oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets

Sets play a foundational role in organizing, understanding, and interacting with the world in our daily lives. They also play a critical role in the functioning and behavior of social robots and artificial intelligence systems, which are designed to interact with humans and their environments in mea...

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Main Author: Mohamed Quafafou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-06-01
Series:Mathematics
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/12/1928
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author Mohamed Quafafou
author_facet Mohamed Quafafou
author_sort Mohamed Quafafou
collection DOAJ
description Sets play a foundational role in organizing, understanding, and interacting with the world in our daily lives. They also play a critical role in the functioning and behavior of social robots and artificial intelligence systems, which are designed to interact with humans and their environments in meaningful and socially intelligent ways. A multitude of non-classical set theories emerged during the last half-century aspiring to supplement Cantor’s set theory, allowing sets to be true to the reality of life by supporting, for example, human imprecision and uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to continue this effort of introducing oSets, which are sets depending on the perception of their observers. Our main objective is to align set theory with human cognition and perceptual diversity. In this context, an accessible set is a class of objects for which perception is passive, i.e., it is independent of perception; otherwise, it is called an oSet, which cannot be known exactly with respect to its observers, but it can only be approximated by a family of sets representing the diversity of its perception. Thus, the new introduced membership function is a three-place predicate denoted <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mo>∈</mo><mi>i</mi></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>, where the expression “<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mi>x</mi><msub><mo>∈</mo><mi>i</mi></msub><mi>X</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>” indicates that the “observer” <i>i</i> perceives the element <i>x</i> as belonging to the set <i>X</i>. The accessibility notion is related to perception and can be best summarized as follows: “to be accessible is to be perceived”, presenting a weaker stance than Berkeley’s idealism, which asserts that “to be is to be perceived”.
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spelling doaj-art-773269eac3454013822a9da31587bdcd2025-08-20T03:27:33ZengMDPI AGMathematics2227-73902025-06-011312192810.3390/math13121928oSets: Observer-Dependent SetsMohamed Quafafou0Computer Science and Systems Laboratory, Aix-Marseille University—CNRS, 13288 Marseille cedex 09, FranceSets play a foundational role in organizing, understanding, and interacting with the world in our daily lives. They also play a critical role in the functioning and behavior of social robots and artificial intelligence systems, which are designed to interact with humans and their environments in meaningful and socially intelligent ways. A multitude of non-classical set theories emerged during the last half-century aspiring to supplement Cantor’s set theory, allowing sets to be true to the reality of life by supporting, for example, human imprecision and uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to continue this effort of introducing oSets, which are sets depending on the perception of their observers. Our main objective is to align set theory with human cognition and perceptual diversity. In this context, an accessible set is a class of objects for which perception is passive, i.e., it is independent of perception; otherwise, it is called an oSet, which cannot be known exactly with respect to its observers, but it can only be approximated by a family of sets representing the diversity of its perception. Thus, the new introduced membership function is a three-place predicate denoted <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mo>∈</mo><mi>i</mi></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>, where the expression “<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mi>x</mi><msub><mo>∈</mo><mi>i</mi></msub><mi>X</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>” indicates that the “observer” <i>i</i> perceives the element <i>x</i> as belonging to the set <i>X</i>. The accessibility notion is related to perception and can be best summarized as follows: “to be accessible is to be perceived”, presenting a weaker stance than Berkeley’s idealism, which asserts that “to be is to be perceived”.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/12/1928setobserverperceptiondiversityaccessibilityartificial intelligence
spellingShingle Mohamed Quafafou
oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
Mathematics
set
observer
perception
diversity
accessibility
artificial intelligence
title oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
title_full oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
title_fullStr oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
title_full_unstemmed oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
title_short oSets: Observer-Dependent Sets
title_sort osets observer dependent sets
topic set
observer
perception
diversity
accessibility
artificial intelligence
url https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/12/1928
work_keys_str_mv AT mohamedquafafou osetsobserverdependentsets