I can't solve an error "Universes are unbound" - coq

I'm developing a library for googology in Coq. I ran into a problem.
Set Universe Polymorphism.
Set Polymorphic Inductive Cumulativity.
Inductive Sum#{i j} (A : Type#{i}) (B : Type#{j}) : Type#{max(i,j)}
:= left : A -> Sum A B | right : B -> Sum A B.
Definition Foo#{i j k l} (A : Type#{i}) (B : Type#{j}) (C : Type#{k}) : Type#{l}
:= Sum#{i _} A (Sum#{j k} B C).
I expected _ to be filled with max(j,k). However, I got an error:
Universes {***} are unbounded.
Is there a way to express these constraints well?

I feel it makes sense to add ij that satisfies i <= ij and j <= ij. I should have thought more.

Related

How to switch types in Lean theorem prover when constants are involved?

For a newcomer working through the LEAN documentation, it is sometimes quite frustrating to see that some simple problems turn into real bottlenecks when more difficult ones have apparently been solved. Here is what was supposed to be a simple self-produced exercise that turned into a few hours of frustration (there's no other way to LEARN, of course):
theorem prByCont : ∀ P : Prop, ( P → false ) → ¬ P :=
λ (P : Prop) (prf : P → false), prf
#check prByCont
example ( a b : ℕ ) (p: a = 2) (q: b=3) : ¬ (a ≥ b) :=
begin
apply prByCont,
assume h : a ≥ b,
have order : 2 < 3 := dec_trivial,
contradiction
end
The problem seems to be that order has type 2<3 but what is needed is a<b, and although it looks to me that it should be clear that a=2 and b=3, LEAN doesn't think so. Please help me see what I'm missing here!

Characteristic function of a union

In a constructive setting such as Coq's, I expect the proof of a disjunction A \/ B to be either a proof of A, or a proof of B. If I reformulate this on subsets of a type X, it says that if I have a proof that x is in A union B, then I either have a proof that x is in A, or a proof that x is in B. So I want to define the characteristic function of a union by case analysis,
Definition characteristicUnion (X : Type) (A B : X -> Prop)
(x : X) (un : A x \/ B x) : nat.
It will be equal to 1 when x is in A, and to 0 when x is in B. However Coq does not let me destruct un, because "Case analysis on sort Set is not allowed for inductive definition or".
Is there another way in Coq to model subsets of type X, that would allow me to construct those characteristic functions on unions ? I do not need to extract programs, so I guess simply disabling the previous error on case analysis would work for me.
Mind that I do not want to model subsets as A : X -> bool. That would be unecessarily stronger : I do not need laws of excluded middle such as "either x is in A or x is not in A".
As pointed out by #András Kovács, Coq prevents you from "extracting" computationally relevant information from types in Prop in order to allow some more advanced features to be used. There has been a lot of research on this topic, including recently Univalent Foundations / HoTT, but that would go beyond the scope of this question.
In your case you want indeed to use the type { A } + { B } which will allow you to do what you want.
I think the union of subsets should be a subset as well. We can do this by defining union as pointwise disjunction:
Definition subset (X : Type) : Type := X -> Prop.
Definition union {X : Type}(A B : subset X) : subset X := fun x => A x \/ B x.

