BPI in Cohen Model

154 Views Asked by At

I'm reading Miroslav Repicky's paper "A proof of the independence of the Axiom of Choice from the Boolean Prime Ideal Theorem" and I'm confused by the claim that an ideal $I$ on a Boolean algebra $B$ being prime in $OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$ implies that it must be a maximal ideal of $B$ in $OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$. For context, below is a screenshot of the relevant section of the argument:

enter image description here

My concern is that while $I$ selects between $x$ and $\neg x$ for every $x\in B\cap OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$, it is possible that there is some ideal $I'\subseteq B\setminus OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$ so that $I$ and $I'$ generate a larger proper ideal $J$ of $B$, with $I,I',J\in OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$. In other words, if $OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$ is not transitive, $I$ may be prime here without being maximal.

Is there something I'm missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: It seems like the argument runs properly if we take $k$ to be the least natural number so that for some $h'\in^{k+1}A$, $I$ is not maximal in $OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h']$ and make the appropriate minor adjustments from this point onwards.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

9
On

The argument is not trying to show $I$ is prime in $OD^{V[G]}[A,f\frown h]$, it is trying to show that $I$ is prime in $M$. I think this is what you're confused about.

I'll try to repeat relevant parts of their argument. As they described, you can construct $I$. $I\subseteq B$, so every element of $I$ is in $M$, and $I$ has the same support as $B$, so $I\in M$. We want to show that $M\models I\text{ is prime}$; that is, for every $x\in M$, either $x\in I$ or $\lnot x\in I$. It will follow that $M\models I\text{ is maximal}$.

Suppose for contradiction that $I$ is not prime in $M$. Then there must be some $x\in M$ so that neither $x$ nor $\lnot x$ is in $I$. Let us choose such an $x$ with minimal support.

[the rest of their argument will reach a contradiction from assuming $x$ has minimal support; it's not in the screenshot so I assume you understood it]