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I've heard many times that (in an intuitionistic setting) the cardinality of the powerset of a singleton set is greater than 2.

I don't remember exactly the formulation so I might be getting something wrong.

This is besides the evident "intuitionistic logic has more than two truth values". How do I connect these two things?

I've seen some topos theory so it doesn't surprise me that much, but I would like to understand the specifics of this particular case. Why do we have here that the powerset of 1 is the set of truth values?

Is it that you can't prove it's of cardinality 2? or can you actually prove it has some specific cardinality? do you need a classical meta-theory to say this or can you do it in a purely intuitionistic setting?

I don't really know how to begin proving such a thing, any help is appreciated.

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    $\begingroup$ What does cardinality even mean in a setting where trichotomy fails? $\endgroup$
    – Zhen Lin
    Commented Oct 23 at 7:07
  • $\begingroup$ @ZhenLin exactly, I'm as confused. Is that the correct answer? or is there something more to be said? $\endgroup$
    – Julián
    Commented Oct 23 at 7:08
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    $\begingroup$ One thing which might be related to what you are looking for: in intuitionistic mathematics, allowing for powersets, P(1) corresponds to the set of "sub-singletons". Of course classically there are only two subsingletons, but if your theory is weak, there can be more. These form a Heyting algebra, instead of a Boolean algebra. If you take for instance the topos of sheaves over a topological space X, then P(1) in that case is isomorphic to the opens of the topological space, so if you take to be your model of intuitionistic mathematics it provides one example of what you're looking for. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23 at 7:18
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    $\begingroup$ The brief answer is that there is no satisfactory definition of “cardinality” in constructive math. It is not hard to see that if $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ injects into $Ω:=\mathcal{P}(1)$ then $n≤2$ (I can post details if needed), so in this sense $Ω$ is “small”. On the other hand, I remember seeing a construction somewhere of a (Grothendieck, I think) topos in which $Ω$ fails to be subcountable (i.e., where $Ω$ is not the quotient of a subset of the natural numbers object), so in this sense it can be “big”. $\endgroup$
    – Gro-Tsen
    Commented Oct 23 at 13:39

2 Answers 2

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Expanding what I wrote in a comment.

First, cardinality is hard to define in constructive math. We certainly get an equivalence relation (ignoring the issue of exactly what this is an equivalence relation on) by considering the notion “$X$ and $Y$ are in bijection”, and is tempting to write this as $|X|=|Y|$. Now classically we can define a partial order relation $|X|\leq|Y|$ by “$X$ injects into $Y$” (which, in ZFC, turns out to even be a total order); but the fact that this is an order, or more precisely, that this is antisymmetric (if $X$ injects into $Y$ and $Y$ injects into $X$, then there is a bijection between $X$ and $Y$) is the Cantor-Bernstein theorem, which is not valid constructively. Instead, “$X$ injects into $Y$” just gives us a preorder relation, and now we have two different equivalence relations which might define a form of cardinality: “$X$ and $Y$ are in bijection” and the coarser “$X$ injects into $Y$ and $Y$ injects into $X$” equivalence relation obtained from this preorder. I don't know of much study of these relations, but they are probably not very well behaved: for example, with respect to surjections, already in classical ZF, a set might surject onto a set of strictly larger cardinality; maybe there is a notion to be made of cardinality from surjections, but already in ZF this does not behave very well, so I'm pessimistic.

Nevertheless, some notions are fairly standard (although the names below aren't universal):

  • A set is said to be finite when it is in bijection with $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for a certain natural number $n$ (possibly $n=0$ with the convention that $\{1,\ldots,n\} = \varnothing$ when $n=0$; replace $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ by $\{0,\ldots,n-1\}$ if you prefer numbering things from $0$ so that it works better; anyway, this isn't relevant here because, constructively, natural numbers are discrete: if $i,j\in\mathbb{N}$ then $i<j$ or $i=j$ or $i>j$ holds). We can then call $n$ (which is well-defined) the cardinal of the set, and this notion behaves well, but, of course, it is defined only for some very specific sets.

