English

Projective sets, intuitionistically

Logic 2022-04-22 v3

Abstract

We study `definable' subsets of Baire space N\mathcal{N}. The logic of our arguments is intuitionistic and we use L.E.J.~Brouwer's Thesis on bars in N\mathcal{N} and his continuity axioms. We avoid the operation of taking the complement of a subset of N\mathcal{N}. A subset of N\mathcal{N} is Σ11\mathbf{\Sigma}^1_1 or: analytic if it is the projection of a closed subset of N\mathcal{N}. Important Σ11\mathbf{\Sigma}^1_1 set are the set of the codes of all closed and located subsets of N\mathcal{N} that are positively uncountable and the set of the codes of all located and closed subsets of N\mathcal{N} containing at least one member coding a (positively) infinite subset of N\mathbb{N}. A subset of N\mathcal{N} is strictly analytic if it is the projection of a closed and located subset of N\mathcal{N}. Brouwer's Thesis on bars in N\mathcal{N} proves separation and boundedness theorems for strictly analytic subsets of N\mathcal{N}. A subset of N\mathcal{N} is Π11\mathbf{\Pi}^1_1 or: co-analytic if it is the co-projection of an open subset of N×N=N\mathcal{N} \times \mathcal{N}=\mathcal{N}. There is no symmetry between analytic and co-analytic sets like in classical descriptive set theory. An important Π11\mathbf{\Pi}^1_1 set is the set of the codes of all closed and located subsets of N\mathcal{N} all of whose members code an almost-finite subset of N\mathbb{N}. The set of the codes of closed and located subsets of N\mathcal{N} that are almost-countable, or, equivalently, \{reducible in Cantor's sense, is treated at some length. This set is probably not Π11\mathbf{\Pi}^1_1. The projective hierarchy collapses: every (positively) projective set is Σ21\mathbf{\Sigma}^1_2: the projection of a co-analytic subset of N\mathcal{N}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1104.3077,
  title  = {Projective sets, intuitionistically},
  author = {Wim Veldman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.3077},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

82 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T17:54:42.592Z