arXiv subjects

Gavin St. John

Publications and source records attributed to Gavin St. John.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

On the structure and theory of McCarthy algebras

We provide a structural analysis for McCarthy algebras, the variety generated by the three-element algebra defining the logic of McCarthy (the non-commutative version of Kleene three-valued logics). Our analysis will be conducted in a very general algebraic setting by introducing McCarthy algebras as a subvariety of unital bands (idempotent monoids) equipped with an involutive (unary) operation $'$ satisfying $x''\approx x$; herein referred to as i-ubands. Prominent (commutative) subvarieties of i-ubands include Boolean algebras, ortholattices, Kleene algebras, and involutive bisemilattices, hence i-ubands provides an algebraic common ground for several non-classical logics. Our main contributions consist in providing for McCarthy algebras: reduced and equivalent axiomatizations; a semilattice decomposition theorem; and representations as certain decorated posets from which the algebraic structure can be uniquely determined.

math.LO↗

arXiv2025

Complexities of Well-Quasi-Ordered Substructural Logics

Substructural logics are formal logical systems that omit familiar structural rules of classical and intuitionistic logic such as contraction, weakening, exchange (commutativity), and associativity. This leads to a resource-sensitive logical framework that has proven influential beyond mathematical logic and its algebraic semantics, across theoretical computer science, linguistics, and philosophical logic. The set of theorems of a substructural logic is recursively enumerable and, in many cases, recursive. These logics also possess an intricate mathematical structure that has been the subject of research for over six decades. We undertake a comprehensive study of substructural logics possessing an underlying well-quasi-order (wqo), using established ordinal-indexed fast-growing complexity classes to classify the complexity of their deducibility (quasiequational) and provability (equational) problems. This includes substructural logics with weak variants of contraction and weakening, and logics with weak or even no exchange. We further consider infinitely many axiomatic extensions over the base systems. We establish a host of decidability and complexity bounds, many of them tight, by developing new techniques in proof theory, well-quasi-order theory (contributing new length theorems), the algebraic semantics of substructural logics via residuated lattices, algebraic proof theory, and novel encodings of counter machines. Classifying the computational complexity of substructural logics (and the complexity of the word problem and of the equational theory of their algebraic semantics) reveals how subtle variations in their design influence their algorithmic behavior, with the decision problems often reaching Ackermannian or even hyper-Ackermannian complexity.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2022

Connexive implications in Substructural Logics

This paper is devoted to the investigation of term-definable connexive implications in substructural logics with exchange and, on the semantical perspective, in sub-varieties of commutative residuated lattices (FLe-algebras). In particular, we inquire into sufficient and necessary conditions under which generalizations of the connexive implication-like operation defined in [6] for Heyting algebras still satisfy connexive theses. It will turn out that, in most cases, connexive principles are equivalent to the equational Glivenko property with respect to Boolean algebras. Furthermore, we provide some philosophical upshots like e.g., a discussion on the relevance of the above operation in relationship with G. Polya's logic of plausible inference, and some characterization results on weak and strong connexivity.

math.LO↗

arXiv2021

Negative Translations of Orthomodular Lattices and Their Logic

We introduce residuated ortholattices as a generalization of -- and environment for the investigation of -- orthomodular lattices. We establish a number of basic algebraic facts regarding these structures, characterize orthomodular lattices as those residuated ortholattices whose residual operation is term-definable in the involutive lattice signature, and demonstrate that residuated ortholattices are the equivalent algebraic semantics of an algebraizable propositional logic. We also show that orthomodular lattices may be interpreted in residuated ortholattices via a translation in the spirit of the double-negation translation of Boolean algebras into Heyting algebras, and conclude with some remarks about decidability.

math.LO↗

arXiv2020

Most simple extensions of $\mathsf{FL_e}$ are undecidable

All known structural extensions of the substructural logic $\mathsf{FL_e}$, Full Lambek calculus with exchange/commutativity, (corresponding to subvarieties of commutative residuated lattices axiomatized by $\{\vee, \cdot, 1\}$-equations) have decidable theoremhood; in particular all the ones defined by knotted axioms enjoy strong decidability properties (such as the finite embeddability property). We provide infinitely many such extensions that have undecidable theoremhood, by encoding machines with undecidable halting problem. An even bigger class of extensions is shown to have undecidable deducibility problem (the corresponding varieties of residuated lattices have undecidable word problem); actually with very few exceptions, such as the knotted axioms and the other prespinal axioms, we prove that undecidability is ubiquitous. Known undecidability results for non-commutative extensions use an encoding that fails in the presence of commutativity, so and-branching counter machines are employed. Even these machines provide encodings that fail to capture proper extensions of commutativity, therefore we introduce a new variant that works on an exponential scale. The correctness of the encoding is established by employing the theory of residuated frames.

math.LO↗