The set-theoretic multiverse

DOI10.1017/S1755020311000359MaRDI QIDQ2919945zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Joel David Hamkins

Publication date 23 October 2012

Published in The Review of Symbolic Logic (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4223

zbMATH Keywords

axiom of constructibilitycontinuum hypothesisforcingmultiverse

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Philosophy of mathematics (00A30) Set theory (03E99)

Abstract: The multiverse view in set theory, introduced and argued for in this article, is the view that there are many distinct concepts of set, each instantiated in a corresponding set-theoretic universe. The universe view, in contrast, asserts that there is an absolute background set concept, with a corresponding absolute set-theoretic universe in which every set-theoretic question has a definite answer. The multiverse position, I argue, explains our experience with the enormous diversity of set-theoretic possibilities, a phenomenon that challenges the universe view. In particular, I argue that the continuum hypothesis is settled on the multiverse view by our extensive knowledge about how it behaves in the multiverse, and as a result it can no longer be settled in the manner formerly hoped for.

Review text

This paper argues for a new view of set theory, based on the concept of multiverse. The traditional view assumes a fixed concept of set and works within the universe of all sets. The author proposes that ``there are diverse distinct concepts of set, each instantiated in a corresponding set-theoretic universe, which exhibits diverse set-theoretic truths. The resulting study is an array of new fantastic, and sometimes bewildering, concepts and results that already have yielded a flowering of what amounts to a new branch of set theory. This ground-breaking paper gives us a glimpse of the amazingly fecund developments spearheaded by the author and, among others, by G. Fuchs, J. Reitz, V. Gitman, D. Linetsky, B. Löwe, W. H. Woodin, D. Seabold, R. Laver, R. M. Solovay, J. R. Steel, S.-D. Friedman, P. Welch, S. Stavi, and J. Väänänen. Readers should be familiar with forcing techniques, which are fundamental throughout. Two case studies of the multiverse view are given for the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of constructibility. Then the author formulates several basic principles that illustrate the multiverse perspective. (For example, the Realizability Principle: For any universe \(V\), if \(W\) is a model of set theory and definable or interpreted in \(V\), then \(W\) is a universe. Another example: Every universe \(V\) is a countable transitive model in another universe \(W\) satisfying \(V = L\).) There is also a seven-page appendix: ``Multiverse-inspired mathematics, dealing with two topics, what the author calls the modal logic of forcing and set-theoretic geology.

Recommendations

• The set-theoretic multiverse: a natural context for set theory
• A MULTIVERSE PERSPECTIVE ON THE AXIOM OF CONSTRUCTIBILITY
• Forcing, Multiverse and Realism
• The hyperuniverse program
• Multiverse conceptions in set theory

Cites work

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Cited in

(81)

• Infinite populations, choice and determinacy
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• Complemented subsets and Boolean-valued, partial functions
• Defining long words succinctly in FO and MSO
• On the first-order parts of problems in the Weihrauch degrees
• Algorithmically random series
• Ideal presentations and numberings of some classes of effective quasi-Polish spaces
• Lower bounds on () and other properties of -register machines
• Reifying dynamical algebra: maximal ideals in countable rings, constructively
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• The problem of existence for descriptivism about the reference of set-theoretic expressions
• Intuition and observation
• Arealism, thin realism, and the problem of extrinsic evidence
• Hamkins' analogy between set theory and geometry: pluralism by leveling up?
• What is forcing potentialism?
• Higher-order Platonism and multiversism
• Language, models, and reality: weak existence and a threefold correspondence

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