Polymorphic Ordinal Notations

Abstract

We give an alternative presentation of the ordinal notation at the strength of $\Pi^1_1-CA_0$ which allows the "uncountable" notation $\Omega$ to be interpreted "polymorphically" - that is, we allow the notation to be interpreted as different cardinals depending on their context. This gives us a way to represent functions on ordinals within our ordinal notation system. We then use this idea to present an ordinal notation system for a system a bit weaker than parameter-free $\Pi^1_2-CA_0$.