Does anyone know if there is there a name for the idea that new concepts (such as negative numbers, complex numbers or type constructors in a type system) are only ever introduced into a preexisting "system" so that they can be eliminated later, after helping make some progress?
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I have a similar generalization of higher sets of numbers but I was framing it as "delaying the computation". You can't deal with doing the computation upfront because it doesn't really make sense, so you hold on to another number like (1,3) = -2 or 1/3 or 1+3i.
Yes, I've also considered thinking about it in the same way. With complex numbers, for example, you could even be explicit and write √-1 everywhere in place of i.
