# Re: Paper and slides on indefiniteness of CH

On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:20 PM, Sy David Friedman wrote:

Dear Hugh,

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014, W Hugh Woodin wrote:

Ok we keep going.

Why? I think I made my position clear enough: I stated a consistent Maximality Criterion and based on my proof (with co-authors) of its consistency I have the impression that this Criterion contradicts supercompacts (not just extendibles).

But why do you have that impression? That is what I am interested in. You have given no reason and at the same time there seem to be many reasons for you not to have that impression. Why not reveal what you know?

I also think that the Maximality Criterion I stated could be made much stronger, which I think is only possible if one denies the existence of supercompacts. (Just a conjecture, no theorem yet.)

Let the Strong HOD Hypothesis be: No successor of a singular strong limit of uncountable cofinality is $\omega$-strongly measurable in HOD

(Recall: this is not known to consistently fail with appealing to something like Reinhardt Cardinals. The restriction to uncountable cofinality is necessary because of the Axiom I0: Con (ZFC + I0) gives the consistency with ZFC that there is a singular strong limit cardinal  whose successor is $\omega$-strongly measurable in HOD.)

If the Strong HOD Hypothesis holds in V and if the Maximality Criterion holds in V, then there are no supercompact cardinals, in fact there are no cardinals $\kappa$ which are $\omega_1+\omega$-extendible; i.e. no $\kappa$ for which there is $j:V_{\kappa+\omega_1+\omega} \to V_{j(\kappa +\omega_1+\omega)}$.

If ZFC proves the HOD Hypothesis, it surely proves the Strong HOD Hypothesis.

First you erroneously thought that I wanted to reject PD and now you think I want to reject large cardinals! Hugh, please give me a chance here and don’t jump to quick conclusions; it will take time to understand Maximality well enough to see what large cardinal axioms it implies or tolerates.

I see you making speculations for which I do not yet see another explanation of. But fine, take all the time you want. I have no problem with agreeing that HP is in a (mathematically) embryonic phase and we have to wait before being able to have a substantive (mathematical) discussion about it.

There is something robust going on, please give the HP time to do its work. I simply want to take an unbiased look at Maximality Criteria, that’s all. Indeed I would be quite happy to see a convincing Maximality Criterion that implies the existence of supercompacts (or better, extendibles), but I don’t know of one.

But if the synthesis of maximality, in the sense of failure of the HOD Hypothesis, together with large cardinals, in the sense of there is an extendible cardinal, yields a greatly enhanced version of maximality, why is this not enough?

That is what I am trying to understand.

Regards.
Hugh