An introduction to γ-recursion theory (or what to do in KP – Foundation)

Algorithmic Procedures, Generalized Turing Algorithms, and Elementary Recursion Theory

Extendability of ZF Models in the von Neuman Hierarchy to Models of KM theory of classes

Recursively invariant β-recursion theory

All Science As Rigorous Science: The Principle of Constructive Mathematizability of Any Theory

This thesis introduces a well-ordering principle of type two, which we call the Bachmann-Howard principle. The main result states that the Bachmann-Howard principle is equivalent to the existence of admissible sets and thus to Pi^1_1-comprehension. This solves a conjecture of Rathjen and Montalban. The equivalence is interesting because it relates concrete notions from ordinal analysis to abstract notions from reverse mathematics and set theory. A type-one well-ordering principle is a map T which transforms each well-order X into another well-order T[X]. If T is particularly uniform then it is called a dilator (due to Girard). Our Bachmann-Howard principle transforms each dilator T into a well-order BH(T). The latter is a certain kind of fixed-point: It comes with an almost monotone collapse theta:T[BH(T)]->BH(T) (we cannot expect full monotonicity, since the order-type of T[X] may always exceed the order-type of X). The Bachmann-Howard principle asserts that such a collapsing structure exists. In fact we define three variants of this principle: They are equivalent but differ in the sense in which the order BH(T) is computed. On a technical level, our investigation involves the following achievements: a detailed discussion of primitive recursive set theory as a basis for set-theoretic reverse mathematics; a formalization of dilators in weak set theories and second-order arithmetic; a functorial version of the constructible hierarchy; an approach to deduction chains (Schutte) and beta-completeness (Girard) in a set-theoretic context; and a beta-consistency proof for Kripke-Platek set theory. Independently of the Bachmann-Howard principle, the thesis contains a series of results connected to slow consistency (introduced by S.-D. Friedman, Rathjen and Weiermann): We present a slow reflection statement and investigate its consistency strength, as well as its computational properties. Exploiting the latter, we show that instances of the Paris-Harrington principle can only have extremely long proofs in certain fragments of arithmetic.

Let α be a limit ordinal with the property that any “recursive” function whose domain is a proper initial segment of α has its range bounded by α. α is then called admissible (in a sense to be made precise later) and a recursion theory can be developed on it (α-recursion theory) by providing the generalized notions of α-recursively enumerable, α-recursive and α-finite. Takeuti [12] was the first to study recursive functions of ordinals, the subject owing its further development to Kripke [7], Platek [8], Kreisel [6], and Sacks [9].Infinitary logic on the other hand (i.e., the study of languages which allow expressions of infinite length) was quite extensively studied by Scott [11], Tarski, Kreisel, Karp [5] and others. Kreisel suggested in the late '50's that these languages (even which allows countable expressions but only finite quantification) were too large and that one should only allow expressions which are, in some generalized sense, finite. This made the application of generalized recursion theory to the logic of infinitary languages appear natural. In 1967 Barwise [1] was the first to present a complete formalization of the restriction of to an admissible fragment (A a countable admissible set) and to prove that completeness and compactness hold for it. [2] is an excellent reference for a detailed exposition of admissible languages.

Uncomputability and undecidability in economic theory

Let α be an admissible ordinal. In this paper we study the structure of the upper semilattice of α-recursively enumerable degrees. Various results about the structure which are of fundamental importance had been obtained during the past two years (Sacks-Simpson [7], Lerman [4], Shore [9]). In particular, the method of finite priority argument of Friedberg and Muchnik was successfully generalized in [7] to an α-finite priority argument to give a solution of Post's problem for all admissible ordinals. We refer the reader to [7] for background material, and we also follow closely the notations used there.Whereas [7] and [4] study priority arguments in which the number of injuries inflicted on a proper initial segment of requirements can be effectively bounded (Lemma 2.3 of [7]), we tackle here priority arguments in which no such bounds exist. To this end, we focus our attention on the fine structure of Lα, much in the fashion of Jensen [2], and show that we can still use a priority argument on an indexing set of requirements just short enough to give us the necessary bounds we seek.

For [Formula: see text], the coarse similarity class of A, denoted by [Formula: see text], is the set of all [Formula: see text] such that the symmetric difference of A and B has asymptotic density 0. There is a natural metric [Formula: see text] on the space [Formula: see text] of coarse similarity classes defined by letting [Formula: see text] be the upper density of the symmetric difference of A and B. We study the metric space of coarse similarity classes under this metric, and show in particular that between any two distinct points in this space there are continuum many geodesic paths. We also study subspaces of the form [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is closed under Turing equivalence, and show that there is a tight connection between topological properties of such a space and computability-theoretic properties of [Formula: see text]. We then define a distance between Turing degrees based on Hausdorff distance in the metric space [Formula: see text]. We adapt a proof of Monin to show that the Hausdorff distances between Turing degrees that occur are exactly 0, [Formula: see text], and 1, and study which of these values occur most frequently in the senses of Lebesgue measure and Baire category. We define a degree a to be attractive if the class of all degrees at distance [Formula: see text] from a has measure 1, and dispersive otherwise. In particular, we study the distribution of attractive and dispersive degrees. We also study some properties of the metric space of Turing degrees under this Hausdorff distance, in particular the question of which countable metric spaces are isometrically embeddable in it, giving a graph-theoretic sufficient condition for embeddability. Motivated by a couple of issues arising in the above work, we also study the computability-theoretic and reverse-mathematical aspects of a Ramsey-theoretic theorem due to Mycielski, which in particular implies that there is a perfect set whose elements are mutually 1-random, as well as a perfect set whose elements are mutually 1-generic. Finally, we study the completeness of [Formula: see text] from the perspectives of computability theory and reverse mathematics.

