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by infogulch 1298 days ago
> The actual source of non-constructibility is always the law of excluded middle

I gotta ask, are there alternative formulations of LEM that are still useful but cause fewer problems for constructibility?

1 comments

There are weaker forms, those accepted in intuitionistic logic. The law of excluded middle usually appears in mathematical proofs in the form of reasoning by contradiction:

  To prove A, assume not-A and reach a contradiction
This is the non-constructible reasoning par excellence, but the following weaker form is constructible:

  To prove not-A, assume A and reach a contradiction
Intuitionistic logic also allows so-called Ex Falso:

  To prove A, reach a contradiction (without assuming not-A)
Now, if what you wanted is a form of LEM that is non-constructible but 'less' non-constructible than LEM, then I don't know.