FOM: topos = IHOL

Vaughan Pratt pratt at cs.Stanford.EDU
Sat Jan 31 13:59:11 EST 1998


From: awodey at cmu.edu (Steve Awodey)
>"Topos people" - and indeed most other mathematicians - do indeed
			     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>think that if two things are isomorphic, then there's not much point in
>distinguishing between them.

We need a poll.  Would people kindly ask their mathematical colleagues
how many groups of order four there are and report the results here,
so we can assess Steve's attribution objectively?

I would expect Steve is right and that most will give the correct answer,
"two," rather than the misguided "a proper class."  But you never know,
the postmodernist set theory inflicted on high school mathematics students
in the 1970's may have taken its toll on today's mathematicians.

Vaughan Pratt



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