English

Why the classes P and NP are not well-defined finitarily

Logic 2024-01-19 v1

Abstract

We distinguish finitarily between algorithmic verifiability, and algorithmic computability, to show that Goedel's 'formally' unprovable, but 'numeral-wise' provable, arithmetical proposition [(Ax)R(x)] can be finitarily evidenced as: algorithmically verifiable as 'always' true, but not algorithmically computable as 'always' true. Hence, though [R(x)] is algorithmically verifiable as a tautology, it is not algorithmically computable as a tautology by any Turing machine, whether deterministic or non-deterministic. By interpreting the PvNP problem arithmetically, rather than set-theoretically, we conclude that the clkasses P and NP are not well-defined finitarily since it immediately follows that SAT is neither in P nor in NP.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.09478,
  title  = {Why the classes P and NP are not well-defined finitarily},
  author = {Bhupinder Singh Anand},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.09478},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

28 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:19:40.385Z