HACKER Q&A
📣 nadermx

Is it possible that p != np as well as p = np


In a sensea russell-paradox


  👤 DougMerritt Accepted Answer ✓
In such paradoxes, it's not that case that the final conclusion is that true = false. Any time that seems to be proven, it indicates that an earlier assumption was false.

Necessarily so. If you build a formal system where true = false (say, as one of the axioms, or in a proof), you can literally prove anything, including things that are obviously false in normal mathematics, and then immediately also disprove that very same thing -- so it's not useful to go in that direction.

Probably the closest thing is "nonmonotonic systems", including "nonmonotonic logic", where true or false is not a timeless absolute, but instead can be advanced or retracted over time, you might say. The late great John McCarthy worked in that area for decades.


👤 twangist
The notions involved are all “absolute”, denote the same sets of objects in every standard model of mathematics (= model of ZFC — quite unlike “the set oll subsets of the integers” which varies from model to model.

👤 mardiyah
NO as each is complementary other