§ Integrating against ultrafilers
- Let X be a set.
- Recall that a filter on X is a collection of subsets Ω of X that are closed under supersets and intersections (union comes for free by closure under supersets).
- Recall that an ultrafilter Ω on X is a maximal filter. That is, we cannot add any more elements into the filter.
- Equivalently Ω is an ultrafilter if, for any A⊆X, either A∈Ω or (X−A)∈Ω.
- Intuitively, we are considering the set of subsets of X that contains a single x∈X.
- We can also say that ultrafilters correspond to lattice homomorphisms 2X→2.
- A lemma will show that this is equivalent to the following: Whenever X is expressed as the disjoint union of three subsets S1,S2,S3⊆X, then one of then will be in Ω (there exists some i such that Si∈Ω).
§ Lemma: Three picking equivalent to ultrafilter
§ Integration by ultrafilter
- Let B a finite set, X a set, Ω an ultrafilter on X.
- Given f:X→B, we wish to define ∫XfdΩ.
- See that the fibers of f partition X into disjoint subsets f−1(b1),f−1(b2),…,f−1(bN).
- The ultrafilter X picks out one of these subsets, say f−1(bi) ( i for "integration").
- Then we define the integral to be bi.
§ What does this integral mean?
- We think of Ω as a probability measure. Subsets in Ω have measure 1, subsets outside have measure 0.
- Since we want to think of Ω as some kind of probability measure, we want that ∫X1dΩ=1, as would happen when we integrate a probability measure ∫dμ=1.
- Next, if two functions f,g are equal almost everywhere (ie, the set of points where they agree is in Ω), then their integral should be the same.