This article is both a comment on Neyland’s ‘On organizing algorithms’ and a supplementary note to our ‘The concept of algorithm as an interpretative key of modern rationality’. In the first part we discuss the concepts of algorithm and recursive function from a different perspective from that of our previous article. Our cultural reference for these concepts is once again computability theory. We give additional arguments in support of the idea that a culture informed by an algorithmic logic has promoted (...) modern rationality both in science and in society. We stress again the importance of distinguishing between algorithms applied to quantifiable entities such as space, time and value and those applied to ontological entities such as human actions. In the second case, the algorithm is applied outside its domain of definition and leads to social disaggregation. (shrink)

It is controversial whether Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics is of critical importance for mathematical proofs, or is only concerned with the adequate philosophical interpretation of mathematics. Wittgenstein's remarks on the infinity of prime numbers provide a helpful example which will be used to clarify this question. His antiplatonistic view of mathematics contradicts the widespread understanding of proofs as logical derivations from a set of axioms or assumptions. Wittgenstein's critique of traditional proofs of the infinity of prime numbers, specifically those of (...) Euler and Euclid, not only offers philosophical insight but also suggests substantive improvements. A careful examination of his comments leads to a deeper understanding of what proves the infinity of primes. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that it is more difficult to see how Godel's incompleteness theorems and related consistency proofs for formal systems are consistent with the views of formalists, mechanists and traditional intuitionists than it is to see how they are consistent with a particular form of mathematical realism. If the incompleteness theorems and consistency proofs are better explained by this form of realism then we can also see how there is room for skepticism about Church's Thesis and the (...) claim that minds are machines. (shrink)

We prove that there are uncountably many sets that are low for the class of Schnorr random reals. We give a purely recursion theoretic characterization of these sets and show that they all have Turing degree incomparable to 0'. This contrasts with a result of Kučera and Terwijn [5] on sets that are low for the class of Martin-Löf random reals.

We develop arithmetical measure theory along the lines of Lutz [10]. This yields the same notion of measure 0 set as considered before by Martin-Löf, Schnorr, and others. We prove that the class of sets constructible by r.e.-constructors, a direct analogue of the classes Lutz devised his resource bounded measures for in [10], is not equal to RE, the class of r.e. sets, and we locate this class exactly in terms of the common recursion-theoretic reducibilities below K. We note that (...) the class of sets that bounded truth-table reduce to K has r.e.-measure 0, and show that this cannot be improved to truth-table. For Δ2-measure the borderline between measure zero and measure nonzero lies between weak truth-table reducibility and Turing reducibility to K. It follows that there exists a Martin-Löf random set that is tt-reducible to K, and that no such set is btt-reducible to K. In fact, by a result of Kautz, a much more general result holds. (shrink)

The following theorems on the structure inside nonrecursive truth-table degrees are established: Dëgtev's result that the number of bounded truth-table degrees inside a truth-table degree is at least two is improved by showing that this number is infinite. There are even infinite chains and antichains of bounded truth-table degrees inside every truth-table degree. The latter implies an affirmative answer to the following question of Jockusch: does every truth-table degree contain an infinite antichain of many-one degrees? Some but not all truth-table (...) degrees have a least bounded truth-table degree. The technique to construct such a degree is used to solve an open problem of Beigel, Gasarch and Owings: there are Turing degrees (constructed as hyperimmune-free truth-table degrees) which consist only of 2-subjective sets and therefore do not contain any objective set. Furthermore, a truth-table degree consisting of three positive degrees is constructed where one positive degree consists of enumerable semirecursive sets, one of coenumerable semirecursive sets and one of sets, which are neither enumerable nor coenumerable nor semirecursive. So Jockusch's result that there are at least three positive degrees inside a truth-table degree is optimal. The number of positive degrees inside a truth-table degree can also be some other odd integer as for example nineteen, but it is never an even finite number. (shrink)