A simple case of universe inconsistency

I can define the following inductive type:
Inductive T : Type -> Type :=
| c1 : forall (A : Type), A -> T A
| c2 : T unit.
But then the command Check (c1 (T nat)) fails with the message: The term T nat has type Type#{max(Set, Top.3+1)} while it is expected to have type Type#{Top.3} (universe inconsistency).
How can I tweak the above inductive definition so that c1 (T nat) does not cause a universe inconsistency, and without setting universe polymorphism on?
The following works, but I would prefer a solution without adding equality:
Inductive T (A : Type) : Type :=
| c1 : A -> T A
| c2' : A = unit -> T A.
Definition c2 : T unit := c2' unit eq_refl.
Check (c1 (T nat)).
(*
c1 (T nat)
: T nat -> T (T nat)
*)
Let me first answer the question of why we get the universe inconsistency in the first place.
Universe inconsistencies are the errors that Coq reports to avoid proofs of False via Russell's paradox, which results from considering the set of all sets which do not contain themselves.
There's a variant which is more convenient to formalize in type theory called Hurken's Paradox; see Coq.Logic.Hurkens for more details. There is a specialization of Hurken's paradox which proves that no type can retract to a smaller type. That is, given
U := Type#{u}
A : U
down : U -> A
up : A -> U
up_down : forall (X:U), up (down X) = X
we can prove False.
This is almost exactly the setup of your Inductive type. Annotating your type with universes, you start with
Inductive T : Type#{i} -> Type#{j} :=
| c1 : forall (A : Type#{i}), A -> T A
| c2 : T unit.
Note that we can invert this inductive; we may write
Definition c1' (A : Type#{i}) (v : T A) : A
:= match v with
| c1 A x => x
| c2 => tt
end.
Lemma c1'_c1 (A : Type#{i}) : forall v, c1' A (c1 A v) = v.
Proof. reflexivity. Qed.
Suppose, for a moment, that c1 (T nat) typechecked. Since T nat : Type#{j}, this would require j <= i. If it gave us that j < i, then we would be set. We could write c1 Type#{j}. And this is exactly the setup for the variant of Hurken's that I mentioned above! We could define
u = j
U := Type#{j}
A := T Type#{j}
down : U -> A := c1 Type#{j}
up : A -> U := c1' Type#{j}
up_down := c1'_c1 Type#{j}
and hence prove False.
Coq needs to implement a rule for avoiding this paradox. As described here, the rule is that for each (non-parameter) argument to a constructor of an inductive, if the type of the argument has a sort in universe u, then the universe of the inductive is constrained to be >= u. In this case, this is stricter than Coq needs to be. As mentioned by SkySkimmer here, Coq could recognize arguments which appear directly in locations which are indices of the inductive, and disregard those in the same way that it disregards parameters.
So, to finally answer your question, I believe the following are your only options:
You can Set Universe Polymorphism so that in T (T nat), your two Ts take different universe arguments. (Equivalently, you can write Polymorphic Inductive.)
You can take advantage of how Coq treats parameters of inductive types specially, which mandates using equality in your case. (The requirement of using equality is a general property of going from indexed inductive types to parameterized inductives types---from moving arguments from after the : to before it.)
You can pass Coq the flag -type-in-type to entirely disable universe checking.
You can fix bug #7929, which I reported as part of digging into this question, to make Coq handle arguments of constructors which appear in index-position in the inductive in the same way it handles parameters of inductive types.
(You can find another edge case of the system, and manage to trick Coq into ignoring the universes you want to slip past it, and probably find a proof of False in the process. (Possibly involving module subtyping, see, e.g., this recent bug in modules with universes.))

Messing around with category theory

Motivation: I am attempting to study category theory while creating a Coq formalization of the ideas I find in whatever textbook I follow. In order to make this formalization as simple as possible, I figured I should identify objects with their identity arrow, so a category can be reduced to a set (class, type) of arrows X with a source mapping s:X->X, target mapping t:X->X, and composition mapping product : X -> X -> option X which is a partial mapping defined for t f = s g. Obviously the structure (X,s,t,product) should follow various properties. For the sake of clarity, I am spelling out the formalization I chose below, but there is no need to follow it I think in order to read my question:
Record Category {A:Type} : Type := category
{ source : A -> A
; target : A -> A
; product: A -> A -> option A
; proof_of_ss : forall f:A, source (source f) = source f
; proof_of_ts : forall f:A, target (source f) = source f
; proof_of_tt : forall f:A, target (target f) = target f
; proof_of_st : forall f:A, source (target f) = target f
; proof_of_dom: forall f g:A, target f = source g <-> product f g <> None
; proof_of_src: forall f g h:A, product f g = Some h -> source h = source f
; proof_of_tgt: forall f g h:A, product f g = Some h -> target h = target g
; proof_of_idl: forall a f:A,
a = source a ->
a = target a ->
a = source f ->
product a f = Some f
; proof_of_idr: forall a f:A,
a = source a ->
a = target a ->
a = target f ->
product f a = Some f
; proof_of_asc:
forall f g h fg gh:A,
product f g = Some fg ->
product g h = Some gh ->
product fg h = product f gh
}
.
I have no idea how practical this is and how far it will take me. I see this as an opportunity to learn category theory and Coq at the same time.
Problem: My first objective was to create a 'Category' which would resemble as much as possible the category Set. In a set theoretic framework, I would probably consider the class of triplets (a,b,f) where f is a map with domain a and range a subset of b. With this in mind I tried:
Record Arrow : Type := arrow
{ dom : Type
; cod : Type
; arr : dom -> cod
}
.
So that Arrow becomes my base type on which I could attempt building a structure of category. I start embedding Type into Arrow:
Definition id (a : Type) : Arrow := arrow a a (fun x => x).
which allows me to define the source and target mappings:
Definition domain (f:Arrow) : Arrow := id (dom f).
Definition codomain (f:Arrow) : Arrow := id (cod f).
Then I move on to defining a composition on Arrow:
Definition compose (f g: Arrow) : option Arrow :=
match f with
| arrow a b f' =>
match g with
| arrow b' c g' =>
match b with
| b' => Some (arrow a c (fun x => (g' (f' x))))
| _ => None
end
end
end.
However, this code is illegal as I get the error:
The term "f' x" has type "b" while it is expected to have type "b'".
Question: I have the feeling I am not going to get away with this, My using Type naively would take me to some sort of Russel paradox which Coq will not allow me to do. However, just in case, is there a way to define compose on Arrow?
Your encoding does not work in plain Coq because of the constructive nature of the theory: it is not possible to compare two sets for equality. If you absolutely want to follow this approach, Daniel's comment sketches a solution: you need to assume a strong classical principle to be able to check whether the endpoints of two arrows match, and then manipulate an equality proof to make Coq accept the definition.
Another approach is to have separate types for arrows and objects, and use type dependency to express the compatibility requirement on arrow endpoints. This definition requires only three axioms, and considerably simplifies the construction of categories:
Set Implicit Arguments.
Unset Strict Implicit.
Unset Printing Implicit Defensive.
Record category : Type := Category {
obj : Type;
hom : obj -> obj -> Type;
id : forall {X}, hom X X;
comp : forall X Y Z, hom X Y -> hom Y Z -> hom X Z;
(* Axioms *)
idL : forall X Y (f : hom X Y), comp id f = f;
idR : forall X Y (f : hom X Y), comp f id = f;
assoc : forall X Y Z W
(f : hom X Y) (g : hom Y Z) (h : hom Z W),
comp f (comp g h) = comp (comp f g) h
}.
We can now define the category of sets and ask Coq to automatically prove the axioms for us.
Require Import Coq.Program.Tactics.
Program Definition Sets : category := {|
obj := Type;
hom X Y := X -> Y;
id X := fun x => x;
comp X Y Z f g := fun x => g (f x)
|}.
(This does not lead to any circularity paradoxes, because of Coq's universe mechanism: Coq understands that the Type used in this definition is actually smaller than the one used to define category.)
This encoding is sometimes inconvenient due to the lack of extensionality in Coq's theory, because it prevents certain axioms from holding. Consider the category of groups, for example, where the morphisms are functions that commute with the group operations. A reasonable definition for these morphisms could be as follows (assuming that there is some type group representing groups, with * denotes multiplication and 1 denotes the neutral element).
Record group_morphism (X Y : group) : Type := {
mor : X -> Y;
mor_1 : mor 1 = 1;
mor_m : forall x1 x2, mor (x1 * x2) = mor x1 * mor x2
}.
The problem is that the properties mor_1 and mor_m interfere with the notion of equality for elements of group_morphism, making the proofs for associativity and identity that worked for Sets break. There are two solutions:
Adopt extra axioms into the theory so that the required properties still go through. In the above example, you would need proof irrelevance:
proof_irrelevance : forall (P : Prop) (p q : P), p = q.
Change the category axioms so that the identities are valid up to some equivalence relation specific to that category, instead of the plain Coq equality. This approach is followed here, for example.

