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matt grime
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neurocomp2003 said:but a bag is an object.
It is also an analogy.
neurocomp2003 said:but a bag is an object.
neurocomp2003 said:yeah that's the part of set theory i never got...because I didn't understand why {{}}!={}
Always thought that set theory started with one element/singleton {x}
A pair of brackets is something. As you guys are using them, a pair of brackets denotes a set. The empty set is a set. It seems like you're looking through the brackets, as if you can just delete them if there is nothing inside of them. Is that how you're looking at things? That isn't how it works.neurocomp2003 said:matt grime: so your saying a set that contains a set of no elements? wouldn't that be no elements? What is a set of no elements? just a pair of brace brackets?
No, it defines (or extends) equality on sets in terms of the membership relation: two sets are equal iff they contain the same members. Perhaps you are thinking of the Axiom of Infinity. That and the Axiom of the Empty Set are the only two axioms that I have ever seen included in any of the ZF axiomatizations that actually give you a set. At most, the other axioms give you sets if you already have other sets.Micky: doesn't teh axiom of extensionality states there exists something?
neurocomp2003 said:matt grime: so your saying a set that contains a set of no elements? wouldn't that be no elements?
neurocomp2003 said:yeah that's the part of set theory i never got...because I didn't understand why {{}}!={}
There certainly could be. As things are usually done, I think you're bordering on the logical matters, which are usually left in the background in math. Assume your background theory includes first-order logic, which I think is the most used logic in math. For any theory that includes an equality symbol, that symbol gets interpreted, by convention, as the identity relation on the domain of your structure. So for any such theory, the formulaneurocomp2003 said:ok i sort of get what you all are saying now...thanks for explaining itto me.
Is there a "Set Existence Axiom" ( thereexists x = x)
The empty set arises naturally from several places. One rather intuitive place, I guess, is the connection between properties and sets. A property that no object has, or that is satisfied by no object, corresponds to the empty set. If no object has the property of being a square circle (or not being equal to itself or being a penguin on my lap), the set of all objects that have the property of being square circles (or not being equal to themselves or being penguins on my lap) would be empty. What objects would such a set contain?i never really understood the empty set.
What does that equation mean, exactly?3trQN said:Was this adopted in axiomatic set theory after such problems as Russell's Paradox? Was naive set theory approach such that {{}} = {}?
No, not really. I meant phi to be a formula, a well-formed string of the language in which your theory is expressed, but I don't think explaining that is going to help anyway. The empty set can arise in many ways. The most straightforward is to just say that it exists.neurocomp2003 said:honestrosewater: so then the empty set arises because one assumes that there exists objects and these objects are not members of this set [\phi]. Is that correct?
honestrosewater said:Russell's Paradox showed that you can't just make up any property whatsoever and turn it into a set (or that not every property defines a set, or that the extension of every property is not a set, or however you want to think of it). You have to put some restrictions on what kinds of things are allowed to be sets. The axioms from which the antinomy is derived are too loose, too inclusive -- they allow you to derive both some formula and its negation ([itex](x \in y)[/itex] and [itex]\neg(x \in y)[/itex]), so you need to change them to rule out one or both of those formulas. I think that's the basic idea, at least.
Russell's paradox is the most famous of the logical or set-theoretical paradoxes. The paradox arises within naive set theory by considering the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. Such a set appears to be a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself, hence the paradox.
Some sets, such as the set of all teacups, are not members of themselves. Other sets, such as the set of all non-teacups, are members of themselves. Call the set of all sets that are not members of themselves "R." If R is a member of itself, then by definition it must not be a member of itself. Similarly, if R is not a member of itself, then by definition it must be a member of itself.
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The significance of Russell's paradox can be seen once it is realized that, using classical logic, all sentences follow from a contradiction. For example, assuming both P and ~P, any arbitrary proposition, Q, can be proved as follows: from P we obtain P or Q by the rule of Addition; then from P or Q and ~P we obtain Q by the rule of Disjunctive Syllogism. Because of this, and because set theory underlies all branches of mathematics, many people began to worry that, if set theory was inconsistent, no mathematical proof could be trusted completely.
Russell's paradox ultimately stems from the idea that any coherent condition may be used to determine a set. As a result, most attempts at resolving the paradox have concentrated on various ways of restricting the principles governing set existence found within naive set theory, particularly the so-called Comprehension (or Abstraction) axiom. This axiom in effect states that any propositional function, P(x), containing x as a free variable can be used to determine a set. In other words, corresponding to every propositional function, P(x), there will exist a set whose members are exactly those things, x, that have property P. It is now generally, although not universally, agreed that such an axiom must either be abandoned or modified.
matt grime said:That wasn't one of the definitions I gave, at least not knowingly.
I believe the best definition to give is that the empty set is the (unique) set X for which the statement x in X is always false. In particular this is the kind of thing we have to bear in mind when proving "x in X implies something": this is always true if X is the empty set.
neurocomp2003 said:honestrosewater: I think the real reason why it bothers me is because the thread is about counting/numbers and the way i view counting i guess comes from a psychology standpoint...in that as humans we like to label/quantify things(particularly as objects). Thus the #1(singleton/entity/identity) IMO should exist before #0(empty set/null) in set theory. With 1+1=2(add 1/succ op.)...1-1=0(remove 1,pred op.) You have created 2 and 0. However 0+1=1(but how do you add one if 0 exists first and one does.).
loseyourname said:Is there a better way to state that? Is that another way of saying the statement "x is a member of X" is always false? The way you've written it now, it just sounds like the set of all false statements.
matt grime said:No, I meant to write x in X, just like I would write 'for x in [itex]\mathbb{Z}[/itex]'. Better perhaps would have been to put it in brackets thus: (x in X). It is perfectly reasonable literal writing of the symbolic version you prefer, in my opinion. I could have written it in pseudo-tex as x \in X, or even itexed it here.
loseyourname said:Yes, putting it in brackets does clear it up. The problem before was that it seemed "the statement 'x' in X is always false" was also a possible interpretation.
neurocomp2003 said:loseyourname: ""empty set" is pretty self-explanatory" would you need to define an object or symbol and {} before defining the empty set?
neurocomp2003 said:loseyourname: ""empty set" is pretty self-explanatory" would you need to define an object or symbol and {} before defining the empty set?
neurocomp2003 said:but how do you use the terms false and x,X to define it?
Did you see the earlier mentions of theories, structures, and models? I think you'd be interested in this, so we can run through what these things are and how they are related. I'm still piecing some of these things together myself, but I'll try not to stray too far into those areas.neurocomp2003 said:but how do you use the terms false and x,X to define it?