<p>You might be interested in Scott Aaronson's recent paper <em><a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf">Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity</a></em>, to appear in Computability: Gödel, Turing, Church, and Beyond, edited by B. J. Copeland, C. Posy, and O. Shagrir, MIT Press, 2012. ECCC TR11-108, arXiv:1108.1791.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T11:57:58.470Z
2013-02-21T11:57:58.470Z
Martin Schwarz
<p>I understand that it is a naive and very general question. I would like to know when does a theorem of theoretical computer science become interesting to professional philosophers? I understand that the question whether P != NP is pretty interesting to philosophers. Now let's take the conjecture about the existence of one way functions. Is there any philosophical implications of the existence of one way functions?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T06:50:28.493Z
You want to know when *philosophers* find TCS topics interesting, thus you should ask them, not theoretical computer scientists. I think the question is off-topic. It also suffers from not being constructive.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T07:10:18.797Z
Although I agree with Kaveh, this could interest you: http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1791
Anthony Labarre
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T08:39:45.363Z
I agree with Kaveh that this type of question may be better directed at philosophers. Also, it is hard to predict what topics will interest another crowd. Several logicians either had philosophical backgrounds or invested significant effort in interesting philosophers in their work. I this some outreach is often behind the scenes of interest from another field.
Vijay D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T09:15:06.543Z
If your question is the last sentence, then this is not the site to ask it.  If I discount this question as off-topic, then the rest appears to be too unspecific to elicit good answers.  Please read the [faq#dontask].
András Salamon
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T10:46:21.370Z
@AnthonyLabarre: nice link, make it an answer?
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T17:51:09.433Z
@MarzioDeBiasi: too late, Martin Schwarz beat me to it ;-)
Anthony Labarre
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T17:54:58.207Z
@AnthonyLabarre: a few easy upvotes lost :-D :-D
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T18:06:14.577Z
@AnthonyLabarre: oh, sorry! I didn't click on your arXiv link, so I didn't notice! If you post your answer as well, I'll delete mine.
Martin Schwarz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-21T19:04:12.567Z
@MartinSchwarz: no problem, information matters, not reputation.
Anthony Labarre
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-22T02:00:18.993Z
If we migrate to http://philosophy.stackexchange.com it might be a first for this site :)
Lev Reyzin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-25T21:49:25.097Z
Closed the question as off-topic, please check the [faq] for the scope of this site. You may want to post this on [philosophy.se]. (I don't migrate it as I am not familiar with that site.)
Kaveh
<cc.complexity-theory>
Philosophers friendly TCS theorem
Omar Shehab
# Philosophers friendly TCS theorem

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-02-21)

I understand that it is a naive and very general question. I would like to know when does a theorem of theoretical computer science become interesting to professional philosophers? I understand that the question whether P != NP is pretty interesting to philosophers. Now let's take the conjecture about the existence of one way functions. Is there any philosophical implications of the existence of one way functions?

**Tags:** cc.complexity-theory

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You want to know when *philosophers* find TCS topics interesting, thus you should ask them, not theoretical computer scientists. I think the question is off-topic. It also suffers from not being constructive.  
> **username_2**: Although I agree with username_1, this could interest you: http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1791  
> **username_3**: I agree with username_1 that this type of question may be better directed at philosophers. Also, it is hard to predict what topics will interest another crowd. Several logicians either had philosophical backgrounds or invested significant effort in interesting philosophers in their work. I this some outreach is often behind the scenes of interest from another field.  
> **username_4**: If your question is the last sentence, then this is not the site to ask it.  If I discount this question as off-topic, then the rest appears to be too unspecific to elicit good answers.  Please read the [faq#dontask].  
> **username_5**: @AnthonyLabarre: nice link, make it an answer?  
> **username_2**: @MarzioDeBiasi: too late, username_6 beat me to it ;-)  
> **username_5**: @AnthonyLabarre: a few easy upvotes lost :-D :-D  
> **username_6**: @AnthonyLabarre: oh, sorry! I didn't click on your arXiv link, so I didn't notice! If you post your answer as well, I'll delete mine.  
> **username_2**: @MartinSchwarz: no problem, information matters, not reputation.  
> **username_7**: If we migrate to http://philosophy.stackexchange.com it might be a first for this site :)  
> **username_1**: Closed the question as off-topic, please check the [faq] for the scope of this site. You may want to post this on [philosophy.se]. (I don't migrate it as I am not familiar with that site.)  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2013-02-21. Score: 9

You might be interested in Scott Aaronson's recent paper *[Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity](http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf)*, to appear in Computability: Gödel, Turing, Church, and Beyond, edited by B. J. Copeland, C. Posy, and O. Shagrir, MIT Press, 2012. ECCC TR11-108, arXiv:1108.1791.


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