Reflection theorem

Abstract: In this paper we introduce a new notion of realizability for intuitionistic arithmetic in all finite types. The notion seems to us to capture some of the intuition underlying both the recursive realizability of Kjeene [5] and the semantics of Kripke [7]. After some preliminaries of a syntactic and recursion-theoretic character in §1, we motivate and define our notion of realizability in §2. In §3 we prove a soundness theorem, and in §4 we apply that theorem to obtain new information about provability in some extensions of intuitionistic arithmetic in all finite types. In §5 we consider a special case of our general notion and prove a kind of reflection theorem for it. Finally, in §6, we consider a formalized version of our realizability notion and use it to give a new proof of the conservative extension theorem discussed in Goodman and Myhill [4] and proved in our [3]. (Apparently, a form of this result is also proved in Mine [13]. We have not seen this paper, but are relying on [12].) As a corollary, we obtain the following somewhat strengthened result: Let Σ be any extension of first-order intuitionistic arithmetic (HA) formalized in the language of HA. Let Σω be the theory obtained from Σ by adding functionals of finite type with intuitionistic logic, intensional identity, and axioms of choice and dependent choice at all types. Then Σω is a conservative extension of Σ. An interesting example of this theorem is obtained by taking Σ to be classical first-order arithmetic.