On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:02 AM, Keean Schupke <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3 April 2015 at 12:21, Matt Oliveri <[email protected]> wrote:
>> The other way to see it is that all LF signatures have semantics as
>> HOAS. In that case, you're defining a fancy type of syntax tree. In
>> this case it happens to get you syntax isomorphic to the natural
>> numbers. However this trick will not continue to work once you're
>> dealing with mathematical objects that aren't just syntax.
>
> Really? Proof by example. Please provide a mathematical object you cannot
> express.

No, I'm saying you won't be able to reason about mathematical objects
in general. You can express objects just fine, since that's vague and
would include writing a signature for it. Without defining your own
notion of proposition, you cannot prove most mathematical theorems in
Twelf.

>> So for the purpose of developing math internally to an LF-defined
>> logic, the signature should be viewed as the rules and axioms for the
>> logic.
>
> The logical framework is a logic, (the core semantics of Twelf map to
> lambda-Prolog).

The logical framework is a logic in a technical sense, but it's not
designed for proving things. In that sense it's not a logic. It's
designed for defining logics. LF is the metalanguage for a logic of
your choice.

> For example given the definition of
> addition above and natural numbers you can prove its a group for example.

That's not much of a theorem. It's just pointing out certain structure
on the natural numbers. But yes, that's a good example of something
mathematical that LF actually can prove.

>> Again with "A LF"...
>> The LF I'm talking about is not really a full-fledged logic, in that
>> it doesn't have enough propositional connectives. So you can't really
>> say whether it's intuitionistic or not. And as a matter of fact, LF is
>> _not_ substructural. (There are modified versions that are, I think.)
>
> An LF is a logic in the sense that Prolog is a logic language. Maybe I am
> over-generalising to all logical-frameworks. Maybe I need a different word
> for a logical-framework that is also a logic?

No, that's accurate, but you're arguing for my side, because Prolog
can't prove very much about math either.

I am using LF to refer to a specific type system implemented by Twelf.
Perhaps you are just using it as an acronym for logical framework?
(Any logical framework?)

>> > You can go on to use the case analysis and induction to prove
>> > addition over all nats etc.
>>
>> This is due to the HOAS semantics. Again, you cannot expect to go
>> about all of math in this manner.
>
> Please provide an example. I think you can derive the whole of maths :-)

Well, I'm worried you'll just misunderstand the task, but that would
hopefully clarify the misunderstanding, at least. I'll put it in
another email.
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