There is a way to frame category theory such that it's all just arrows -- by associating the identity arrow (which all objects have by definition) with the object itself. In a sense, the object is syntactic sugar.
dgan•36m ago
I think it is pretty obvious that at the challenge with all abstract mathematics in general and the category theory in particular isnt the fact that people dont understand what a "linear order" is, but the fact it is so distant from daily routine that it seems completely pointless. It's like pouring water over pefectly smooth glass
raincole•30m ago
Is there a "mind-blowing fact" about category theory? Like the first time I've heard that one can prove there is no analytical solution for a polynomial equation with a degree > 5 with group theory, it was mind-blowing. What's the counterpart of category theory?
tux3•14m ago
Sure, category theory can't prove the unsolvability of the quintic. But did you know that a monad is really just a monoid object in the monoidal category of endofunctors on the category of types of your favorite language?
gobdovan•11m ago
Unless there's some idiosyncratic meaning for the `=>`, the Antisymmetry one basically says `Orange -> Yellow => Yellow -/> Orange`. The diagram is not acurate. The prose is very imprecise. "It also means that no ties are permitted - either I am better than my grandmother at soccer or she is better at it than me." NO. Antisymmetry doesn't exclude `x = y`. Ties are permitted in the equality case. Antisymmetry for a non-strict order says that if both directions hold, the two elements must in fact be the same element. The author is describing strict comparison or total comparability intuition, not antisymmetry.
bubblyworld•4m ago
I don't think they are completely wrong - "=>" is just implication. A hidden assumption in their diagrams is that circles of different colours are assumed to be different elements.
A morphism from orange to yellow means "O <= Y". From this, antisymmetry (and the hidden assumption) implies that "Y not <= O".
Totality is just the other way around (all two distinct elements are comparable in one direction).
arketyp•38m ago