Quickie on Boolean valued models

351 Views Asked by At

Bell writes on page 21 (you may use the search in the preview to search for "21" to view the page):

"..., we show that, for any complete Boolean algebra $B$, all the theorems of $ZFC$ are true in $V^{(B)}$. ..."

On Wikipedia it says: "For any poset $P$ there is a complete Boolean algebra $B$ and a map $e$ from $P$ to $B^+$ (the non-zero elements of $B$) such that the image is dense, $e(p)\le e(q)$ whenever $p \le q$, and $e(p)e(q)=0$ whenever $p$ and $q$ are incompatible. This Boolean algebra is unique up to isomorphism. It can be constructed as the algebra of regular open sets in the topological space of $P$ (with underlying set $P$, and a base given by the sets $U_p$ of elements $q$ with $q\le p$)."


Question 1: Is it the case that if we extend $V$ then we can use any Boolean algebra but if we use a model $M \subset V$ then we have to use the unique Boolean algebra as described on Wikipedia?

Question 2: Assume I have a model $M$ of some theory, not necessarily $ZF$, and I want to extend it. Then I first want to construct a Boolean valued model. To this end, I first want to construct a suitable Boolean algebra satisfying the requirements mentioned on Wikipedia. (Is this correct so far?) Then what do regular open sets look like in the topology generated by $U_p$? (A set is called regular open if $U = \mathring{\overline{U}}$)

Many thanks for your help.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

4
On BEST ANSWER

Q1. You can use any complete Boolean algebra in your ground model. The construction on Wikipedia gives a method of embedding an arbitrary poset $P$ in a complete Boolean algebra $B$ via a map $e : P \hookrightarrow B$.

Q2. Don't worry too much about what regular open sets look like. The open sets of a poset are generated by down-sets $\downarrow(p) = \{ q \in P\, :\, q \le p \}$; that is, the open sets are unions of the down-sets. If $P$ were a total order then all the open sets would be either down-sets, $P$ or $\varnothing$, and they'd all be regular. If $P$ is a more general poset then it's a bit more complicated... try drawing a picture.

If you want a more general picture of what a regular open set looks like, just think: they're those open sets which don't change when you close and open them. Equivalently, you lose no information by taking the closure. It's good to consider $\mathbb{R}$: for instance, $(0,1) \cup (1,2)$ isn't regular open since its closure is $[0,2]$ (so the interior of its closure is $(0,2)$). In this case you lose the information that $1$ doesn't lie in the set. On the other hand, $(0,2)$ is regular open.

I recently wrote this introduction to Boolean-valued models and forcing that you might be interested in reading.