Revisiting the Continuum Hypothesis

I have been thinking about CH lately for two reasons

1) I reread the article

Hilbert's First Problem: The Continuum Hypothesis by Donald Martin from Proceedings of Symposia  in Pure Mathematics: Mathematical developments arising from Hilbert Problems. 1976. (For a book review of the symposia and, The Honor Class, also about Hilbert's problems, see here.)

The article takes the point of view that CH CAN have an answer. He discusses large cardinals (why assuming they exist is plausible, but alas, that assumption does not seem to resolve CH) and Projective Det.  (why assuming it is true is plausible, but alas, that assumption does not seem to resolve CH).

(A set A \subseteq {0,1}^omega is DETERMINED if either Alice or Bob has a winning strategy in the following non-fun game: they alternate picking bits a_1, b_1, a_2, b_2, ... with Alice going first. If a_1 b_1 a_2 b_2... IS IN A then Alice wins, IF NOT then Bob wins. Martin showed that all Borel sets are determined. Proj Det is the statement that all projections of Borel sets are determined. AD is the axiom that ALL sets A are determined. It contradicts AC.)

But what really inspired this post is the last paragraph:

Throughout the latter part of my discussion, I have been assuming a naive and uncritical attitude towards CH. While this is in fact my attitude, I by no means wish to dismiss the opposite viewpoint.  Those that argue that the concept of set is not sufficiently clear to fix the truth-value of CH have a position that is at present difficult to assail. As long as no new axiom is found which decides CH, their case will continue to grow stronger, and our assertions that the meaning of CH is clear will sound more and more empty.

2) Scott Aaronson mentioned in a blog post (see here) that  he has read and understood the proof that CH is independent of set theory.

SO, this seemed like a good time to revisit thoughts on CH.

 I took a very short poll, just two people, about CH: Stephen Fenner (in a perfect world he would be a set theorists) and Scott Aaronson (having JUST read the proof that CH is ind.  he has thought about it recently).

Here are some thoughts of theirs and mine

1) All three of us are Platonists with regard to the Naturals (I was surprised to find recently that there are people who are not!) but not with regard to the reals.  So we would be OKAY with having CH have no answer.

2) All three of us  agree that it would be nice if SOME axiom was both

a) Intuitively appealing or aesthetically appealing ,  and

b) resolved CH.

I always thought that (a) would be the hard part-- or at least getting everyone (not sure who we are talking about) to AGREE on a new axiom. But even getting an axiom to resolve CH seems hard.  Large cardinals don't seem to do it, and various forms of Determinacy don't seem to do it.

Scott reminded me of Freiling's Axiom of Symmetry (see here) which IS intuitive and DOES resolve CH (its false) though there are problems with it--- a minor variant   of it contradicts AC (I am QUITE FINE with that since AC implies Banach-Tarski which Darling says shows `Math is broken'.)

Stephen recalled some of Hugh Woodin's opinions of CH, but Hugh seems to have changed his mind from NOT(CH): 2^{aleph_0} = aleph_2, to CH:  2^{aleph_0} = aleph_1.(See here.)

3) All three of would be okay with V=L, though note that this would put many set theorists out of work. All the math that applies to the real world would still be intact.  I wonder if in an alternative history the reaction to Russell's paradox would be a formulation of set theory where V=L. We would KNOW that CH is true, KNOW that AC is true. We would know a lot about L but less about forcing.

4) Which Geometry is true: Euclidian, Riemannian, others? This is now regarded as a silly question: Right Tool, Right Job! If you build a bridge use Euclid. If you are doing astronomy use Riemann. Might Set Theory go the same way? It would be AWESOME if Scott Aaronson found some quantum thing where assuming 2^{aleph_0} = aleph_2 was the right way to model it.

5) If I was more plugged into the set theory community I might do a poll of set theorists, about CH. Actually, someone sort-of already has. Penelope Maddy has two excellent and readable articles where she studies what set theorists believe and why.

Believing The Axioms I: here

Believing The Axioms II: here

Those articles were written in 1988. I wonder if they need an update.