English

On the complexity of finding falsifying assignments for Herbrand disjunctions

Logic in Computer Science 2014-11-14 v1 Logic

Abstract

Suppose that Φ\Phi is a consistent sentence. Then there is no Herbrand proof of ¬Φ\neg \Phi, which means that any Herbrand disjunction made from the prenex form of ¬Φ\neg \Phi is falsifiable. We show that the problem of finding such a falsifying assignment is hard in the following sense. For every total polynomial search problem RR, there exists a consistent Φ\Phi such that finding solutions to RR can be reduced to finding a falsifying assignment to an Herbrand disjunction made from ¬Φ\neg \Phi. It has been conjectured that there are no complete total polynomial search problems. If this conjecture is true, then for every consistent sentence Φ\Phi, there exists a consistence sentence Ψ\Psi, such that the search problem associated with Ψ\Psi cannot be reduced to the search problem associated with Φ\Phi.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1411.3304,
  title  = {On the complexity of finding falsifying assignments for Herbrand disjunctions},
  author = {Pavel Pudlak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.3304},
  year   = {2014}
}