For a family of first-order structures, take free filters on the index set as worlds, ordered by inclusion, and product sequences as parameters. Force an atom when its coordinate truth set belongs to the filter. Conjunction is local, implication and negation quantify over filter extensions, and a disjunction is forced when every extension has a further extension forcing one disjunct. Existence is witnessed by a product sequence and universality holds for all sequences at all extensions. With the axiom of choice, induction on formulas identifies forcing with membership of the classical coordinate truth set. Equivalently, every ultrafilter extension satisfies the formula in its ultraproduct. Thus the semantics validates classical logic. A local disjunction rule would fail this identification: a set and its complement can both be absent from a free filter, while their union is the whole index set.
For a free filter , a subset belongs to if and only if every ultrafilter extending contains . If , every meets in an infinite set; otherwise a cofinite restriction of would be contained in . Adjoining therefore generates a proper free filter. The ultrafilter lemma extends it to a nonprincipal ultrafilter witnessing failure of membership.
A proper filter on a set contains , excludes , is upward closed, and is closed under finite intersections. Order its proper extensions by inclusion. The union of a nonempty chain is again a proper filter: finitely many members lie together in one chain member. Zorn lemma, and hence the axiom of choice, gives a maximal extension . If neither nor belongs to , maximality of says adjoining either one produces the improper filter. There are therefore with and , contradicting . Thus is an ultrafilter.
For Łoś theorem, interpret the ultraproduct using when , with functions and relations interpreted coordinatewise. These interpretations are well defined because changing finitely many argument representatives changes them only outside the intersection of their agreement sets, which belongs to . For any first-order formula and sequences of parameters,
Prove this by structural induction. Atomic formulas follow from the interpretation of terms. Conjunction uses finite intersections; negation uses the ultrafilter dichotomy between a set and its complement. If holds in the ultraproduct, a witness sequence gives a subset of in . Conversely, choose a witness for in every factor where one exists, and an arbitrary element in every other factor. This is the second explicit use of the axiom of choice; all factors have nonempty carriers. The inductive hypothesis applied to supplies the ultraproduct witness. The other connectives and universal quantification follow from these cases.
For the possible worlds, use free filters, equivalently proper filters extending the cofinite filter . Here “nonprincipal” must have this free-filter meaning: merely saying that a filter has no single generating subset need not make an accessible least world. The designated world is , and all worlds have carrier . Atoms, including equality, are forced by
Equality may identify distinct sequences at a world; it is a persistent congruence, and at an ultrafilter world its quotient is the ordinary ultraproduct.
The required equivalence with all ultraproducts uses dense-extension filter semantics. Its recursive clauses are
Every extension in these clauses is a free proper filter. The dense clause for disjunction is essential; for propositional formulas, local disjunction would instead give a Kripke model for intuitionistic propositional logic and would invalidate the claimed equivalence.
The useful separation fact is membership in a free filter is detected by its ultrafilter extensions:
Indeed, if , every has infinite intersection with : a finite intersection would imply after intersecting with a suitable cofinite set. Hence adjoining generates a free proper filter, which extends to a nonprincipal ultrafilter by the ultrafilter lemma.
Induction on formulas now gives . Negation and implication follow by adjoining the positive set on which their classical truth conditions fail. For disjunction, membership of lets every extension be refined to an ultrafilter containing one of the two sets. If that union is absent from , an ultrafilter extending contains its complement and has no further proper extension, contradicting the dense clause. For existence, choose coordinate witnesses on as in Łoś theorem. For universality, if , choose a counterexample in every factor outside it and arbitrary elements elsewhere. The resulting sequence has , so cannot force that instance. The converse follows from upward closure and persistence.
At the designated world, therefore,
This semantics validates classical first-order logic, including law of excluded middle. For example, every free filter has an ultrafilter refinement deciding an atomic formula, so its excluded middle is forced even when neither disjunct is forced at the original world. To see concretely why local disjunction fails, take and an atom true exactly at even indices: neither its truth set nor its complement is cofinite, although every ultraproduct satisfies its excluded middle.