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Sorry, of course you're right on "Secondly". The right construction is ω, ω∪{ω}, ω∪{ω}∪{ω∪{ω}}...

For the first point, I went through the book long enough ago that I can't rebuild the proof here, but iirc the more rigorous idea is that you can construct a bijection between 1+ω and ω given the recipe I had above for how to represent numbers as sets, but you can't do it for ω+1, which is bijective with ω∪{ω}. The axiom of infinity declares that ω itself is a set, opening the door for transfinite numbers.

Better?




Thanks, sorry for being pedantic. These sorts of constructions tend to trigger some kind of defense mechanism in me.


No, of course you’re right to be! I owe myself another lap through this material and this is a good push…




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