Paper detail

How rare are the properties of binary relations?

Knoblauch (2014) and Knoblauch (2015) investigate the relative size of the collection of binary relations with desirable features as compared to the set of all binary relations using symmetric difference metric (Cantor) topology and Hausdorff metric topology. We consider Ellentuck and doughnut topologies to further this line of investigation. We report the differences among the size of the useful binary relations in Cantor, Ellentuck and doughnut topologies. It turns out that the doughnut topology admits binary relations with more general properties in contrast to the other two. We further prove that among the induced Cantor and Ellentuck topologies, the latter captures the relative size of partial orders among the collection of all quasi-orders. Finally we show that the class of ethical binary relations is small in Ellentuck (and therefore in Cantor) topology but is not small in doughnut topology. In essence, the Ellentuck topology fares better compared to Cantor topology in capturing the relative size of collections of binary relations.