English

Reduction Complexities in Set Theory

Logic 2026-05-08 v6

Abstract

In \cite{Ca2016} and \cite{Ca2018}, we introduced a notion of effective reducibility between set-theoretical Π2\Pi_{2}-statements; in \cite{Ca2025}, this was extended to statements of arbitrary (potentially even infinite) quantifier complexity. We also considered a corresponding notion of Weihrauch reducibility, which allows only one call to the effectivizer of ψ\psi in a reduction of ϕ\phi to ψ\psi. In Stammes \cite{StammesMaster}, a considerably refined analysis through interpolating between these two notions was proposed, where one asks how many calls to an effectivizer for ψ\psi are required for effectivizing ϕ\phi. This allows us to make formally precise questions such as ``how many ordinals does one need to check for being cardinals in order to compute the cardinality of a given ordinal?'' and (partially) answer many of them. Many of these anwers turn out to be independent of ZFC.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.02766,
  title  = {Reduction Complexities in Set Theory},
  author = {Merlin Carl},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.02766},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:18:12.611Z