HOW MUCH PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC SUFFICES FOR ROSSER’S ESSENTIAL UNDECIDABILITY THEOREM?

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we explore the following question: how weak can a logic be for Rosser’s essential undecidability result to be provable for a weak arithmetical theory? It is well known that Robinson’s Q is essentially undecidable in intuitionistic logic, and P. Hájek proved it in the fuzzy logic BL for Grzegorczyk’s variant of Q which interprets the arithmetic operations as nontotal nonfunctional relations. We present a proof of essential undecidability in a much weaker substructural logic and for a much weaker arithmetic theory, a version of Robinson’s R (with arithmetic operations also interpreted as mere relations). Our result is based on a structural version of the undecidability argument introduced by Kleene and we show that it goes well beyond the scope of the Boolean, intuitionistic, or fuzzy logic.