Propositional computability logic I

Abstract

In the same sense as classical logic is a formal theory of truth, the recently initiated approach called computability logic is a formal theory of computability. It understands (interactive) computational problems as games played by a machine against the environment, their computability as existence of a machine that always wins the game, logical operators as operations on computational problems, and validity of a logical formula as being a scheme of "always computable" problems. The present contribution gives a detailed exposition of a soundness and completeness proof for an axiomatization of one of the most basic fragments of computability logic. The logical vocabulary of this fragment contains operators for the so called parallel and choice operations, and its atoms represent elementary problems, i.e. predicates in the standard sense. This article is self-contained as it explains all relevant concepts. While not technically necessary, however, familiarity with the foundational paper "Introduction to computability logic" [Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 123 (2003), pp.1-99] would greatly help the reader in understanding the philosophy, underlying motivations, potential and utility of computability logic, -- the context that determines the value of the present results. Online introduction to the subject is available at http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~giorgi/cl.html and http://www.csc.villanova.edu/~japaridz/CL/gsoll.html .Comment: To appear in ACM Transactions on Computational Logi