I read this probably about 7? years ago but it was probably published earlier than that. It was in the back of a book of short stories. I don't remember anything about the title or the cover, just that I found the book in one of my friend's room and glanced through it while he was gone. I think he had gotten it from the library.

It was a pretty short story about a society of humans that were obsessed with the purity of truth. They sought truth in everything they did and were kind of assholes to everyone else about it. They might have lived in the mountains or maybe just on the steppe. The main character was a "truth-seeker" which was revealed to mean that he was a mathematician/physician. They never called it "math" or "physics", though. The main character's job was to "extend the fundamental truths" which meant he studied the basic truths of the world, the axioms from which everything else is built, and developed theories from them.

Now having more years of math under my belt I think the main character was talking about basic topology in an abstract way-- saying something like "the truth of structures are that many are the same", playing on the coffee cup/doughnut trope. Also could have had something to do with Boolean algebra and lambda calculus, in the way that everything can be built from a binary code of yes/no.

Thanks for your help!

I read this probably about 7? years ago but it was probably published earlier than that. It was in the back of a book of short stories. I don't remember anything about the title or the cover, just that I found the book in one of my friend's room and glanced through it while he was gone. I think he had gotten it from the library.

It was a pretty short story about a society of humans that were obsessed with the purity of truth. They sought truth in everything they did and were kind of assholes to everyone else about it. They might have lived in the mountains or maybe just on the steppe. The main character was a "truth-seeker" which was revealed to mean that he was a mathematician/physicist. They never called it "math" or "physics", though. The main character's job was to "extend the fundamental truths" which meant he studied the basic truths of the world, the axioms from which everything else is built, and developed theories from them.

Now having more years of math under my belt I think the main character was talking about basic topology in an abstract way-- saying something like "the truth of structures are that many are the same", playing on the coffee cup/doughnut trope. Also could have had something to do with Boolean algebra and lambda calculus, in the way that everything can be built from a binary code of yes/no.

Thanks for your help!

edit, because it's late and I forgot to include this info:

The main character is a young ish man who's trained most of his life for the "truth-seeker" position. There are other normal jobs in the society, but "truth-seeker" is considered above all else. The title of "truth-seeker" can also apply to artists and other types of scientists. Religion is considered the worst of all lies. The story was about the main character's questions about spirituality and who and what created the axioms that he studies.