“I cannot prove that if a function is injective, it has an inverse,” Hideki Hashimoto posed this question to me a while ago. It turned out that this was not the property he really wanted, but it got me into thinking: is it possible at all?

Preliminaries

Let us start with some basic definitions. A relation from A to B is denoted by the wavy arrow:

_↝_ : Set → Set → Set1 A ↝ B = A → B → Set

Given a relation R : A ↝ B we can always take its converse R ˘ : B ↝ A , and a function can be lifted to a relation by fun :

_˘ : ∀ {A B} → (A ↝ B) → (B ↝ A) (R ˘) b a = R a b fun : ∀ {A B} → (A → B) → (A ↝ B) fun f a b = f a ≡ b

A relation R : A ↝ B is simple if it does not map one input to multiple outputs. It is entire if everything in A is mapped to something in B — a more familiar word may be “total”.

simple : ∀ {A B} → (A ↝ B) → Set simple R = ∀ {a b₁ b₂} → R a b₁ → R a b₂ → b₁ ≡ b₂ entire : ∀ {A B} → (A ↝ B) → Set entire R = ∀ a → ∃ (λ b → R a b)

A function is a relation that is simple and entire. Indeed, one can show that fun f is simple and entire for every f . Injectivity and surjectivity are similar notions defined for converse of R :

injective : ∀ {A B} → (A ↝ B) → Set injective R = ∀ {a₁ a₂ b} → R a₁ b → R a₂ b → a₁ ≡ a₂ surjective : ∀ {A B} → (A ↝ B) → Set surjective R = ∀ b → ∃ (λ a → R a b)

The (constructive variant of the) axiom of choice states that an entire relation A ↝ B can be refined to a function A → B :

ac : ∀ {A B} → (R : A ↝ B) → (∀ a → ∃ (λ b → R a b)) → ∃ {A → B} (λ f → ∀ a → R a (f a)) ac R R-entire = ((λ a → proj₁ (R-entire a)) , λ a → proj₂ (R-entire a))

See the axiom of choice homepage, or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for more information on this axiom.

Inverting Injective and Surjective Functions

Now, let us restate Hashimoto san’s challenge:

Let fun f : A → B be injective. Prove that f has a left inverse. That is, some f⁻¹ such that f⁻¹ (f a) = a forall a .

It turned out that he forgot a condition: f is also surjective. If f is also (provably) surjective, one can pick some g ⊆ f˘ using the axiom of choice (since f is surjective if and only if f˘ is total) and further prove that g ∘ f = id using injectivity:

inv-sur : ∀ {A B} → (f : A → B) → injective (fun f) → surjective (fun f) → ∃ {B → A} (λ f⁻¹ → (∀ a → f⁻¹ (f a) ≡ a)) inv-sur f f-inj f-sur with ac ((fun f) ˘) f-sur ... | (g , fgb≡b) = (g , λ a → f-inj {g (f a)} {a} {f a} (fgb≡b (f a)) refl)

Like the proof of the constructive axiom of choice, the proof above does not really do much. The proof of surjectivity of f has already provided, for every b : B , an a : A such that f a ≡ b . So we simply let f⁻¹ return that a .

Can we lift the restriction that f must be surjective? That is, can this be proved?

inv : ∀ {A B} → (f : A → B) → injective (fun f) → ∃ {B → A} (λ f⁻¹ → (∀ a → f⁻¹ (f a) ≡ a))

To make the scenario clear: we have a (total) function f : A → B that is injective but not necessarily surjective. The set B could be “larger” than A in the sense that there could be some elements b : B for which no f a equals b — that is, B may not be “fully covered.” Can we construct f⁻¹ : B → A such that f⁻¹ (f a) ≡ a for all a : A ?

At the first glance it did not look like something terribly difficult to do. Given b , if it equals some f a , let f⁻¹ simply return that a . Otherwise f⁻¹ could just map b to any element in A , since this b is not used in any invocation of f⁻¹ (f a) anyway. It should be possible as long as A is not empty, right?

I tried to construct this f⁻¹ but could not help noticing something funny going on. It turns out that had this function existed, we could, again, prove the law of excluded middle. That is, for any predicate P : B → Set and any b : B , there would be a decision procedure telling us whether P b is true or not.

