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I have seen two versions of incompleteness that follow from the correctness of a system and its power (i.e. of a system that satisfies the assumptions of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem).

  1. There is a sentence which is true but unprovable.
  2. There is a sentence which is unprovable and unrefutable.

Does one of these statements follow from the other? The first one does not need a definition of unrefutable, so it seems no. But then, why are not both statements referenced equally often in literature? They seem to be equally interesting?

Here, the system can be any general system, not necessarily talking about natural numbers and not necessarily having operators like "not". We define sets of sentences, true sentences, provable sentences (if the system is correct, this will be a subset of true sentences), refutable sentences (if correct, then these are not true), predicates and an encoding function (which sends a predicate and a natural number to a sentence and can be used to express sets of natural numbers).

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  • $\begingroup$ Unprovable (in system $T$) means $T \nvdash \phi$. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:34
  • $\begingroup$ Unrefutable (in $T$) means $T \nvdash \lnot \phi$. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:34
  • $\begingroup$ If $\phi$ is a sentence, in every model of $T$ one of $\phi$ and $\lnot \phi$ must be true. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:35
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    $\begingroup$ Thus, being both unprovable ($\nvdash$) one of them is unprovable and true. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:35

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When saying "true" we mean "true in a certain model". In the context of arithmetic, "true" means in $\Bbb N$.

If there is a sentence which is true but not provable, then it means it is neither provable nor refutable. On the other hands, if $\varphi$ is neither provable nor refutable, either $\varphi$ or $\lnot\varphi$ is a sentence true in $\Bbb N$, and therefore exactly one of $\varphi,\lnot\varphi$ is true; but neither is provable.

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    $\begingroup$ I read that the first statement follows for more general systems, in which I define a set of sentences, a subset of true sentences and a subset (of the true sentences) of provable sentences, together with a certain enumeration. In particular, it holds for systems in which I don't have things like ¬. $\endgroup$
    – user242318
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:41
  • $\begingroup$ Truth is relative to a structure. In several theories we have "canonical" structures, to which we calibrate our intuition and notion of "truth". But this is not for every theory. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:43
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    $\begingroup$ So your argument does not answer my question of general systems? $\endgroup$
    – user242318
    Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 21:45
  • $\begingroup$ @user242318: See my answer for general systems. In Asaf's answer, the sentence "If there is a sentence which is true but not provable, then it means it is neither provable nor refutable." applies to arithmetically sound formal systems (it does not prove any arithmetical sentence that is false in $\mathbb{N}$), but fails for any arithmetically unsound formal system. $\endgroup$
    – user21820
    Commented Jan 22, 2017 at 14:35
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See this post for a precise generalization of the incompleteness theorems. $ \def\nn{\mathbb{N}} $ There I have defined an arithmetical sentence over a formal system $S$ that interprets arithmetic to be of the form $ι(φ)$ for some sentence $φ$ over PA, where $ι$ is the translation that witnesses that $S$ interprets arithmetic. Similarly we say that an arithmetical sentence $ι(φ)$ over $S$ is true iff $\nn \vDash φ$. For an interesting situation we also define that $S$ refutes an arithmetical sentence $ι(φ)$ iff $S$ proves $ι(\neg φ)$.

Then indeed if $S$ also has decidable proof validity then it satisfies both properties you mentioned, and moreover it is trivial that (2) implies (1) even if $S$ does not have decidable proof validity. But the reverse implication may not hold. For example, let $N'$ be any non-standard model of PA, and $T$ be the complete theory of $N'$, then there is some sentence $φ$ over PA that is true in $\nn$ but false in $N'$, and hence $ι(φ)$ is true but unprovable in $T$, where $ι$ here is of course the identity translation.

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