Inductive inference considers two types of queries: Queries to a teacher about the function to be learned and queries to a non-recursive oracle. This paper combines these two types — it considers three basic models of queries to a teacher (QEX[Succ], QEX[ The results for each of these three models of query-inference are the same: If an oracle is omniscient for query-inference then it is already omniscient for EX. There is an oracle of trivial EX-degree, which allows nontrivial query-inference. Furthermore, (...) queries to a teacher cannot overcome differences between oracles and the query-inference degrees are a proper refinement of the EX-degrees. In the case of finite learning, the query-inference degrees coincide with the Turing degrees. Furthermore oracles can not close the gap between the different types of queries to a teacher. (shrink)

In examples like the total recursive functions or the computable real numbers the canonical indexings are only partial maps. It is even impossible in these cases to find an equivalent total numbering. We consider effectively given topological T 0 -spaces and study the problem in which cases the canonical numberings of such spaces can be totalized, i.e., have an equivalent total indexing. Moreover, we show under very natural assumptions that such spaces can effectively and effectively homeomorphically be embedded into a (...) totally indexed algebraic partial order that is closed under the operation of taking least upper bounds of enumerable directed subsets. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss possible ways of measuring the power of arithmetical theories, and the possiblity of making an explication in Carnap's sense of this concept. Chaitin formulates several suggestions how to construct measures, and these suggestions are reviewed together with some new and old critical arguments. I also briefly review a measure I have designed together with some shortcomings of this measure. The conclusion of the paper is that it is not possible to formulate an explication of the (...) concept. (shrink)

By taking a closer look at the construction of an Ackermann function we see that between any primitive recursive degree and its Ackermann modification there is a dense chain of primitive recursive degrees.

A well known fact is that every Lebesgue measurable set is regular, i.e., it includes an F$_{\sigma}$ set of the same measure. We analyze this fact from a metamathematical or foundational standpoint. We study a family of Muchnik degrees corresponding to measure-theoretic regularity at all levels of the effective Borel hierarchy. We prove some new results concerning Nies's notion of LR-reducibility. We build some $\omega$-models of RCA$_0$which are relevant for the reverse mathematics of measure-theoretic regularity.

A mass problem is a set of Turing oracles. If P and Q are mass problems, we say that P is weakly reducible to Q if every member of Q Turing computes a member of P. We say that P is strongly reducible to Q if every member of Q Turing computes a member of P via a fixed Turing functional. The weak degrees and strong degrees are the equivalence classes of mass problems under weak and strong reducibility, respectively. We (...) focus on the countable distributive lattices P w and P s of weak and strong degrees of mass problems given by nonempty Π 1 0 subsets of 2 ω . Using an abstract Gödel/Rosser incompleteness property, we characterize the Π 1 0 subsets of 2 ω whose associated mass problems are of top degree in P w and P s , respectively. Let R be the set of Turing oracles which are random in the sense of Martin-Löf, and let r be the weak degree of R. We show that r is a natural intermediate degree within P w . Namely, we characterize r as the unique largest weak degree of a Π 1 0 subset of 2 ω of positive measure. Within P w we show that r is meet irreducible, does not join to 1, and is incomparable with all weak degrees of nonempty thin perfect Π 1 0 subsets of 2 ω . In addition, we present other natural examples of intermediate degrees in P w . We relate these examples to reverse mathematics, computational complexity, and Gentzen-style proof theory. (shrink)

We describe the important role that the conjectures and questions posed at the end of the two editions of Gerald Sacks's Degrees of Unsolvability have had in the development of recursion theory over the past thirty years.

The aim of this paper is to comprehensively question the validity of the standard way of interpreting Chaitin's famous incompleteness theorem, which says that for every formalized theory of arithmetic there is a finite constant c such that the theory in question cannot prove any particular number to have Kolmogorov complexity larger than c. The received interpretation of theorem claims that the limiting constant is determined by the complexity of the theory itself, which is assumed to be good measure of (...) the strength of the theory. I exhibit certain strong counterexamples and establish conclusively that the received view is false. Moreover, I show that the limiting constants provided by the theorem do not in any way reflect the power of formalized theories, but that the values of these constants are actually determined by the chosen coding of Turing machines, and are thus quite accidental. (shrink)

Chaitin’s incompleteness result related to random reals and the halting probability has been advertised as the ultimate and the strongest possible version of the incompleteness and undecidability theorems. It is argued that such claims are exaggerations.

