One way to ensure correctness of the inference performed by computer theorem provers is to force all proofs to be done step by step in a simple, more or less traditional, deductive system. Using techniques pioneered in Edinburgh LCF, this can be made palatable. However, some believe such an approach will never be efficient enough for large, complex proofs. One alternative, commonly called reflection, is to analyze proofs using a second layer of logic, a metalogic, and so justify abbreviating or simplifying proofs, making the kinds of shortcuts humans often do or appealing to specialized decision algorithms. In this paper we contrast the fully-expansive LCF approach with the use of reflection. We put forward arguments to suggest that the inadequacy of the LCF approach has not been adequately demonstrated, and neither has the practical utility of reflection (notwithstanding its undoubted intellectual interest). The LCF system with which we are most concerned is the HOL proof ...

Interpretations are much used in metamathematics. The first application that comes to mind is their use in reductive Hilbert-style programs. Think of the kind of program proposed by Simpson, Feferman or Nelson (see Simpson[1988], Feferman[1988], Nelson[1986]). Here they serve to compare the strength of theories, or better to prove

Kleene's Second Recursion Theorem provides a means for transforming any program p into a program e(p) which first creates a quiescent self copy and then runs p on that self copy together with any externally given input. e(p), in effect, has complete (low level) self knowledge, and p represents how e(p) uses its self knowledge (and its knowledge of the external world). Infinite regress is not required since e(p) creates its self copy outside of itself. One mechanism to achieve this creation is a self replication trick isomorphic to that employed by single-celled organisms. Another is for e(p) to look in a mirror to see which program it is. In 1974 the author published an infinitary generalization of Kleene's theorem which he called the Operator Recursion Theorem. It provides a means for obtaining an (algorithmically) growing collection of programs which, in effect, share a common (also growing) mirror from which they can obtain complete low level models of themselves and the other prog...

Machine learning of limit programs (i.e., programs allowed finitely many mind changes about their legitimate outputs) for computable functions is stud-ied. Learning of iterated limit programs is also studied. To partially motivate these studies, it is shown that, in some cases, interesting global properties of computable functions can be proved from suitable (n + 1)-iterated limit pro-grams for them which can not be proved from any n-iterated limit programs for them. It is shown that learning power is increased when (n + 1)-iterated limit programs rather than n-iterated limit programs are to be learned. Many trade-off results are obtained regarding learning power, number (possibly zero) of limits taken, program size constraints and information, and number of errors tolerated in final programs learned.

this paper.

Abstract. Is it possible to give a coordinate free formulation of the Second Incompleteness Theorem? We pursue one possible approach to this question. We show that (i) cutfree consistency for finitely axiomatized theories can be uniquely characterized modulo EA-provable equivalence, (ii) consistency for finitely axiomatized sequential theories can be uniquely characterized modulo EA-provable equivalence. The case of infinitely axiomatized ce theories is more delicate. We carefully discuss this in the paper. 1.

The goals of reduction and reductionism in the natural sciences are mainly explanatory in character, while those in mathematics are primarily foundational. In contrast to global reductionist programs which aim to reduce all of mathematics to one supposedly "universal " system or foundational scheme, reductive proof theory pursues local reductions of one formal system to another which is more justified in some sense. In this direction, two specific rationales have been proposed as aims for reductive proof theory, the constructive consistency-proof rationale and the foundational reduction rationale. However, recent advances in proof theory force one to consider the viability of these rationales. Despite the genuine problems of foundational significance raised by that work, the paper concludes with a defense of reductive proof theory at a minimum as one of the principal means to lay out what rests on what in mathematics. In an extensive appendix to the paper, various reducti...

Progressions of iterated reflection principles can be used as a tool for ordinal analysis of formal systems. Technically, in some sense, they replace the use of omega-rule. We compare the information obtained by this kind of analysis with the results obtained by the more usual proof-theoretic techniques. In some cases the techniques of iterated reflection principles allows to obtain sharper results, e.g., to define proof-theoretic ordinals relevant to logical complexity Π 0 1. We provide a more general version of the fine structure formulas for iterated reflection principles (due to U. Schmerl [24]). This allows us, in a uniform manner, to analyze main fragments of arithmetic axiomatized by restricted forms of induction, including IΣn, IΣ − n, IΠ − n and their combinations. We also obtain new conservation results relating the hierarchies of uniform and local reflection principles. In particular, we show that (for a sufficiently broad class of theories T) the uniform Σ1-reflection principle for T is Σ2-conservative over the corresponding local reflection principle. This bears some corollaries on the hierarchies of restricted induction schemata in arithmetic and provides a key tool for our generalization of Schmerl’s theorem. 1

Hilbert’s program is, in the first instance, a proposal and a research program in the philosophy and foundations of mathematics. It was formulated in the early 1920s by German mathematician David Hilbert (1862–1943), and was pursued by him and his collaborators at the University of Göttingen and elsewhere in the 1920s

This paper discusses Tennenbaum’s Theorem in its original context of models of arithmetic, which states that there are no recursive nonstandard models of Peano Arithmetic. We focus on three separate areas: the historical background to the theorem; an understanding of the theorem and its relationship with the Gödel–Rosser Theorem; and extensions of Tennenbaum’s theorem to diophantine problems in models of arthmetic, especially problems concerning which diophantine equations have roots in some model of a given theory of arithmetic.