Title: Of Sheep and Wolves

Speaker:  Toby Meadows (University of California, Irvine) 

Time: 9:00 a.m. ~ 12:00 a.m. (Wednessday，June 1st.)

Abstract:   This paper will take internal categoricity as a launching point into an investigation of how foundational theories in mathematics may be compared. The talk will be comprised by a sequence of stronger and stronger equivalence relations between theories. Starting with the trivial, identity, we shall progress through relative interpretability and culminate by defining a relationship analogous to empirical equivalence, as considered by philosophers of physics. From this final position, I'll attempt to mount some defense of a kind of formalism criticized by W. Hugh Woodin. A recurring theme running through this discussion will be the somewhat vexed relationship between second order logic and forcing. In this regard – among many others, my remarks owe a great debt to the work of  Jouko Väänäen.