We present a decision procedure for the ∀∃ theory of the lattice of Σ1 sentences of Peano Arithmetic.

The diagonal method is often used to show that Turing machines cannot solve their own halting problem. There have been several recent attempts to show that this method also exposes either contradiction or arbitrariness in other theoretical models of computation which claim to be able to solve the halting problem for Turing machines. We show that such arguments are flawed—a contradiction only occurs if a type of machine can compute its own diagonal function. We then demonstrate why such a situation (...) does not occur for the methods of hypercomputation under attack, and why it is unlikely to occur for any other serious methods. Introduction Issues with specific hypermachines Conclusions for hypercomputation. (shrink)

We prove that a computably enumerable set A is effectively speedable (effectively levelable) if and only if there exists a splitting (A₀,A₁) of A such that both A₀ and A₁ are effectively speedable (effectively levelable). These results answer two questions raised by J. B. Remmel.

Among others we will prove that the equational theory of ω dimensional representable polyadic equality algebras (RPEA ω 's) is not schema axiomatizable. This result is in interesting contrast with the Daigneault-Monk representation theorem, which states that the class of representable polyadic algebras is finite schema-axiomatizable (and hence the equational theory of this class is finite schema-axiomatizable, as well). We will also show that the complexity of the equational theory of RPEA ω is also extremely high in the recursion theoretic (...) sense. Finally, comparing the present negative results with the positive results of Ildiko Sain and Viktor Gyuris [12], the following methodological conclusions will be drawn: The negative properties of polyadic (equality) algebras can be removed by switching from what we call the "polyadic algebraic paradigm" to the "cylindric algebraic paradigm". (shrink)

Machines were introduced as calculating devices to simulate operations carried out by human computers following fixed algorithms. The mathematical study of (paper) machines is the topic of our essay. The first three sections provide necessary logical background, examine the analyses of effective calculability given in the thirties, and describe results that are central to recursion theory, reinforcing the conceptual analyses. In the final section we pursue our investigation in a quite different way and focus on principles that govern the operations (...) of physically realizable machines. (shrink)

We present a comparatively simple way to construct Martin-Löf random and rec-random sets with certain additional properties, which works by diagonalizing against appropriate martingales. Reviewing the result of Gács and Kučera, for any given set X we construct a Martin-Löf random set from which X can be decoded effectively. By a variant of the basic construction we obtain a rec-random set that is weak truth-table autoreducible and we observe that there are Martin-Löf random sets that are computably enumerable self-reducible. The (...) two latter results complement the known facts that no rec-random set is truth-table autoreducible and that no Martin-Löf random set is Turing-autoreducible [8, 24]. (shrink)

We study a strong enumeration reducibility, called bounded enumeration reducibility and denoted by ≤be, which is a natural extension of s-reducibility ≤s. We show that ≤s, ≤be, and enumeration reducibility do not coincide on the \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Pi^0_1}$$\end{document} –sets, and the structure \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\boldsymbol{\mathcal{D}_{\rm be}}}$$\end{document} of the be-degrees is not elementarily equivalent to the structure of the s-degrees. We show also that the first order theory (...) of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\boldsymbol{\mathcal{D}_{\rm be}}}$$\end{document} is computably isomorphic to true second order arithmetic: this answers an open question raised by Cooper (Z Math Logik Grundlag Math 33:537–560, 1987). (shrink)

Say that an incomplete d.r.e. degree has almost universal cupping property, if it cups all the r.e. degrees not below it to 0′. In this paper, we construct such a degree d, with all the r.e. degrees not cupping d to 0′ bounded by some r.e. degree strictly below d. The construction itself is an interesting 0″′ argument and this new structural property can be used to study final segments of various degree structures in the Ershov hierarchy.

