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Coalgebraic Logic: Predicate Liftings

(draft up next monotone predicate liftings and expressive predicate liftings)

Definition

A

n-ary predicate lifting for a functor
T:SetSet
is a natural transformation
2nX2TX

It follows from the Yoneda lemma that such natural transformations are in bijection with functions

T(2n)2.

In one direction, we apply

2nX2TX to the idenity on
X=2n
to obtain
T(2n)2
.

In the other direction, each

T(2n)2 induces a modal operator as follows.

Given a predicate lifting

:T(2n)2 and a collection
ϕ:X2n
of
n
predicates
ϕi:X2
, we obtain
TX2
defined as
TXTϕT(2n)2

Precomposing with a coalgebra

XTX the semantics of a modal formula
ϕ

is then given by

XTXTϕT(2n)2.

A good way to understand what is going on here is to explicitely calculate all unary predicate liftings of the powerset functor.

But before doing this let us clarify terminology.

First, to simplify notation, we will only consider unary predicate liftings in the following.

Terminology: We tend to say predicate lifting for the function

:T22

and modal operator (or sometimes predicate transformer) for the function that maps a predicate

ϕ to the predicate
ϕ:XTXTϕT22.

Question: Would it be better to reverse the terminology? Or perhaps as follows:

  • predicate lifting
    2X2TX
  • predicate transformer
    2X2TX2X
  • modal operator:
    T22

Anyway: Since there is a bijection between predicate liftings and modal operators, we may blur the distinction on occasion.

Example: Powerset

Let

T=P be the powerset functor.

We see right away that there are 16 modal operators

P22

because that is the cardinality of the set of functions of type

P22.

We are interested in explicitely describing all modal operators

:P22 taking predicates
ϕ:X2
to
PXPϕP22

We need to know that

Pϕ takes direct image. This tells us how to interpret the 4 possible results of applying
Pϕ
to a set
S
of successors. Writing
2={0,1}
, if
(Pϕ)S
is [1]

  • {0,1}
    then some successors are outside of
    ϕ
    and some are inside of
    ϕ
    .
  • {0}
    then all and some successors are out.
  • {1}
    then all and some successors are in.
  • {}
    then there are no successors.

For the purpose of further calculations I propose the following abbreviations:

={}0={0}01={0,1}1={1}

for the elements of

P2.

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Exercise: (Assumes familiarity with the classical definition of the modal operators

and
). Show that
,11
defines
and that
1,011
defines
. [2]

Answer. [3]

Observation: The modal operator

:P22 coincides with
:P22
and the modal operator
:P22
coincides with
:P22
.

Modal logic is expressive up to bisimilarity and this means here that all predicate liftings

P22 (and also all
P2n2
) are generated by those for
and
. Let us try to support this with some examples:

Exercise: Using

, as well as propositional connectives, express the predicate liftings
σ
defined by
σ1
where
σ
ranges over
{,0,01,1}
. Also verify that
=¬¬
holds for the corresponding predicate liftings.

Our next concern is to better understand the lattice (Boolean algebra) of all unary modal operators of the powerset functor

P.

We already noted that there are 16 unary modal operators

P22 and we exhibited some salient examples.

From general facts about Boolean algebras we can deduce the following. The Boolean algebra of modal operators

P22 is isomorphic to the free Boolean algebra on two generators, which I call
o
and
i
. [4] These generators combine to the atoms of the Boolean algebra as
oi,o¬i,¬oi,¬o¬i.

Every element of the Boolean algebra of modal operators is a join of these atoms.

Exercise: Define an isomorphism between predicate liftings

P22 and the free Boolean algebra generated by
{o,i}
which maps
to
¬o
and
to
i
.

Answer. [5]

Remark: The isomorphism in the previous exercise has been chosen in such a way that the generator

o is interpreted as "some successors are outside of
ϕ
" and
i
as "some successors are inside".

  1. This choice of interpretation is suggested by how the functor
    P
    acts on
    ϕ
    (as direct image). In particular,
    o
    symbolizes the observation that the direct image under
    ϕ
    of the set of successors contains
    0
    and
    i
    that the direct image contains
    1
    .
  2. From the point of view of Boolean generators there is no reason to prefer
    ¬o
    over
    o
    . But from a logician's point of view
    ¬o
    , which is
    , has the advantage of being a monotone operator. We will study this in more detail in the follow-up note on monotone predicate liftings.

Remark: Items 1. and 2. could be the starting point for a rational reconstruction of why classical modal logic is usually presented in terms of

and
. One would begin with the question of a logic that is invariant under bisimilarity, answer that such a logic is given by the logic of all predicate liftings and then proceed to the insight that
and
generate all predicate liftings in a canonical way.

Summary: We introduced some notation for the set

P2

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and then represented the unary modal operators as subsets of

P2. For example,

  • ={,1}=¬o
    ("nothing out")
  • ={1,01}=i
    ("at least one in")

As a corollary we identified

and
as the generators of the free Boolean algebra of all unary predicate liftings.

Puzzle: If we equip

P2 with the inclusion order, then
is not a monotone function
P22
(when
2
is ordered as
0<1
). On the other hand, we do know that
is a monotone modal operator in the sense that [6]
ϕψϕψ

This puzzle will be resolved in a follow-up note on monotone predicate liftings.

Example: Probability Distributions

Let

D be the functor that maps a set
X
to the set
DX
of finitely supported probability distributions.

The unary modalities are given by sets of distributions on 2

D22.

A modal operators

:D22 takes a predicate
ϕ:X2
to
DXDϕD22

The atoms of the Boolean algebra are the sets

{br} where
br(1)=r
. If
is
{br}
, then
p[[ϕ]]  Pr(xϕ)=r


  1. This reminds me of the square of opposition in Aristotelian logic.

    {1} corresponds to
    ϕ
    "belongs to all successors",
    {0}
    to
    ϕ
    "belongs to no successors",
    to "belongs to some but not all". As far as I understand (not my area of expertise) Aristotle's logic does not admit
    . ↩︎

  2. Here and in the following all elements not explicitly mentioned are sent to

    0. For example, writing
    ,11
    implies
    0,010
    . ↩︎

  3. For example, in the case of

    , one has to verify that with
    defined as
    ,11
    the function
    PXPϕP22
    maps
    SX
    to
    1
    iff
    Sϕ
    . ↩︎

  4. Intuitively,

    o means "some successor outside of
    ϕ
    " and
    i
    means "some successor inside
    ϕ
    ". It is a lucky coincidence that the symbol
    o
    reminds us of both out and
    0
    and
    i
    of both in and
    1
    . ↩︎

  5. Recall that

    means "no successor",
    0
    means "some and all successor outside of
    ϕ
    ",
    1
    means "some and all successors in
    ϕ
    " and
    01
    means "some out and some in".
    Accordingly, we map the elements
    ,0,01,1P2
    to conjunctions of generators as follows.
    ¬o¬i
    ,
    0o¬i
    ,
    01oi
    ,
    1¬oi
    . ↩︎

  6. It also makes sense to replace

    by
    if we think of predicates as propositional functions to
    2={0<1}
    . ↩︎