  • A set is said to be finitely enumerated (or “Kuratowski-finite”, and some people just call this “finite”) when it is surjected by $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for some natural number $n$. Note that you might be tempted to ask about the smallest $n$ such that $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ surjects the set, but this need not exist (even if an $n$ does exist, i.e., the set is finitely enumerated), so no notion of cardinality from this.

  • A set is said to be subfinite when it injects into $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for some natural number $n$, i.e., the set is in bijection with a subset of some $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ (equivalently, a bounded subset of $\mathbb{N}$), i.e., it is a subset of a finite set. Again, you might be tempted to ask about the smallest $n$ such that this holds, but it need not exist (even if the set is subfinite).

  • A set is said to be subfinitely enumerated when it is surjected by a subset of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for some natural number $n$. It is also true that this is the same as being a subset of a finitely enumerated set, although this is not completely obvious.

The first two notions are clearly more important than the other two, but all four arise. Also, “finite” is equivalent to “finitely enumerated and discrete” and to “finitely enumerated and subfinite”. (A set $X$ is “discrete” when $(x=y)\lor\neg(x=y)$ for all $x,y\in X$.)

We can also make the same definitions replacing $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ by $\mathbb{N}$. Terminology is… all over the place. I suppose it's more reasonable to call them something like “exactly countable”, “countably enumerated”, “subcountable” and “subcountably enumerated”, but here maybe you also want to add notions which replace $\mathbb{N}$ by a decidable subset of $\mathbb{N}$ (a subset $S\subseteq X$ is said to be “decidable” when $(x\in S)\lor\neg(x\in S)$ for all $x\in X$).

Lost? That's pretty much the reason people don't look at cardinality in constructive math: it quickly descends into a myriad of hard-to-relate notions.


Nevertheless, what can be said about $\Omega := \mathcal{P}(1)$?

Well, I should first point out that I'm implicitly working in something like IZF or the internal logic of a topos. In stronger (“even more constructive”, as one might call them, or perhaps more accurately “more predicative”) theories like CZF, $\Omega$ might… not even exist. And this is arguably because it might be too large to be a set. But let's stick to a framework in which we're allowed to take powersets.

Here's one thing:

Proposition: If $\Omega$ is discrete, then Excluded Middle holds. In particular, if $\Omega$ is finite or even subfinite (“subfinite” implies “discrete”), then Excluded Middle holds, and $\Omega$ is, in fact, finite with cardinality $2$.

Proof. That a set $X$ is “discrete” means that $(x=y)\lor\neg(x=y)$ for all $x,y\in X$. In the case of $\Omega$, equality is equivalence, so we are asserting $(p\Leftrightarrow q)\lor\neg(p\Leftrightarrow q)$ for all $p,q\in\Omega$. Applying this to $q=\top$ and using the fact that $(p\Leftrightarrow\top)$ is just $p$, we get $p\lor\neg p$ for all $p\in\Omega$. This is LEM. And of course, if LEM holds, then we are in classical logic and it is trivial that $\Omega$ has exactly two elements. ∎

Along similar lines:

Proposition: (A) If $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ injects into $\Omega$ then $n\leq 2$. ❧ (B) If $\Omega$ surjects onto $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ then $n\leq 2$.

Proof. For (A), it is enough to show that $\{1,2,3\}$ does not inject into $\Omega$ (because $\neg(n\geq 3)$ implies $n\leq 2$ for natural numbers). If it does, then there are $p_1,p_2,p_3\in\Omega$ such that $\neg(p_1\Leftrightarrow p_2)$ and $\neg(p_2\Leftrightarrow p_3)$ and $\neg(p_3\Leftrightarrow p_1)$. But similarly, for (B), it is enough to show that $\Omega$ does not surject onto $\{1,2,3\}$ (because if it surjects onto $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for $n\geq 3$ then it certainly surjects onto $\{1,2,3\}$), and this again gives us $p_1,p_2,p_3$ with the same conditions.

So we just have to show a contradiction from the existence of $p_1,p_2,p_3\in\Omega$ such that $\neg(p_1\Leftrightarrow p_2)$ and $\neg(p_2\Leftrightarrow p_3)$ and $\neg(p_3\Leftrightarrow p_1)$.

