Selected papers of the conference "Continuity, Computability, Constructivity – From Logic to Algorithms" (CCC 2019 and CCC 2020)

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1. Overlap Algebras as Almost Discrete Locales

Francesco Ciraulo.

Boolean locales are "almost discrete", in the sense that a spatial Boolean locale is just a discrete locale (that is, it corresponds to the frame of open subsets of a discrete space, namely the powerset of a set). This basic fact, however, cannot be proven constructively, that is, over intuitionistic logic, as it requires the full law of excluded middle (LEM). In fact, discrete locales are never Boolean constructively, except for the trivial locale. So, what is an almost discrete locale constructively? Our claim is that Sambin's overlap algebras have good enough features to deserve to be called that. Namely, they include the class of discrete locales, they arise as smallest strongly dense sublocales (of overt locales), and hence they coincide with the Boolean locales if LEM holds.

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2. Stashing And Parallelization Pentagons

Vasco Brattka.

Parallelization is an algebraic operation that lifts problems to sequences in a natural way. Given a sequence as an instance of the parallelized problem, another sequence is a solution of this problem if every component is instance-wise a solution of the original problem. In the Weihrauch lattice parallelization is a closure operator. Here we introduce a dual operation that we call stashing and that also lifts problems to sequences, but such that only some component has to be an instance-wise solution. In this case the solution is stashed away in the sequence. This operation, if properly defined, induces an interior operator in the Weihrauch lattice. We also study the action of the monoid induced by stashing and parallelization on the Weihrauch lattice, and we prove that it leads to at most five distinct degrees, which (in the maximal case) are always organized in pentagons. We also introduce another closely related interior operator in the Weihrauch lattice that replaces solutions of problems by upper Turing cones that are strong enough to compute solutions. It turns out that on parallelizable degrees this interior operator corresponds to stashing. This implies that, somewhat surprisingly, all problems which are simultaneously parallelizable and stashable have computability-theoretic characterizations. Finally, we apply all these results in order to study the recently introduced discontinuity problem, which appears as the bottom of a number of natural […]

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3. Uniform Envelopes

Eike Neumann.

In the author's PhD thesis (2019) universal envelopes were introduced as a tool for studying the continuously obtainable information on discontinuous functions. To any function $f \colon X \to Y$ between $\operatorname{qcb}_0$-spaces one can assign a so-called universal envelope which, in a well-defined sense, encodes all continuously obtainable information on the function. A universal envelope consists of two continuous functions $F \colon X \to L$ and $\xi_L \colon Y \to L$ with values in a $\Sigma$-split injective space $L$. Any continuous function with values in an injective space whose composition with the original function is again continuous factors through the universal envelope. However, it is not possible in general to uniformly compute this factorisation. In this paper we propose the notion of uniform envelopes. A uniform envelope is additionally endowed with a map $u_L \colon L \to \mathcal{O}^2(Y)$ that is compatible with the multiplication of the double powerspace monad $\mathcal{O}^2$ in a certain sense. This yields for every continuous map with values in an injective space a choice of uniformly computable extension. Under a suitable condition which we call uniform universality, this extension yields a uniformly computable solution for the above factorisation problem. Uniform envelopes can be endowed with a composition operation. We establish criteria that ensure that the composition of two uniformly universal envelopes is again uniformly universal. […]

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4. Point-free Construction of Real Exponentiation

Ming Ng ; Steven Vickers.

We define a point-free construction of real exponentiation and logarithms, i.e.\ we construct the maps $\exp\colon (0, \infty)\times \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \!(0,\infty),\, (x, \zeta) \mapsto x^\zeta$ and $\log\colon (1,\infty)\times (0, \infty) \rightarrow\mathbb{R},\, (b, y) \mapsto \log_b(y)$, and we develop familiar algebraic rules for them. The point-free approach is constructive, and defines the points of a space as models of a geometric theory, rather than as elements of a set - in particular, this allows geometric constructions to be applied to points living in toposes other than Set. Our geometric development includes new lifting and gluing techniques in point-free topology, which highlight how properties of $\mathbb{Q}$ determine properties of real exponentiation. This work is motivated by our broader research programme of developing a version of adelic geometry via topos theory. In particular, we wish to construct the classifying topos of places of $\mathbb{Q}$, which will provide a geometric perspective into the subtle relationship between $\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathbb{Q}_p$, a question of longstanding number-theoretic interest.

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5. Instance reducibility and Weihrauch degrees

Andrej Bauer.

We identify a notion of reducibility between predicates, called instance reducibility, which commonly appears in reverse constructive mathematics. The notion can be generally used to compare and classify various principles studied in reverse constructive mathematics (formal Church's thesis, Brouwer's Continuity principle and Fan theorem, Excluded middle, Limited principle, Function choice, Markov's principle, etc.). We show that the instance degrees form a frame, i.e., a complete lattice in which finite infima distribute over set-indexed suprema. They turn out to be equivalent to the frame of upper sets of truth values, ordered by the reverse Smyth partial order. We study the overall structure of the lattice: the subobject classifier embeds into the lattice in two different ways, one monotone and the other antimonotone, and the $\lnot\lnot$-dense degrees coincide with those that are reducible to the degree of Excluded middle. We give an explicit formulation of instance degrees in a relative realizability topos, and call these extended Weihrauch degrees, because in Kleene-Vesley realizability the $\lnot\lnot$-dense modest instance degrees correspond precisely to Weihrauch degrees. The extended degrees improve the structure of Weihrauch degrees by equipping them with computable infima and suprema, an implication, the ability to control access to parameters and computation of results, and by generally widening the scope of Weihrauch reducibility.

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6. Limits of real numbers in the binary signed digit representation

Franziskus Wiesnet ; Nils Köpp.

We extract verified algorithms for exact real number computation from constructive proofs. To this end we use a coinductive representation of reals as streams of binary signed digits. The main objective of this paper is the formalisation of a constructive proof that real numbers are closed with respect to limits. All the proofs of the main theorem and the first application are implemented in the Minlog proof system and the extracted terms are further translated into Haskell. We compare two approaches. The first approach is a direct proof. In the second approach we make use of the representation of reals by a Cauchy-sequence of rationals. Utilizing translations between the two represenation and using the completeness of the Cauchy-reals, the proof is very short. In both cases we use Minlog's program extraction mechanism to automatically extract a formally verified program that transforms a converging sequence of reals, i.e.~a sequence of streams of binary signed digits together with a modulus of convergence, into the binary signed digit representation of its limit. The correctness of the extracted terms follows directly from the soundness theorem of program extraction. As a first application we use the extracted algorithms together with Heron's method to construct an algorithm that computes square roots with respect to the binary signed digit representation. In a second application we use the convergence theorem to show that the signed digit representation of real […]

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7. Inductive and Coinductive Topological Generation with Church's thesis and the Axiom of Choice

Maria Emilia Maietti ; Samuele Maschio ; Michael Rathjen.

In this work we consider an extension MFcind of the Minimalist Foundation MF for predicative constructive mathematics with the addition of inductive and coinductive definitions sufficient to generate Sambin's Positive topologies, namely Martin-Löf-Sambin formal topologies equipped with a Positivity relation (used to describe pointfree formal closed subsets). In particular the intensional level of MFcind, called mTTcind, is defined by extending with coinductive definitions another theory mTTind extending the intensional level mTT of MF with the sole addition of inductive definitions. In previous work we have shown that mTTind is consistent with Formal Church's Thesis CT and the Axiom of Choice AC via an interpretation in Aczel's CZF+REA. Our aim is to show the expectation that the addition of coinductive definitions to mTTind does not increase its consistency strength by reducing the consistency of mTTcind+CT+AC to the consistency of CZF+REA through various interpretations. We actually reach our goal in two ways. One way consists in first interpreting mTTcind+CT+AC in the theory extending CZF with the Union Regular Extension Axiom, REA_U, a strengthening of REA, and the Axiom of Relativized Dependent Choice, RDC. The theory CZF+REA_U+RDC is then interpreted in MLS*, a version of Martin-Löf's type theory with Palmgren's superuniverse S. A last step consists in interpreting MLS* back into CZF+REA. The alternative way consists in first interpreting […]

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8. Converse extensionality and apartness

Benno van den Berg ; Robert Passmann.

In this paper we try to find a computational interpretation for a strong form of extensionality, which we call "converse extensionality". Converse extensionality principles, which arise as the Dialectica interpretation of the axiom of extensionality, were first studied by Howard. In order to give a computational interpretation to these principles, we reconsider Brouwer's apartness relation, a strong constructive form of inequality. Formally, we provide a categorical construction to endow every typed combinatory algebra with an apartness relation. We then exploit that functions reflect apartness, in addition to preserving equality, to prove that the resulting categories of assemblies model a converse extensionality principle.

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9. Computing with Infinite Objects: the Gray Code Case

Dieter Spreen ; Ulrich Berger.

Infinite Gray code has been introduced by Tsuiki as a redundancy-free representation of the reals. In applications the signed digit representation is mostly used which has maximal redundancy. Tsuiki presented a functional program converting signed digit code into infinite Gray code. Moreover, he showed that infinite Gray code can effectively be converted into signed digit code, but the program needs to have some non-deterministic features (see also H. Tsuiki, K. Sugihara, "Streams with a bottom in functional languages"). Berger and Tsuiki reproved the result in a system of formal first-order intuitionistic logic extended by inductive and co-inductive definitions, as well as some new logical connectives capturing concurrent behaviour. The programs extracted from the proofs are exactly the ones given by Tsuiki. In order to do so, co-inductive predicates $\bS$ and $\bG$ are defined and the inclusion $\bS \subseteq \bG$ is derived. For the converse inclusion the new logical connectives are used to introduce a concurrent version $\S_{2}$ of $S$ and $\bG \subseteq \bS_{2}$ is shown. What one is looking for, however, is an equivalence proof of the involved concepts. One of the main aims of the present paper is to close the gap. A concurrent version $\bG^{*}$ of $\bG$ and a modification $\bS^{*}$ of $\bS_{2}$ are presented such that $\bS^{*} = \bG^{*}$. A crucial tool in U. Berger, H. Tsuiki, "Intuitionistic fixed point logic" is a formulation of the Archimedean […]

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