We present a decision procedure for the ∀∃ theory of the lattice of Σ1 sentences of Peano Arithmetic.

We show that there exists a real α such that, for all reals β, if α is linear reducible to β then β≤Tα. In fact, every random real satisfies this quasi-maximality property. As a corollary we may conclude that there exists no ℓ-complete Δ2 real. Upon realizing that quasi-maximality does not characterize the random reals–there exist reals which are not random but which are of quasi-maximal ℓ-degree–it is then natural to ask whether maximality could provide such a characterization. Such hopes, (...) however, are in vain since no real is of maximal ℓ-degree. (shrink)

We show that every finite lattice is embeddable into the Σ 0 2 enumeration degrees via a lattice-theoretic embedding which preserves 0 and 1.

We give natural examples of factors of the Muchnik lattice which capture intuitionistic propositional logic , arising from the concepts of lowness, 1-genericity, hyperimmune-freeness and computable traceability. This provides a purely computational semantics for IPC.

The main result of this paper states that the isomorphism problem for ω-automatic trees of finite height is at least has hard as second-order arithmetic and therefore not analytical. This strengthens a recent result by Hjorth, Khoussainov, Montalbán, and Nies showing that the isomorphism problem for ω-automatic structures is not in . Moreover, assuming the continuum hypothesis CH, we can show that the isomorphism problem for ω-automatic trees of finite height is recursively equivalent with second-order arithmetic. On the way to (...) our main results, we show lower and upper bounds for the isomorphism problem for ω-automatic trees of every finite height: It is decidable , for height 1 , -hard and in for height 3, and - and -hard and in for height . All proofs are elementary and do not rely on theorems from set theory. (shrink)

The task of computing a function F with the help of an oracle X can be viewed as a search problem where the cost measure is the number of queries to X. We ask for the minimal number that can be achieved by a suitable choice of X and call this quantity the query complexity of F. This concept is suggested by earlier work of Beigel, Gasarch, Gill, and Owings on “Bounded query classes”. We introduce a fault tolerant version and (...) relate it with Ulam's game. For many natural classes of functions F we obtain tight upper and lower bounds on the query complexity of F. Previous results like the Nonspeedup Theorem and the Cardinality Theorem appear in a wider perspective. (shrink)

Let ℸ be the set of Gödel numbers Gn of function symbols f such that PRA ⊢ and let γ be the function such that equation imageWe prove: The r. e. set ℸ is m-complete; the function γ is not primitive recursive in any class of functions {f1, f2, ⃛} so long as each fi has a recursive upper bound. This implies that γ is not primitive recursive in ℸ although it is recursive in ℸ.

We study the degrees of unsolvability of sets which are cohesive . We answer a question raised by the first author in 1972 by showing that there is a cohesive set A whose degree a satisfies a' = 0″ and hence is not high. We characterize the jumps of the degrees of r-cohesive sets, and we show that the degrees of r-cohesive sets coincide with those of the cohesive sets. We obtain analogous results for strongly hyperimmune and strongly hyperhyperimmune sets (...) in place of r-cohesive and cohesive sets, respectively. We show that every strongly hyperimmune set whose degree contains either a Boolean combination of ∑2 sets or a 1-generic set is of high degree. We also study primitive recursive analogues of these notions and in this case we characterize the corresponding degrees exactly. MSC: 03D30, 03D55. (shrink)

