POWERSET OPERATOR BASED FOUNDATION FORPOINT-SET LATTICE-THEORETIC (POSLAT) FUZZY SET THEORIES and TOPOLOGIES

Abstract

This paper sets forth in detail point-set lattice-theoretic or poslat foundations of all mathematical and fuzzy set disciplines in which the operations of taking the image and pre-image of (fuzzy) subsets play a fundamental role; such disciplines include algebra, measure and probability theory, and topology. In particular, those aspects of fuzzy sets, hinging around (crisp) powersets of fuzzy subsets and around powerset operators between such powersets lifted from ordinary functions between the underlying base sets, are examined and characterized using point-set and lattice-theoretic methods. The basic goal is to uniquely derive the powerset operators and not simply stipulate them, and in doing this we explicitly distinguish between the “fixed-basis” case (where the underlying lattice of membership values is fixed for the sets in question) and the “variable-basis” case (where the underlying lattice of membership values is allowed to change). Applications to fuzzy sets/logic include: development and justification/characterization of the Zadeh Extension Principle [36], with applications for fuzzy topology and measure theory; characterizations of ground category isomorphisms; rigorous foundation for fuzzy topology in the poslat sense; and characterization of those fuzzy associative memories in the sense of Kosko [18] which are powerset operators. Some results appeared without proof in [31], some with partial proofs in [32], and some in the fixed-basis case in Johnstone [13] and Manes [22].