Proper Forcing and Remarkable Cardinals

Abstract

The present paper investigates the power of proper forcings to change the shape of the universe, in a certain well-defined respect. It turns out that the ranking among large cardinals can be used as a measure for that power. However, in order to establish the final result I had to isolate a new large cardinal concept, which I dubbed “remarkability.” Let us approach the exact formulation of the problem—and of its solution—at a slow pace.Breathtaking developments in the mid 1980s found one of its culminations in the theorem, due to Martin, Steel, and Woodin, that the existence of infinitely many Woodin cardinals with a measurable cardinal above them all implies that AD, the axiom of determinacy, holds in the least inner model containing all the reals, L(ℝ) (cf. [6[, p. 91). One of the nice things about AD is that the theory ZF + AD + V = L(ℝ) appears as a choiceless “completion” of ZF in that any interesting question (in particular, about sets of reals) seems to find an at least attractive answer in that theory (cf., for example, [5] Chap. 6). (Compare with ZF + V = L!) Beyond that, AD is very canonical as may be illustrated as follows.Let us say that L(ℝ) is absolute for set-sized forcings if for all posets P ∈ V, for all formulae ϕ, and for all ∈ ℝ do we have thatwhere is a name for the set of reals in the extension.