Homotopy Type Theory
Table of Contents
1. Rules of Homotopy Type Theory
A type is fully determined by the ways of constructing a term of it. Hence we should think of the type \( T \) being freely generated by its finitely many construction rules \( C_1, \dots, C_n \), ie there are no additional elements of \( T \) that can’t be constructed using the rules \( C_1, \dots, C_n \) and there are no additional equalities between elements of \( T \) that are not determined by the rules \( C_1, \dots, C_n \). For example the truth type \( \top \) is specified by one rule: \( * : \top \). Hence there really is only one term in \( \top \). But what does this mean? It means that the proposition \( \forall x : \top, x = * \) is true, but interpreted as the correct (internal) proposition in (homotopy) type theory, ie the type \( \prod x : \top, x = * \) is true which means we can construct a term \( f \) in it. The term is simply constructed by \( f * = refl_x \)