Scott Aaronson: Why Philosophers Should Care About Comput...

Scott Aaronson: Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity: "One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In particular, I argue that computational complexity theory���the field that studies the resources (such as time, space, and randomness) needed to solve computational problems���leads to new perspectives on the nature of mathematical knowledge, the strong AI debate, computationalism, the problem of logical omniscience, Hume���s problem of induction, Goodman���s grue riddle, the foundations of quantum mechanics, economic rationality, closed timelike curves, and several other topics of philosophical interest. I end by discussing aspects of complexity theory itself that could benefit from philosophical analysis...

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