What can computers do in principle? What are their inherent theoretical limitations? These are questions to which computer scientists must address themselves. The theoretical framework which enables such questions to be answered has been developed over the last fifty years from the idea of a computable function: intuitively a function whose values can be calculated in an effective or automatic way. This book is an introduction to computability theory (or recursion theory as it is traditionally known to mathematicians). Dr Cutland begins with a mathematical characterisation of computable functions using a simple idealised computer (a register machine); after some comparison with other characterisations, he develops the mathematical theory, including a full discussion of non-computability and undecidability, and the theory of recursive and recursively enumerable sets. The later chapters provide an introduction to more advanced topics such as Gödel's incompleteness theorem, degrees of unsolvability, the Recursion theorems and the theory of complexity of computation. Computability is thus a branch of mathematics which is of relevance also to computer scientists and philosophers. Mathematics students with no prior knowledge of the subject and computer science students who wish to supplement their practical expertise with some theoretical background will find this book of use and interest.

The Relationship of Arithmetic As Two Twin Peano Arithmetic(s) and Set Theory: A New Glance From the Theory of Information

This paper describes axiomatic theories SA and SAR, which are versions of second order arithmetic with countably many sorts for sets of natural numbers. The theories are intended to be applied in reverse mathematics because their multi-sorted language allows to express some mathematical statements in more natural form than in the standard second order arithmetic. We study metamathematical properties of the theories SA, SAR and their fragments. We show that SA is mutually interpretable with the theory of arithmetical truth PATr obtained from the Peano arithmetic by adding infinitely many truth predicates. Corresponding fragments of SA and PATr are also mutually interpretable. We compare the proof-theoretical strengths of the fragments; in particular, we show that each fragment SAs with sorts <=s is weaker than next fragment SAs+1.

In this paper, we examine the limit of applicability of Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem ($\textsf {G1}$ for short). We first define the notion “$\textsf {G1}$ holds for the theory $T$”. This paper is motivated by the following question: can we find a theory with a minimal degree of interpretation for which $\textsf {G1}$ holds. To approach this question, we first examine the following question: is there a theory T such that Robinson’s $\mathbf {R}$ interprets T but T does not interpret $\mathbf {R}$ (i.e., T is weaker than $\mathbf {R}$ w.r.t. interpretation) and $\textsf {G1}$ holds for T? In this paper, we show that there are many such theories based on Jeřábek’s work using some model theory. We prove that for each recursively inseparable pair $\langle A,B\rangle $, we can construct a r.e. theory $U_{\langle A,B\rangle }$ such that $U_{\langle A,B\rangle }$ is weaker than $\mathbf {R}$ w.r.t. interpretation and $\textsf {G1}$ holds for $U_{\langle A,B\rangle }$. As a corollary, we answer a question from Albert Visser. Moreover, we prove that for any Turing degree $\mathbf {0}< \mathbf {d}<\mathbf {0}^{\prime }$, there is a theory T with Turing degree $\mathbf {d}$ such that $\textsf {G1}$ holds for T and T is weaker than $\mathbf {R}$ w.r.t. Turing reducibility. As a corollary, based on Shoenfield’s work using some recursion theory, we show that there is no theory with a minimal degree of Turing reducibility for which $\textsf {G1}$ holds.

This chapter prepares the reader's mind for reverse mathematics. As its name suggests, reverse mathematics seeks not theorems but the right axioms to prove theorems already known. Reverse mathematics began as a technical field of mathematical logic, but its main ideas have precedents in the ancient field of geometry and the early twentieth-century field of set theory. In geometry, the parallel axiom is the right axiom to prove many theorems of Euclidean geometry, such as the Pythagorean theorem. Set theory offers a more modern example: base theory called ZF, a theorem that ZF cannot prove (the well-ordering theorem) and the “right axiom” for proving it—the axiom of choice. From these and similar examples one can guess at a base theory for analysis, and the “right axioms” for proving some of its well-known theorems.

Computability is one of the fundamental notions of mathematics and computer science, trying to capture the effective content of mathematics and its applications. Computability Theory explores the frontiers and limits of effectiveness and algorithmic methods. It has its origins in Godel's Incompleteness Theorems and the formalization of computability by Turing and others, which later led to the emergence of computer science as we know it today. Computability Theory is strongly connected to other areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science. The core of this theory is the analysis of relative computability and the induced degrees of unsolvability; its applications are mainly to Kolmogorov complexity and randomness as well as mathematical logic, analysis and algebra. Current research in computability theory stresses these applications and focuses on algorithmic randomness, computable analysis, computable model theory, and reverse mathematics (proof theory). Recent advances in these research directions have revealed some deep interactions not only among these areas but also with the core parts of computability theory. The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar is to bring together researchers from all parts of computability theory and related areas in order to discuss advances in the individual areas and the interactions among those.