Skip to content

Write paper that visualizes and explains contraction #850

@bvssvni

Description

@bvssvni

In the paper "Path Sets", the following example was used:

id[false_1] <=> {false_1, id}

This is somewhat counter-intuitive, since id returns true when the input is true.
Since false_1 returns false for all inputs, it seems natural that id[false_1] => false_1.
How can it be that id[false_1] => id is also a solution?

The key to understand this is that the input is contracted.
When one contracts the input, one is also making a choice.
Here, the choice is to map all inputs to false.

In the normal path, the contracted input is associated with the partial function (false) -> false.
This means that the normal path has a free choice in the partial function (true) -> _.

I think the problem is a feeling of discontinuity between input and output when returning the same value for all inputs.
This intuition is misleading, because the id[false_1] example shows why there really is a continuity.

The only way I can explain this, is that there is an actual contraction of the function id.
The id function is contracted onto (false) -> false.
With other words, the id function "means" (false) -> false in the normal path.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions