From Philosophy to Program Size · HackerPapers discussions

From Philosophy to Program Size — mentioned by ttctciyf

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:54:41 GMT

I've long admired Chaitin for his original thinking and especially his ability to clearly convey his ideas about foundations, complexity and information in concise and digestible short proofs. I'm a little surprised, however, to see him here proselytizing for a particular side in the constructivism debate. I associate him more with what he has described as a "quasi empirical" approach to mathematics[0] where the adoption of new axioms (such as for example the axiom of choice) is justified by their resulting in new, interesting mathematics. But here, it seems his goal is to arrive at a…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

From Philosophy to Program Size — mentioned by pizza

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 01:32:31 GMT

allow me to make your day: - Computational trinitarianism, or how 1.) propositions as types, 2.) programs as proofs, and 3.) the relation between type theory and category theory are one and the same thing [0] - Scott aaronson's excellent "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity" [1] - "From Philosophy to Program Size" by Greg Chaitin. Arguably Chaitin's work (notably Chaitin's omega) is a quintessential example of what lies at the intersection of mathematics, computation, and philosophy.[2] - From the inimitable Juergen Schmidhueber, "Driven by Compression Progress: A…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

From Philosophy to Program Size — mentioned by hyporthogon

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 19:50:46 GMT

Everything I've read by Chaitin is interesting and thoughtful, but this piece is particularly accessible and entertaining: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0303352

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From Philosophy to Program Size — HN submission

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 14:02:14 GMT

From Philosophy to Program Size (2003)

75 points; 30 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.