Best way to handle (sub) types of the form `{ x : nat | x >= 13 /\ x <= 19 }`?

Coq would let me define this :
Definition teenagers : Set := { x : nat | x >= 13 /\ x <= 19 }.
and also :
Variable Julia:teenagers.
but not :
Example minus_20 : forall x:teenagers, x<20.
or :
Example Julia_fact1 : Julia > 12.
This is because Julia (of type teenagers) cannot be compared to 12 (nat).
Q: How should I inform Coq that Julia's support type is nat so that I can write anything useful about her ?
Q': My definition of teenagers seems like a dead end ; it is more declarative than constructive and I seem to have lost inductive properties of nat. How can I show up its inhabitants ? If there is no way, I can still stick to nat and work with Prop and functions. (newbie here, less than one week self learning with Pierce's SF).
The pattern you are using in teenagers is an instance of the "subType" pattern. As you have noted, a { x : nat | P x } is different from nat. Currently, Coq provides little support to handle these kind of types effectively, but if you restrict to "well-behaved" classes of P, you can actually work in a reasonable way. [This should really become a Coq FAQ BTW]
In the long term, you may want to use special support for this pattern. A good example of such support is provided by the math-comp library subType interface.
Describing this interface is beyond your original question, so I will end with a few comments:
In your minus_20 example, you want to use the first projection of your teenagers datatype. Try forall x : teenagers, proj1_sig x < 20. Coq can try to insert such projection automatically if you declare the projection as a Coercion:
Require Import Omega.
Definition teenagers : Set :=
{ x : nat | x >= 13 /\ x <= 19 }.
Coercion teen_to_nat := fun x : teenagers => proj1_sig x.
Implicit Type t : teenagers.
Lemma u t : t < 20.
Proof. now destruct t; simpl; omega. Qed.
As you have correctly observed, { x : T | P x } is not the same in Coq than x. In principle, you cannot transfer reasoning from objects of type T to objects of type { x : T | P x } as you must also reason in addition about objects of type P x. But for a wide class of P, you can show that the teen_to_nat projection is injective, that is:
forall t1 t2, teen_to_nat t1 = teen_to_nat t2 -> t1 = t2.
Then, reasoning over the base type can be transferred to the subtype. See also: Inductive subset of an inductive set in Coq
[edit]: I've added a couple typical examples of subTypes in math-comp, as I think they illustrate well the concept:
Sized lists or n.-tuples. A list of length n is represented in math-comp as a pair of a single list plus a proof of size, that is to say n.-tuple T = { s : seq T | size s == n}. Thanks to injectivity and coertions, you can use all the regular list functions over tuples and they work fine.
Bounded natural or ordinals: similarly, the type 'I_n = { x : nat | x < n } works almost the same than a natural number, but with a bound.