natural deduction metalanguage, practical foundations
type theory (dependent, intensional, observational type theory, homotopy type theory)
computational trinitarianism =
propositions as types +programs as proofs +relation type theory/category theory
In homotopy type theory, the notion of mere proposition is an internalization of the notion of proposition / (-1)-truncated object. Mere propositions are also called h-propositions, types of h-level , -truncated types, or even just propositions if no ambiguity will result. Semantically, mere propositions correspond to (-1)-groupoids or more generally (-1)-truncated objects.
Mere propositions are one way to embed logic into homotopy type theory, via the propositions as some types / bracket types approach. For many purposes, this is the “correct” way to embed logic (as opposed to the propositions as types approach — for instance, the PAT version of excluded middle contradicts the univalence axiom, whereas the mere-propositional version does not).
Consider intensional type theory with dependent sums, dependent products, and identity types.
There are many equivalent definitions of a type being an h-proposition. Perhaps the simplest is as follows.
For a type, let denote the dependent product of the identity types for all pairs of terms of :
We say that is an h-proposition if is an inhabited type.
In propositions as types language, this can be pronounced as “every two elements of are equal”.
The first fits into the general inductive definition of n-groupoid: an -groupoid is an -groupoid if all its hom-groupoids are -groupoids.
The second says that being a proposition is equivalent to being “contractible if inhabited”, and when isContr is expanded out to , the resulting type is just the type of the graphs of dependent functions of .
The third states that being a proposition is the same as being a -local type: the function
which takes elements to constant functions from the boolean domain with value is an equivalence of types.
The fourth states that being a proposition is equivalent to the condition that for every function from the boolean domain, , and is interderivable from the usual definition of isProp via the recursion principle of the boolean domain.
The fifth states that being a proposition is equivalent to the condition that for every function from the boolean domain, is contractible, and is interderivable from the first via the recursion principle of the boolean domain.
The sixth states that being a proposition is equivalent to the condition that every function from the boolean domain is a weakly constant function, and can be proven to be equivalent to the fourth via double induction on the boolean domain and the properties of identity types.
The seventh states that being a proposition is equivalent to the condition that every function from the boolean domain to factors through the interval type via the function defined by the recursion principle of the boolean domain.
The usual definition of isProp is given by the following rules:
If the dependent type theory doesn’t have dependent function types, but still has identity types one could still define isProp by adding the formation, introduction, elimination, computation, and uniqueness rules for isProp:
Formation rules for isProp types:
Introduction rules for isProp types:
Elimination rules for isProp types:
Computation rules for isProp types:
Uniqueness rules for isProp types:
We can prove that for any , the type is an h-proposition, i.e. . Thus, any two inhabitants of (witnesses that is an h-proposition) are “equal”.
Every function between h-propositions and is an embedding of types.
If and are h-props and there exist maps and , then and are equivalent. This follows from the fact that if and are types and there exists embeddings and , then and are equivalent.
Suppose that is a mere proposition. Then is equivalent to the existential quantifier , where is the constant function from to the booleans which takes elements of to the boolean . Then, one can show that various principles of omniscience are equivalent to weak versions of excluded middle, via the special case of the constant function :
We discuss the categorical semantics of h-propositions.
Let be a locally cartesian closed category with sufficient structure to interpret all the above type theory. This means that has a weak factorization system with stable path objects, and that trivial cofibrations are preserved by pullback along fibrations between fibrant objects. (We ignore questions of coherence, which are not important for this discussion.)
Then for a fibrant object , the object defined above (with the first definition) is obtained by taking dependent product of the path-object along the projection . By adjunction, a global element of is therefore equivalent to a section of the path-object, which exactly means a (right) homotopy between the two projections . The existence of such a homotopy, in turn, is equivalent to saying that any two maps are homotopic.
More generally, we may apply this locally. Suppose that is a fibration, which we can regard as a dependent type
Then we have a dependent type
represented by a fibration . By applying the above argument in the slice category , we see that has a section exactly when any two maps in into are homotopic over . We can also construct the type
in global context, which has a global element precisely when has a section.
isProp
homotopy level | n-truncation | homotopy theory | higher category theory | higher topos theory | homotopy type theory |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
h-level 0 | (-2)-truncated | contractible space | (-2)-groupoid | true/unit type/contractible type | |
h-level 1 | (-1)-truncated | contractible-if-inhabited | (-1)-groupoid/truth value | (0,1)-sheaf/ideal | mere proposition/h-proposition |
h-level 2 | 0-truncated | homotopy 0-type | 0-groupoid/set | sheaf | h-set |
h-level 3 | 1-truncated | homotopy 1-type | 1-groupoid/groupoid | (2,1)-sheaf/stack | h-groupoid |
h-level 4 | 2-truncated | homotopy 2-type | 2-groupoid | (3,1)-sheaf/2-stack | h-2-groupoid |
h-level 5 | 3-truncated | homotopy 3-type | 3-groupoid | (4,1)-sheaf/3-stack | h-3-groupoid |
h-level | -truncated | homotopy n-type | n-groupoid | (n+1,1)-sheaf/n-stack | h--groupoid |
h-level | untruncated | homotopy type | ∞-groupoid | (∞,1)-sheaf/∞-stack | h--groupoid |
Last revised on September 6, 2024 at 22:27:07. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.