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CounterexampleConstruction: AI-generatedVerification: AI-generatedSession-authored (Fable 5 assisted)precheck passaudited 2026-08-16 rests on unproved material (inherited)
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The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

  • Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
  • AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
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These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.

Rests on 3 statements not proved in this library, by way of the results it cites. This item cites no such statement directly; it depends on results that do. The unproved premises it inherits are Cohen's first model: an infinite Dedekind-finite set of reals, Sierpiński 1947: the generalised continuum hypothesis implies the Axiom of Choice and The continuum hypothesis and its generalisation are independent of ZFC. Each is recorded with a citation to the literature and is not established here, because the track that would prove it has not yet been developed in this library. Everything else in this proof is proved here.

A complete locally small category with no small coseparating set

Counterexample

An object of S is a function x whose domain is a set of ordinals and whose value x(α) at each αdom(x) is a set that is not a singleton. Read x as the ordinal-indexed family Xα={x(α)αdom(x),{}otherwise, so that dom(x)={α:Xα is not a singleton} is the family's support and each such family has exactly one code. Objects are recorded as codes because an object must be a set: a function whose domain is the whole class of ordinals is not one, and a class is a formula rather than an entity here (Class-sized category theory in ZFC: definable-class schemas, small and locally small categories, and why CAT is not formed).

A morphism xy is a family (fα) of functions fα:XαYα. Outside the set dom(x)dom(y) both coordinates are {} and fα is the unique map between them, so a morphism is determined by its restriction to that set and is recorded as that restriction — again a set. Composition and identities are coordinatewise.

Then S is complete and locally small but has no small coseparating set.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: The category S defined above.

[L1]

A coseparating set detects distinct parallel arrows by postcomposition with a map into one of its members (Separating and coseparating sets of objects).

[L2]

Completeness means existence of limits for all small diagrams (Finite, small, and large limits and colimits; complete and cocomplete categories).

[L3]

The ordinals form a proper class, not a set (FALSE: the ordinals form a set).

Verification

technique · constructive
1.1

A morphism xy is by construction a set-indexed family of functions on the set dom(x)dom(y), so the morphisms xy form a subset of the product of the function sets YαXα over that index set. That product is a set, so every hom-collection is a set and S is locally small.

construct
1.2

Let D be a small diagram in S and let T be the union of the supports of its set of objects, itself a set. Form the limit coordinatewise in Set: at αT take the limit Lα of the diagram of coordinates, and at αT every coordinate is {}, so the diagram there is constant at a one-element set and its limit is a one-element set. The code with domain {αT:Lα is not a singleton} and value Lα there is an object of S, and its cone legs are the coordinatewise limit projections, the unique map being taken outside T. A cone over D in S is exactly a coordinatewise cone, and the mediating map is coordinatewise unique, so this is a limit of D. The empty diagram has T= and gives the code with empty domain. Every small diagram therefore has a limit, so [L2] makes S complete.

L2
1.3

Let H be any small set of objects of S. The union T=HHdom(H) is a set of ordinals. Were every ordinal a member of T the ordinals would be a set, contradicting [L3], so some ordinal lies outside T; let β be the least one, which is definable from T and involves no selection.

L3
2.1

Let x be the code with empty domain, so Xα={} for every α, and let y be the code with domain {β} and y(β)={0,1}. The two families f,g:xy that send the single element of Xβ to 0 and to 1 respectively, and take the unique map at every other coordinate, are distinct morphisms. For every HH and every h:yH, the coordinate Hβ is {} because βdom(H), so hβfβ=hβgβ; the two composites agree at every other coordinate as well, so hf=hg.

step 1.3
3.1

Therefore H does not detect the pair fg and is not coseparating by [L1]. Since the argument applies to every small H, S has no small coseparating set.

step 2.1L1discharge-construct

Depends on

Used by

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