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Mar. 23rd, 2008 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwillen[I am currently reading Pierce, and] I'm starting to think much of the difficulty I have had with category theory is the fact that, between any given pair of objects, you can have a whole shitload of arrows, all different, all of which look the same in diagrams.
And similarly, from an object X to itself, you can have a whole mess of arrows, and only one of them is the identity arrow. But every one of them composes with an arrow from Y to X, giving an arrow from Y to X; it's just that the identity is the only one that gives you back the SAME arrow from Y to X as you gave it.
I think I'd like the diagrams better if they were color-coded, or something.
And similarly, from an object X to itself, you can have a whole mess of arrows, and only one of them is the identity arrow. But every one of them composes with an arrow from Y to X, giving an arrow from Y to X; it's just that the identity is the only one that gives you back the SAME arrow from Y to X as you gave it.
I think I'd like the diagrams better if they were color-coded, or something.