Provided that we assume proof irrelevance, that is.

Excluded Middle, Again

Here we go. Let B be some type having decidable equality. That is, there exists some eqB :

eqB : (b₁ b₂ : B) → (b₁ ≡ b₂) ⊎ (¬ (b₁ ≡ b₂))

where _⊎_ is disjoint sum.

Now take some predicate P : B → Set . Let A be defined by:

A : (B → Set) → Set A P = Σ B (λ b → P b)

That is, A P is the subset of B for which P holds. Each element of A P is a pair (b, Pb) where Pb is a proof of P b .

Finally, take

f : ∀ {P} → A P → B f = proj₁

Thus f (b, Pb) = b .

The function f is injective if we assume proof irrelevance. That is, if f (b, Pb) = b and f (b', Pb') = b , we must have b = b' and (due to proof irrelevance) Pb = Pb' , and therefore (b, Pb) = (b', Pb') . Indeed, if we postulate proof irrelevance:

postulate irr : (P : B → Set) → ∀ {b} → (p₁ : P b) → (p₂ : P b) → p₁ ≡ p₂

We can construct a proof that f is injective:

f-inj : ∀ {P} → injective (fun (f {P})) f-inj {P} {(.b , Pb₁)} {(.b , Pb₂)} {b} refl refl = cong (λ p → (b , p)) (irr P Pb₁ Pb₂)

Assume that we have proved inv . We can now apply inv and obtain some f⁻¹ , the left inverse of f .

However, with this particular choice of A , f , and f⁻¹ , we can construct a deciding procedure for P . That is, for any P and b , we can determine P b holds or not:

em : {P : B → Set} → ∀ b → P b ⊎ ¬ (P b)

This is how em works. Given some b , let’s apply f⁻¹ to b . The result is a pair (b', Pb') . Let’s compare b and b' using eqB :

em {P} b with inv f (f-inj {P}) ... | (f⁻¹ , f⁻¹fa≡a) with inspect (f⁻¹ b) ... | (b' , Pb') with-≡ _ with eqB b b'

If b ≡ b' , Pb' is a proof of P b' and also a proof of P b . Let us just return it (after some type casting):

em {P} b | (f⁻¹ , f⁻¹fa≡a) | (b' , Pb') with-≡ _ | inj₁ b≡b' = inj₁ (subst P (sym b≡b') Pb')

Consider the case that b does not equal b' . We want to show that P b is not true. That is, a proof of P b leads to contradiction. Assume we have a proof Pb of P b . Since f (b , P b) ≡ b , we have f⁻¹ b ≡ (b , Pb) :

em {P} b | (f⁻¹ , f⁻¹fa≡a) | (b' , Pb') with-≡ b'Pb'≡f⁻¹b | inj₂ ¬b≡b' = inj₂ (λ Pb → let f⁻¹b≡bPb : f⁻¹ b ≡ (b , Pb) f⁻¹b≡bPb = f⁻¹fa≡a (b , Pb)

The assumption says that f⁻¹ b = (b' , Pb') . By transitivity we have (b , Pb) ≡ (b' , Pb') .

bPb≡b'Pb' : (b , Pb) ≡ (b' , Pb') bPb≡b'Pb' = sym (trans b'Pb'≡f⁻¹b f⁻¹b≡bPb)

But if we take the first component of both sides, we get b ≡ b' . That contradicts our assumption that b does not equal b' :

b≡b' : b ≡ b' b≡b' = cong proj₁ bPb≡b'Pb' in ¬b≡b' b≡b')

which completes the proof.

In retrospect, f⁻¹ cannot exist because for it to work, it has to magically know whether b is in the range of f , that is, whether P b is true or not.

Nakano’s Challenge

When I talked about this to Keisuke Nakano he posed me another related challenge. Set-theoretically, we understand that if there exists an injective function f : A → B and another injective function g : B → A , the sets A and B are of the same cardinality and there ought to be a bijection A → B . Can we construct this bijection? That is, can we prove this theorem?

nakano : {A B : Set} → (f : A → B) → injective (fun f) → (g : B → A) → injective (fun g) → ∃ {A → B} (λ h → injective (fun h) × surjective (fun h))

I do not yet have a solution. Any one wanna give it a try?

Programs