5,479 research outputs found

    TR-2014002: Proof Complexity and Quantitative Epistemology

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    To the Beat of Different Drumer....Freedom, Anarchy and Conformism in Research

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    In this paper I attempt to make a case for promoting the courage of rebels within the citadels of orthodoxy in academic research environments. Wicksell in Macroeconomics, Brouwer in the Foundations of Mathematics,Turing in Computability Theory, Sraffa in the Theories of Value and Distribution are, in my own fields of research, paradigmatic examples of rebels, adventurers and non-conformists of the highest calibre in scientific research within University environments. In what sense, and how, can such rebels, adventurers and nonconformists be fostered in the current University research environment dominated by the cult of picking winners? This is the motivational question lying behind the historical outlines of the work of Wicksell, Brouwer, Hilbert, Bishop, Veronese, Gödel, Turing and Sraffa that I describe in this paper. The debate between freedom in research and teaching and the naked imposition of correct thinking, on potential dissenters of the mind, is of serious concern in this age of austerity of material facilities. It is a debate that has occupied some the finest minds working at the deepest levels of foundational issues in mathematics, metamathematics and economic theory. By making some of the issues explicit, I hope it is possible to encourage dissenters to remain courageous in the face of current dogmas.Non-conformist research, macroeconomics, foundations of mathematics, intuitionism, constructivism, formalism, Hilbertís Dogma, Hilbertís Program, computability theory

    Computation Environments, An Interactive Semantics for Turing Machines (which P is not equal to NP considering it)

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    To scrutinize notions of computation and time complexity, we introduce and formally define an interactive model for computation that we call it the \emph{computation environment}. A computation environment consists of two main parts: i) a universal processor and ii) a computist who uses the computability power of the universal processor to perform effective procedures. The notion of computation finds it meaning, for the computist, through his \underline{interaction} with the universal processor. We are interested in those computation environments which can be considered as alternative for the real computation environment that the human being is its computist. These computation environments must have two properties: 1- being physically plausible, and 2- being enough powerful. Based on Copeland' criteria for effective procedures, we define what a \emph{physically plausible} computation environment is. We construct two \emph{physically plausible} and \emph{enough powerful} computation environments: 1- the Turing computation environment, denoted by ETE_T, and 2- a persistently evolutionary computation environment, denoted by EeE_e, which persistently evolve in the course of executing the computations. We prove that the equality of complexity classes P\mathrm{P} and NP\mathrm{NP} in the computation environment EeE_e conflicts with the \underline{free will} of the computist. We provide an axiomatic system T\mathcal{T} for Turing computability and prove that ignoring just one of the axiom of T\mathcal{T}, it would not be possible to derive P=NP\mathrm{P=NP} from the rest of axioms. We prove that the computist who lives inside the environment ETE_T, can never be confident that whether he lives in a static environment or a persistently evolutionary one.Comment: 33 pages, interactive computation, P vs N

    Intelligent escalation and the principle of relativity

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    Escalation is the fact that in a game (for instance in an auction), the agents play forever. The 0,10,1-game is an extremely simple infinite game with intelligent agents in which escalation arises. It shows at the light of research on cognitive psychology the difference between intelligence (algorithmic mind) and rationality (algorithmic and reflective mind) in decision processes. It also shows that depending on the point of view (inside or outside) the rationality of the agent may change which is proposed to be called the principle of relativity.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1306.228

    A Noisy Model of Individual Behaviour.

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    This paper develops a model of individual adjustment subject to mistakes. In this case when mistakes are assumed i.i.d., this process produces a probability distribution of agents decision whose evolution is determined by Fokker-Planck equation. This distribution converges to the unique, globally stable stationary distribution. In the case when choice space is one dimensional this distribution satisfies Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) property. In multidimensional case for IIA to hold strong additional conditions on payoff function or error structure should be satisfied. The paper also considers generalization of model for autocorrelated errors in one-dimensional case.WAGES ; DISTRIBUTION ; BEHAVIOUR

    Current research on G\"odel's incompleteness theorems

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    We give a survey of current research on G\"{o}del's incompleteness theorems from the following three aspects: classifications of different proofs of G\"{o}del's incompleteness theorems, the limit of the applicability of G\"{o}del's first incompleteness theorem, and the limit of the applicability of G\"{o}del's second incompleteness theorem.Comment: 54 pages, final accepted version, to appear in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logi
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