From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2350 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Noson Yanofsky" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: A paper for people who fear categories. Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 17:05:26 -0400 Message-ID: Reply-To: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241018597 3718 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:23:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:23:17 +0000 (UTC) To: "categories@mta. ca" Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Jun 10 19:16:36 2003 -0300 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:16:36 -0300 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.10) id 19PrNf-0004wv-00 for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:14:15 -0300 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 41 Original-Lines: 38 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:2350 Archived-At: Dear Esteemed Category Theorists, I have written the following paper for the few people in the world who dread/hate category theory. (I have been told such people exist. Perhaps you know of some.) The paper takes an idea of Lawvere and puts it into a language of sets and functions. Many examples are given to show how one scheme can describe numerous diverse phenomena. The paper should be readable by any undergraduate with a discrete math course. No category theory is used in the paper but the spirit of category theory is employed throughout. Enjoy, Noson Yanofsky =============================== A Universal Approach to Self-Referential Paradoxes, Incompleteness and Fixed Points Abstract: Following F. William Lawvere, we show that many self-referential paradoxes, incompleteness theorems and fixed point theorems fall out of the same simple scheme. We demonstrate these similarities by showing how this simple scheme encompasses the semantic paradoxes, and how they arise as diagonal arguments and fixed point theorems in logic, computability theory, complexity theory and formal language theory. Available at: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/math.LO/0305282