Talk:Computability logic

Today (7 Oct. 2016) I updated the references list. It is long compared with the article itself, but I intend to significantly expand the content of the article. The entry is not marked as a stub but it is in fact a stub. User:Anastz5


The characterization of classical logic as a "formal theory of proof" seems to me to be quite wrong, especially given that classical mathematics is largely (entirely?) proof-irrelevant. I think it would be better to characterize classical logic as a "formal theory of truth" and, if proof must be mentioned, to characterize intuitionistic logic (or perhaps intuitionistic type theory) as a "formal theory of proof". Intuitionistic logic is often differentiated from classical logic precisely because it dispenses with the concept of truth in favor of provability. ---- 174.126.108.52 (talk) 07:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


I find the remarks of the two skeptics below subjective and unsubstantiated. In any case, they have been made three years ago and time has clearly spoken in my favor who at that time criticized those comments. I have just harvested and added a dozen new references. The sheer volume of those publications, and the prestige and quality of their venues (as high as one can go), speak for themselves. Note that all but one of the numerous papers from the References list appeared during the last three years, after the following discussions took place. This is a new but rapidly evolving project.

For the same reason, this Wikipedia article should probably be labeled as a stub. It should be made longer and more informative. Including some examples and illustrations would be good. I am not a good writer, so hope somebody else can help here. ---- David. November 10, 2008.


This entry strikes me as self-advertising by Mr. Japaridze. There are quite a few "computational logics" like this one; an expert should decide whether Mr Japaridze's theory is such a break-through as to deserve a single entry to itself.

We have User:Charles Stewart's opinion on this. Charles Matthews 08:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well what was his opinion? I'm a graduate student in logic studying computability and I read through a fair fraction of his paper before giving up in disinterest. It seems to be valid work (as I would expect given where it is published) but I saw nothing very earth-shattering about it. Most of it was fairly natural (though notationally complex) generalizations of the standard theory of two player games and the well known isomorphism between sentences written in prenex normal form and games. I'm not saying his work isn't usefull or interesting but there is no reason to believe it is any more so than the many various logics published in mathematics and CS journals. In particular the fact that the computability logic page seems to be mostly papers by him suggests that it is just another academics research program that may or may not turn out to amount to much. I don't have a problem with their being a page somewhere on wikipedia describing it but I'm getting tired or running into links about it whenever I'm editing pages on computability theory. At the very least something should be done to make it clear this isn't some widely accepted/used theory. Logicnazi
Well, this is a reference work, and will over-inform some people accordiong to their needs. I would agree that there were initially too prominent and too many links to it. I kept an eye on those for a while. Any that are misplaced can be removed, within reason. User:Chalst is actually very positive about the underlying work. (By the way your chosen user name will not always get you a fair hearing here.) Charles Matthews 10:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have read 5+ papers on computability logic (over 300 pages altogether!), and I find that stuff superior-quality. It is probably premature to guess whether it is going to eventually make a real impact, but it certainly does deserve the few bytes of wiki space that it takes. It is a shame that there is so little material on logic here, so why not welcome more articles like this one? Look at some other areas, where every little thing, event or word has a separate article devoted to it.

As for self-advertising, I share User:Charles Stewart's doubts. A researcher who publishes in APAL and TCS is unlikely to bother advertising here. The experts he would want to impress trust journals and not wikipedia. Also, this wiki article is not quite written in a professional style, and is fairly incomplete. Looks more like a student's work to me. And in any case, if scientists stop being lazy or arrogant and start writing on at least their own work for wiki, that would only be better for the quality, breadth and depth of articles. ---- David. November 13, 2005.


Here is the expert User:Charles Stewart's opinion:

  1. While I'm sure that whoever did these edits has some investment, careerwise and/or emotional, in the topic, there are reasons to doubt it is Japaridze, namely whoever it is hasn't done a terribly good job of summarising the topic; I would normally expect a researcher to do a better job than this;
  2. I don't follow the detail of Japaridze's work myself, but a close colleague of mine does, and it is the real thing: solid research work that is well-motivated and perhaps has the potential to make a real impact;
  3. The edits are gung-ho and lack perspective but they were not abusive and they have stopped. Take care when reintroducing appropriate perspective not to throw away perfectly good content: that cure would be worse than the disease. ---- Charles Stewart 21:55, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PS. A point about the "no research" rule: the interpretation given at the authoritative Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not says:

Primary research such as proposing theories and solutions, original ideas, defining terms, coining words, etc. If you have done primary research on a topic, publish your results in normal peer-reviewed journals. Wikipedia will report about your work once it becomes part of accepted human knowledge. But of course you don't have to get all of your information on entries from peer-reviewed journals. See Wikipedia:No original research.
which I understand as saying that once ideas have passed the test of peer review, they are fair game for summarisation on Wikipedia. So Japaridze's work passes that test. ---- Charles Stewart 22:01, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)