Description: Definition of the
conditional operator for propositions. The expression
if-  
 is read "if then else ".
See dfifp2dc 987, dfifp3dc 988, dfifp4dc 989 and dfifp5dc 990 for alternate
definitions.
This definition (in the form of dfifp2dc 987) appears in Section II.24 of
[Church] p. 129 (Definition D12 page 132),
where it is called "conditioned
disjunction". Church's    
corresponds to our
if-  
 (note the permutation of the first two
variables).
This form was chosen as the definition rather than dfifp2dc 987 for
compatibility with intuitionistic logic development: with this form, it is
clear that if-  
 implies decidability of
(ifpdc 985), which is most often what is wanted.
Church uses the conditional operator as an intermediate step to prove
completeness of some systems of connectives. The first result is that the
system if- is
complete: for the induction step, consider
a formula of n+1 variables; single out one variable, say ; when one
sets to
True (resp. False), then what remains is a formula of n
variables, so by the induction hypothesis it is equivalent to a formula
using only the connectives if- , say (resp. );
therefore, the formula if-    is
equivalent to the
initial formula of n+1 variables. Now, since and similar
systems suffice to express the connectives if- , they are
also complete.
(Contributed by BJ, 22-Jun-2019.) |