisfies the Tarskian definition of a satisfaction class. Call this $T$ a full satisfaction class, since it measures the truth of all of what $M$ thinks are formulae. This starts to get heavily into the model theory of arithmetic, so let me just state a few highlights.

  1. If there is a full satisfaction class $T$ for $M$, then $M$ is recursively saturated. In particular, not every $M$ admits a full satisfaction class.

  2. If $M$ is countable and recursively saturated, then there are continuum many different full satisfaction classes on $M$. So depending on which $T$ you pick $\varphi$ might be either true or false.

  3. There are uncountable, recursively saturated $M$ which don't admit any full satisfaction class.

The definition of recursive saturation, as well as proofs of all these can be found in Richard Kaye's excellent Models of Peano Arithmetic, in chapter 15. In general, Kaye's book is the go-to source for questions about nonstandard models of arithmetic.

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    $\begingroup$ "But if φ is nonstandard it won't have standard depth". But there are nonstandard formulas that are quantifier free (and thus depth 0)! $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 12 at 16:49
  • $\begingroup$ i was only able to follow a small portion of your answer, as i am still not well-versed with the technical terms you used here.... but what i think i am able to understand is that since the non-standard statements aren't formulas as defined in our real world, so its pointless to ask about there truth values. If i may ask one more question based on your answer - the non-standard statements would atleast have truth values within the intrepretation in those models itself right ? contd. $\endgroup$
    – Amiren
    Commented Feb 12 at 19:24
  • $\begingroup$ cuz else one would be able to distinguish between standard and non-standard numbers in the theory ( under intrepretation in non-standard universe ) as all the non-standard statements won't have truth values.... but this also shows that those statements would must have truth values in other models, unless we are changing the definition of truth values in model theory, every statement which is true in one model must have a truth value in othrs too, here it seems the non-standard statements would be true but inexpressible facts for PA..... this is the paradox i am facing $\endgroup$
    – Amiren
    Commented Feb 12 at 19:27

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