Now note that any of the eight “classical” combinations $p_1\land p_2\land p_3$, $p_1\land p_2\land\neg p_3$ through $\neg p_1\land\neg p_2\land\neg p_3$ trivially gives a contradiction. So the negation of the disjunction $(p_1\land p_2\land p_3) \lor \cdots \lor (\neg p_1\land\neg p_2\land\neg p_3)$ holds. But by distributivity, this eightfold disjunction is just $(p_1\lor\neg p_1) \land (p_2\lor\neg p_2) \land (p_3\lor\neg p_3)$. So the disjunction of that holds. But we have $\neg\neg(p_1\lor\neg p_1)$ and similarly or the other two. So $\neg\neg((p_1\lor\neg p_1) \land (p_2\lor\neg p_2) \land (p_3\lor\neg p_3))$ (using the standard fact that $\neg\neg$ distributes over conjunctions). But we just proved $\neg((p_1\lor\neg p_1) \land (p_2\lor\neg p_2) \land (p_3\lor\neg p_3))$. So we have a contradiction. ∎

This shows that in a certain sense, $\Omega$ can't be too large. Note that $\{1,2\}$ (OK, I really should have started numbering at $0$ and call this $\{0,1\}$) does inject into $\Omega$ as $\{\bot,\top\}$, so “the largest $n$ such that $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ injects into $\Omega$” is well-defined and has the value $2$ exactly.

I might as well mention:

Proposition: If $\Omega$ surjects onto $\{0,1\}$ (equivalently, $\{1,2\}$) then the Weak Law of Excluded Middle (that is $\neg p\lor\neg\neg p$ for all $p\in\Omega$ holds), and conversely.

Proof. We assume we have a function $\chi\colon\Omega\to\{0,1\}$ surjective. Since we can replace $\chi$ by $1-\chi$, we might as well assume $\chi(\top)=1$. By surjectivity, there is $p\in\Omega$ such that $\chi(p)=0$. Now $p=\top$ is an obvious contradiction, so $\neg(p=\top)$; but $p=\top$ means the same as $p$, so $\neg p$; so $p=\bot$; so now we have $\chi(\bot)=0$.

If $p\in\Omega$ is such that $\chi(p)=0$ then $p=\top$ is a contradiction, so $\neg p$ (same reasoning as above). Similarly, if $\chi(p)=1$ then $p=\bot$ is a contradiction, so $\neg\neg p$. But since we must have $\chi(p)=0$ or $\chi(p)=1$, we have $\neg p$ or $\neg\neg p$, which is WLEM.

As for the converse: if $\neg p\lor\neg\neg p$ holds for all $p\in\Omega$, we can define $\chi(p)=0$ when $\neg p$ and $\chi(p)=1$ when $\neg\neg p$, and WLEM ensures that this $\chi$ is defined on all of $\Omega$, and it is surjective since $\chi(\bot)=0$ and $\chi(\top)=1$. ∎

All these things tend to suggest that $\Omega$ can't be “large” in the sense of containing a large finite set (let alone $\mathbb{N}$) or surjecting onto one.


Now on the other hand, $\Omega$ can be “large” in the following sense:

(Meta-)Proposition: It is consistent that no subset of $\mathbb{N}$ surjects onto $\Omega$.

Proof. Working externally in a classical universe, consider the topos of sheaves over $\mathbb{R}$. Since an injection of sheaves gives an injection of stalks at a point and a sujection of sheaves gives a surjection of stalks at a point, any sheaf which is internally surjected by a subset of the natural numbers object (viꝫ. the constant sheaf with value $\mathbb{N}$) has countable stalk at any point. But $\Omega$ is the sheaf of open sets of $\mathbb{R}$, and it is easy to see that there are more than countably many germs of open sets at a point. ∎

(Technical note: this is a topos-based argument; if you want a consistency result with IZF, construct the cumulative hierarchy within the topos in question.)

TL;DR: There is no satisfactory notion of cardinality; nevertheless, $\Omega$ can't be large in the sense that it can't contain or surject onto $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ unless $n\leq 2$; however, you might not be able to surject a subset of $\mathbb{N}$ onto it, meaning it might fail to be “countable” even in the weakest possible sense of the word (“subcountably enumerated” or whatever you might want to call it).

