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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Parallel computation using exponentially many processors relative to input size would be of little practical significance

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Physical realizability is not the sole criterion of theoretical significance; complexity classes defined by exponential parallelism illuminate fundamental structural boundaries in computation.
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    • 2.Valiant's work on NC and P-completeness demonstrates that the polynomial/exponential processor boundary has deep consequences for understanding which problems are inherently sequential, regardless of hardware constraints.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The history of computing shows that resource bounds once deemed physically unrealizable have repeatedly become tractable as technology advances, as with quantum superposition exploiting exponential state spaces.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.A claim of 'little practical significance' conflates present engineering limitations with permanent physical impossibility, a modal error that philosophers of science from Peirce onward have warned against in assessments of scientific possibility.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • If a parallel algorithm requires exponentially many processors relative to input size, there is little hope of building a computing device on which it could be concretely implemented
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