## Equivalent definitions of M-genericity.

### Remember to vote up questions/answers you find interesting or helpful (requires 15 reputation points)

I'm trying to learn about forcing, and have heard that there are several equivalent ways to define genericity. For instance, let M be a transitive model of ZFC containing a poset (P, ≤). Suppose G ⊆ P is such that q ∈ G whenever both p ∈ G and q ≥ p. Suppose also that whenever p,q ∈ G then there is r ∈ G such that r ≤ p and r ≤ q. Then the following are equivalent ways to say that G is generic:

(1) G meets every element of M dense in P. That is, for all D ∈ M, if for all p ∈ P there is q ∈ D such that q ≤ p, then G ∩ D is nonempty.

(2) G is nonempty and meets every element of M dense below some p ∈ G. That is, for all p ∈ G and all B ∈ M, if for each q ≤ p there is r ∈ B such that r ≤ q, then G ∩ B is nonempty.

Proving this equivalence seemed like it would be an easy exercise, but I think I'm missing something. Can someone point me toward a source where I can find a proof? I hope this is an acceptable question; this is my first time posting.

EDIT: Typo and omission fixed.

-

## 1 Answer

If $G$ satisfies (1), then it satisfies (2) because if $p$ is in $G$ and $D$ is dense below $p$, then let $D'$ be the set of conditions $q$ which are either in $D$ or incompatible with $p$. This is dense in $P$ since any condition that is compatible with $p$ will have elements of $D$ below it, and any condition incompatible with $p$ is already in $D'$. But $G$ cannot meet $D'$ in something incompatible with $p$, by your assumption on $G$, and so it must meet it in $D$, as desired.

Conversely, if $G$ satisfies (2), then it will satisfy (1) because if $D$ is dense, then it is dense below any $p$, and so $G$ will meet it.

-

Thanks. D' was exactly what I was missing. Now I see the general strategy for proving such equivalences. – unknown (google) Aug 17 2010 at 2:18
Great! There are several other equivalent characterizations of $M$-genericity: (3) $G$ meets every maximal antichain in $M$; (4) $G$ meets every pre-dense set in $M$; and provided $P$ is a complete Boolean algebra, (5) $G$ is $M$-complete, in the sense that if $M$ has a descending sequence in $G$, then it has a lower bound in $G$. – Joel David Hamkins Aug 17 2010 at 2:31
{"extraction_info": {"found_math": true, "script_math_tex": 0, "script_math_asciimath": 0, "math_annotations": 0, "math_alttext": 0, "mathml": 0, "mathjax_tag": 0, "mathjax_inline_tex": 34, "mathjax_display_tex": 0, "mathjax_asciimath": 0, "img_math": 0, "codecogs_latex": 0, "wp_latex": 0, "mimetex.cgi": 0, "/images/math/codecogs": 0, "mathtex.cgi": 0}, "config": {"markdown_headings": true, "markdown_code": true, "boilerplate_config": {"ratio_threshold": 0.18, "absolute_threshold": 20, "end_threshold": 15, "enable": true}, "remove_buttons": true, "remove_image_figures": true, "remove_link_clusters": true, "table_config": {"min_rows": 2, "min_cols": 3, "format": "github"}, "remove_chinese": true, "remove_edit_buttons": true, "extract_latex": true}, "english_confidence": 0.9441508054733276, "perplexity_flag": "head"}