Open Access Publications from the University of California

For information about the Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science at UC Berkeley, please visit http://logic.berkeley.edu.

## Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science

There are 46 publications in this collection, published between 2013 and 2020.
Faculty Publications (23)

### Choice-free Stone duality

The standard topological representation of a Boolean algebra via the clopen sets of a Stone space requires a nonconstructive choice principle, equivalent to the Boolean Prime Ideal Theorem. In this paper, we describe a choice-free topological representation of Boolean algebras. This representation uses a subclass of the spectral spaces that Stone used in his representation of distributive lattices via compact open sets. It also takes advantage of Tarski’s observation that the regular open sets of any topological space form a Boolean algebra. We prove without choice principles that any Boolean algebra arises from a special spectral space X via the compact regular open sets of X; these sets may also be described as those that are both compact open in X and regular open in the upset topology of the specialization order of X, allowing one to apply to an arbitrary Boolean algebra simple reasoning about regular opens of a separative poset. Our representation is therefore a mix of Stone and Tarski, with the two connected by Vietoris: the relevant spectral spaces also arise as the hyperspace of nonempty closed sets of a Stone space endowed with the upper Vietoris topology. This connection makes clear the relation between our point-set topological approach to choice-free Stone duality, which may be called the hyperspace approach, and a point-free approach to choice-free Stone duality using Stone locales. Unlike Stone’s representation of Boolean algebras via Stone spaces, our choice-free topological representation of Boolean algebras does not show that every Boolean algebra can be represented as a field of sets; but like Stone’s representation, it provides the benefit of a topological perspective on Boolean algebras, only now without choice. In addition to representation, we establish a choice-free dual equivalence between the category of Boolean algebras with Boolean homomorphisms and a subcategory of the category of spectral spaces with spectral maps. We show how this duality can be used to prove some basic facts about Boolean algebras.

### Complete Additivity and Modal Incompleteness

In this paper, we tell a story about incompleteness in modal logic. The story weaves together a paper of van Benthem [1979], “Syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness theorems,” and a longstanding open question: whether every normal modal logic can be characterized by a class of completely ad- ditive modal algebras, or as we call them, V-BAOs. Using a first-order reformulation of the property of complete additivity, we prove that the modal logic that starred in van Benthem’s paper resolves the open question in the negative. In addition, for the case of bimodal logic, we show that there is a naturally occurring logic that is incomplete with respect to V-BAOs, namely the provability logic GLB [Japaridze, 1988, Boolos, 1993]. We also show that even logics that are unsound with respect to such algebras do not have to be more complex than the classical propositional calculus. On the other hand, we observe that it is undecidable whether a syntactically defined logic is V-complete. After these results, we generalize the Blok Dichotomy [Blok, 1978] to degrees of V-incompleteness. In the end, we return to van Benthem’s theme of syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness.

### On the Modal Logic of Subset and Superset: Tense Logic over Medvedev Frames

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Working Papers (23)

### Reflection ranks and ordinal analysis

It is well-known that natural axiomatic theories are well-ordered by consistency strength. However, it is possible to construct descending chains of artificial theories with respect to consistency strength. We provide an explanation of this well-orderness phenomenon by studying a coarsening of the consistency strength order, namely, the $\Pi^1_1$ reflection strength order. We prove that there are no descending sequences of $\Pi^1_1$ sound extensions of $\mathsf{ACA}_0$ in this order. Accordingly, we can attach a rank in this order, which we call reflection rank, to any $\Pi^1_1$ sound extension of $\mathsf{ACA}_0$. We prove that for any $\Pi^1_1$ sound theory $T$ extending $\mathsf{ACA}_0^+$, the reflection rank of $T$ equals the proof-theoretic ordinal of $T$. We also prove that the proof-theoretic ordinal of $\alpha$ iterated $\Pi^1_1$ reflection is $\varepsilon_\alpha$. Finally, we use our results to provide straightforward well-foundedness proofs of ordinal notation systems based on reflection principles.

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