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Consistency with the formal Church’s thesis, for short CT, and the axiom of choice, for short AC, was one of the requirements asked to be satisfied by the intensional level of a two-level foundation for constructive mathematics as proposed by Maietti and Sambin From sets and types to topology and analysis: practicable foundations for constructive mathematics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005). Here we show that this is the case for the intensional level of the two-level Minimalist Foundation, for short MF, (...) completed in 2009 by the second author. The intensional level of MF consists of an intensional type theory à la Martin-Löf, called mTT. The consistency of mTT with CT and AC is obtained by showing the consistency with the formal Church’s thesis of a fragment of intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory, called \, where mTT can be easily interpreted. Then to show the consistency of \ with CT we interpret it within Feferman’s predicative theory of non-iterative fixpoints \ by extending the well known Kleene’s realizability semantics of intuitionistic arithmetics so that CT is trivially validated. More in detail the fragment \ we interpret consists of first order intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory with one universe and with explicit substitution rules in place of usual equality rules preserving type constructors -rule which is not valid in our realizability semantics). A key difficulty encountered in our interpretation was to use the right interpretation of lambda abstraction in the applicative structure of natural numbers in order to model all the equality rules of \ correctly. In particular the universe of \ is modelled by means of \-fixpoints following a technique due first to Aczel and used by Feferman and Beeson. (shrink)

Children learn their native language by exposure to their linguistic and communicative environment, but apparently without requiring that their mistakes be corrected. Such learning from “positive evidence” has been viewed as raising “logical” problems for language acquisition. In particular, without correction, how is the child to recover from conjecturing an over-general grammar, which will be consistent with any sentence that the child hears? There have been many proposals concerning how this “logical problem” can be dissolved. In this study, we review (...) recent formal results showing that the learner has sufficient data to learn successfully from positive evidence, if it favors the simplest encoding of the linguistic input. Results include the learnability of linguistic prediction, grammaticality judgments, language production, and form-meaning mappings. The simplicity approach can also be “scaled down” to analyze the learnability of specific linguistic constructions, and it is amenable to empirical testing as a framework for describing human language acquisition. (shrink)

An epistemic formalization of arithmetic is constructed in which certain non-trivial metatheoretical inferences about the system itself can be made. These inferences involve the notion of provability in principle, and cannot be made in any consistent extensions of Stewart Shapiro's system of epistemic arithmetic. The system constructed in the paper can be given a modal-structural interpretation.

We prove that for every ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{2}^{0}$ enumeration degree b there exists a noncuppable ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{2}^{0}$ degree a > 0 e such that b′ ≤ e a′ and a″ ≤ e b″. This allows us to deduce, from results on the high/low jump hierarchy in the local Turing degrees and the jump preserving properties of the standard embedding l: D T → D e , that there exist ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{2}^{0}$ noncuppable enumeration degrees at every possible—i.e., above low₁—level of the high/low (...) jump hierarchy in the context of D e. (shrink)

In [9]. Yates proved the existence of a Turing degree a such that 0. 0′ are the only c.e. degrees comparable with it. By Slaman and Steel [7], every degree below 0′ has a 1-generic complement, and as a consequence. Yates degrees can be 1-generic, and hence can be low. In this paper, we prove that Yates degrees occur in every jump class.

We investigate Turing's contributions to computability theory for real numbers and real functions presented in [22, 24, 26]. In particular, it is shown how two fundamental approaches to computable analysis, the so-called ‘Type-2 Theory of Effectivity' (TTE) and the ‘realRAM machine' model, have their foundations in Turing's work, in spite of the two incompatible notions of computability they involve. It is also shown, by contrast, how the modern conceptual tools provided by these two paradigms allow a systematic interpretation of Turing's (...) pioneering work in the subject. (shrink)

We give several characterizations of Schnorr trivial sets, including a new lowness notion for Schnorr triviality based on truth-table reducibility. These characterizations allow us to see not only that some natural classes of sets, including maximal sets, are composed entirely of Schnorr trivials, but also that the Schnorr trivial sets form an ideal in the truth-table degrees but not the weak truth-table degrees. This answers a question of Downey, Griffiths and LaForte.

We prove that if an incomplete computably enumerable set has the the universal splitting property then it is low2. This solves a question from Ambos-Spies and Fejer [1] and Downey and Stob [7]. Some technical improvements are discussed.