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  1. How Category Theory Works.David Ellerman - manuscript
    The purpose of this paper is to show that the dual notions of elements & distinctions are the basic analytical concepts needed to unpack and analyze morphisms, duality, and universal constructions in the Sets, the category of sets and functions. The analysis extends directly to other concrete categories (groups, rings, vector spaces, etc.) where the objects are sets with a certain type of structure and the morphisms are functions that preserve that structure. Then the elements & distinctions-based definitions can be (...)
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  • On Classical and Quantum Logical Entropy.David Ellerman - manuscript
    The notion of a partition on a set is mathematically dual to the notion of a subset of a set, so there is a logic of partitions dual to Boole's logic of subsets (Boolean logic is usually mis-specified as "propositional" logic). The notion of an element of a subset has as its dual the notion of a distinction of a partition (a pair of elements in different blocks). Boole developed finite logical probability as the normalized counting measure on elements of (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Quantum Logic of Direct-Sum Decompositions: The Dual to the Quantum Logic of Subspaces.David Ellerman - 2017
    Since the pioneering work of Birkhoff and von Neumann, quantum logic has been interpreted as the logic of (closed) subspaces of a Hilbert space. There is a progression from the usual Boolean logic of subsets to the "quantum logic" of subspaces of a general vector space--which is then specialized to the closed subspaces of a Hilbert space. But there is a "dual" progression. The notion of a partition (or quotient set or equivalence relation) is dual (in a category-theoretic sense) to (...)
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  • On the duality between existence and information.David Ellerman - manuscript
    Recent developments in pure mathematics and in mathematical logic have uncovered a fundamental duality between "existence" and "information." In logic, the duality is between the Boolean logic of subsets and the logic of quotient sets, equivalence relations, or partitions. The analogue to an element of a subset is the notion of a distinction of a partition, and that leads to a whole stream of dualities or analogies--including the development of new logical foundations for information theory parallel to Boole's development of (...)
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  • Four Ways from Universal to Particular: How Chomsky's Language-Acquisition Faculty is Not Selectionist.David Ellerman - 2016 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 3 (26):193-207.
    Following the development of the selectionist theory of the immune system, there was an attempt to characterize many biological mechanisms as being "selectionist" as juxtaposed to "instructionist." But this broad definition would group Darwinian evolution, the immune system, embryonic development, and Chomsky's language-acquisition mechanism as all being "selectionist." Yet Chomsky's mechanism (and embryonic development) are significantly different from the selectionist mechanisms of biological evolution or the immune system. Surprisingly, there is a very abstract way using two dual mathematical logics to (...)
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  • On classical finite probability theory as a quantum probability calculus.David Ellerman - manuscript
    This paper shows how the classical finite probability theory (with equiprobable outcomes) can be reinterpreted and recast as the quantum probability calculus of a pedagogical or "toy" model of quantum mechanics over sets (QM/sets). There are two parts. The notion of an "event" is reinterpreted from being an epistemological state of indefiniteness to being an objective state of indefiniteness. And the mathematical framework of finite probability theory is recast as the quantum probability calculus for QM/sets. The point is not to (...)
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  • Probability Theory with Superposition Events.David Ellerman - manuscript
    In finite probability theory, events are subsets S⊆U of the outcome set. Subsets can be represented by 1-dimensional column vectors. By extending the representation of events to two dimensional matrices, we can introduce "superposition events." Probabilities are introduced for classical events, superposition events, and their mixtures by using density matrices. Then probabilities for experiments or `measurements' of all these events can be determined in a manner exactly like in quantum mechanics (QM) using density matrices. Moreover the transformation of the density (...)
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  • A Graph-theoretic Method to Define any Boolean Operation on Partitions.David Ellerman - 2019 - The Art of Discrete and Applied Mathematics 2 (2):1-9.
    The lattice operations of join and meet were defined for set partitions in the nineteenth century, but no new logical operations on partitions were defined and studied during the twentieth century. Yet there is a simple and natural graph-theoretic method presented here to define any n-ary Boolean operation on partitions. An equivalent closure-theoretic method is also defined. In closing, the question is addressed of why it took so long for all Boolean operations to be defined for partitions.
