I don’t think “set” has a fixed meaning in modern mathematics. At least one prominent set theorist talks about the set-theoretic multiverse, which roughly speaking means that instead of choosing particular truth values of various statements about sets such as the continuum hypothesis, set theorists study all possible set theories given by all possible (consistent) assignments of truth values to various statements about sets, and look at relationships between these set theories.
In practice, it’s not actually a big deal that “set” doesn’t have a fixed meaning. Most of what we need out of the notion of “set” is the ability to perform certain operations, e.g. take power sets, that have certain properties. In other words, we need a certain set of axioms, e.g. the ZF axioms, to hold. Whether or not those axioms have a unique model is less important than whether or not they’re consistent (that is, have at least one model).
There are also some mathematicians (strict finitists) who reject the existence of the “set of natural numbers”…
I don’t think “set” has a fixed meaning in modern mathematics. At least one prominent set theorist talks about the set-theoretic multiverse, which roughly speaking means that instead of choosing particular truth values of various statements about sets such as the continuum hypothesis, set theorists study all possible set theories given by all possible (consistent) assignments of truth values to various statements about sets, and look at relationships between these set theories.
In practice, it’s not actually a big deal that “set” doesn’t have a fixed meaning. Most of what we need out of the notion of “set” is the ability to perform certain operations, e.g. take power sets, that have certain properties. In other words, we need a certain set of axioms, e.g. the ZF axioms, to hold. Whether or not those axioms have a unique model is less important than whether or not they’re consistent (that is, have at least one model).
There are also some mathematicians (strict finitists) who reject the existence of the “set of natural numbers”…