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    $\begingroup$ For propositions (A) and (B), I'd do it this way: let's show a contradiction from $¬(p_1 ⇔ p_2), ¬(p_2 ⇔ p_3), ¬(p_3 ⇔ p_1)$; since our goal is $⊥$ we can get the LEM instances $p_1 ∨ ¬p_1, p_2 ∨ ¬p_2, p_3 ∨ ¬p_3$ for free, which gets us into the 8 possible cases, and each case is clearly absurd. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23 at 20:25
  • $\begingroup$ (It seems a little bit simpler to me than distributing $¬¬$ over conjunctions etc.) $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23 at 20:25
  • $\begingroup$ @JeanAbouSamra I think saying “since our goal is to get $\bot$ we can reason with LEM” is the same as reasoning under $\neg\neg$. So, yes, we can do that, but provided the reader is familiar (which I wasn't until I asked myself why you were making that argument). $\endgroup$
    – Gro-Tsen
    Commented Oct 23 at 21:00
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "reasoning under ¬¬", but I guess you are thinking of applying ¬¬-translation. What I had in mind is a lot cheaper: say you want to prove $Γ, ¬¬P ⊢ ⊥$, applying the $¬¬P$ turns this into $Γ ⊢ ¬P$, then introducing the hypothesis leaves $Γ, P ⊢ ⊥$, which means you can freely eliminate $¬¬$ before a hypothesis when the goal is $⊥$, and the use of LEM works because $¬¬(P ∨ ¬P)$ is a tautology and you just strip $¬¬$. No global proof translation is required. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23 at 21:21
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    $\begingroup$ I learnt this trick from an oblique parenthesis in a comment by Naïm Favier somewhere on this site or on MO. Anyway, to each their intuition I guess, but I've found this useful personally. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 23 at 21:22
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Let $\Omega$ be the set of subsets of a singleton set – for concreteness, $1 = \{ 0 \}$, and $0 = \{ \}$. We certainly have $2 = \{ 0, 1 \} \subseteq \Omega$, so if it makes sense to talk about the cardinality of $\Omega$ then it should be at least $2$.

Why do we say elements of $\Omega$ are truth values? Well, whatever a truth value is, a truth-valued function must be a proposition. A proposition determines a subset, so the set of "pure" truth values – propositions that have no free variables – should correspond to the set of subsets of a singleton set (because having no free variables should be the same as having one free variable and constraining it to be a constant). This turns out to work very well – but note the sleight of hand where we replaced propositions (which are intensional) with subsets (which are extensional).

Could there be more elements of $\Omega$? Let $a \in \Omega$, i.e. $a \subseteq 1$. Suppose $a \ne 0$ (i.e. $\lnot \forall (x \in 1) \lnot (x \in a)$) and $a \ne 1$ (i.e. $\lnot \forall (x \in 1) (x \in a)$). Since $\forall (x \in 1) (x = 0)$, we obtain $\lnot \lnot (0 \in a)$ and $\lnot (0 \in a)$. But this is a contradiction, so we deduce $\lnot ((a \ne 0) \land (a \ne 1))$; in words: there does not exist an element of $\Omega$ that is neither $0$ nor $1$. This is equivalent (constructively!) to $\lnot \lnot ((a = 0) \lor (a = 1))$; in words: the inclusion $2 \hookrightarrow \Omega$ is not not surjective. Thus, even constructively, we can deny the existence of an injective map $3 \to \Omega$ and deny the denial of the bijectivity of $2$ and $\Omega$.

So what do people actually mean when they say there may be more than two truth values? The above argument shows they cannot be talking about $\Omega$; at least, not what happens internally. If we step "outside" and look at specific models of logic we do find models with many truth values. But this has nothing to do with constructiveness! Boolean-valued models can have more than two truth values too – there are many boolean algebras other than $2$, even infinite ones. Nonetheless, internally, they satisfy $(a = 0) \lor (a = 1)$, i.e. $2 = \Omega$. Whatever the "extra" truth values are, internally, they cannot be simultaneously distinct from the two classical truth values.

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