[1108.1791] Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity
source link: https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1791
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
[Submitted on 8 Aug 2011 (v1), last revised 14 Aug 2011 (this version, v3)]
Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity
One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In particular, I argue that computational complexity theory---the field that studies the resources (such as time, space, and randomness) needed to solve computational problems---leads to new perspectives on the nature of mathematical knowledge, the strong AI debate, computationalism, the problem of logical omniscience, Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's grue riddle, the foundations of quantum mechanics, economic rationality, closed timelike curves, and several other topics of philosophical interest. I end by discussing aspects of complexity theory itself that could benefit from philosophical analysis.
Recommend
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK