[Math] What’s between the finite and the infinite

infinitylogicreference-requestsoft-question

I'm wondering if there are any non-standard theories (built upon ZFC with some axioms weakened or replaced) that make formal sense of hypothetical set-like objects whose "cardinality" is "in between" the finite and the infinite. In a world like that non-finite may not necessarily mean infinite and there might be a "set" with countably infinite "power set".

Best Answer

There's a few things I can think of which might fit the bill:

  • We could work in a non-$\omega$ model of ZFC. In such a model, there are sets the model thinks are finite, but which are actually infinite; so there's a distinction between "internally infinite" and "externally infinite." (A similar thing goes on in non-standard analysis.)

  • Although their existence is ruled out by the axiom of choice, it is consistent with ZF that there are sets which are not finite but are Dedekind-finite: they don't have any non-trivial self-injections (that is, Hilbert's Hotel doesn't work for them). Such sets are similar to genuine finite sets in a number of ways: for instance, you can show that a Dedekind-finite set can be even (= partitionable into pairs) or odd (= partitionable into pairs and one singleton) or neither but not both. And in fact it is consistent with ZF that the Dedekind-finite cardinalities are linearly ordered, in which case they form a nonstandard model of true arithmetic; see https://mathoverflow.net/questions/172329/does-sageevs-result-need-an-inaccessible.

  • You could also work in non-classical logic - for instance, in a topos. I don't know much about this area, but lots of subtle distinctions between classically-equivalent notions crop up; I strongly suspect you'd find some cool stuff here.

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