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  • (1 other version)The Quantum Logic of Direct-Sum Decompositions: The Dual to the Quantum Logic of Subspaces.David Ellerman - 2018 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 26 (1):1-13.
    ince the pioneering work of Birkhoff and von Neumann, quantum logic has been interpreted as the logic of subspaces of a Hilbert space. There is a progression from the usual Boolean logic of subsets to the "quantum logic" of subspaces of a general vector space--which is then specialized to the closed subspaces of a Hilbert space. But there is a "dual" progression. The set notion of a partition is dual to the notion of a subset. Hence the Boolean logic of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Quantum mechanics over sets: a pedagogical model with non-commutative finite probability theory as its quantum probability calculus.David Ellerman - 2017 - Synthese (12):4863-4896.
    This paper shows how the classical finite probability theory (with equiprobable outcomes) can be reinterpreted and recast as the quantum probability calculus of a pedagogical or toy model of quantum mechanics over sets (QM/sets). There have been several previous attempts to develop a quantum-like model with the base field of ℂ replaced by ℤ₂. Since there are no inner products on vector spaces over finite fields, the problem is to define the Dirac brackets and the probability calculus. The previous attempts (...)
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  • Logical information theory: new logical foundations for information theory.David Ellerman - 2017 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 25 (5):806-835.
    There is a new theory of information based on logic. The definition of Shannon entropy as well as the notions on joint, conditional, and mutual entropy as defined by Shannon can all be derived by a uniform transformation from the corresponding formulas of logical information theory. Information is first defined in terms of sets of distinctions without using any probability measure. When a probability measure is introduced, the logical entropies are simply the values of the probability measure on the sets (...)
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  • Four ways from universal to particular: how Chomsky’s principles-and-parameters model is not selectionist.David P. Ellerman - 2016 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 26 (3):193-207.
    Following the development of the selectionist theory of the immune system, there was an attempt to characterise many biological mechanisms as being ‘selectionist’ as juxtaposed with ‘instructionist’. However, this broad definition would group Darwinian evolution, the immune system, embryonic development, and Chomsky’s principles-and-parameters language-acquisition mechanism together under the ‘selectionist’ umbrella, even though Chomsky’s mechanism and embryonic development are significantly different from the selectionist mechanisms of biological evolution and the immune system. Surprisingly, there is an abstract way using two dual mathematical (...)
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  • Logical Entropy: Introduction to Classical and Quantum Logical Information theory.David Ellerman - 2018 - Entropy 20 (9):679.
    Logical information theory is the quantitative version of the logic of partitions just as logical probability theory is the quantitative version of the dual Boolean logic of subsets. The resulting notion of information is about distinctions, differences and distinguishability and is formalized using the distinctions of a partition. All the definitions of simple, joint, conditional and mutual entropy of Shannon information theory are derived by a uniform transformation from the corresponding definitions at the logical level. The purpose of this paper (...)
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  • Partitions and Objective Indefiniteness.David Ellerman - manuscript
    Classical physics and quantum physics suggest two meta-physical types of reality: the classical notion of a objectively definite reality with properties "all the way down," and the quantum notion of an objectively indefinite type of reality. The problem of interpreting quantum mechanics (QM) is essentially the problem of making sense out of an objectively indefinite reality. These two types of reality can be respectively associated with the two mathematical concepts of subsets and quotient sets (or partitions) which are category-theoretically dual (...)
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  • Partitions and Objective Indefiniteness in Quantum Mechanics.David Ellerman - manuscript
    Classical physics and quantum physics suggest two meta-physical types of reality: the classical notion of a objectively definite reality with properties "all the way down," and the quantum notion of an objectively indefinite type of reality. The problem of interpreting quantum mechanics is essentially the problem of making sense out of an objectively indefinite reality. These two types of reality can be respectively associated with the two mathematical concepts of subsets and quotient sets which are category-theoretically dual to one another (...)
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