Decidability (logic) - Semidecidability

A property of a theory or logical system weaker than decidability is semidecidability. A theory is semidecidable if there is an effective method which, given an arbitrary formula, will always tell correctly when the formula is in the theory, but may give either a negative answer or no answer at all when the formula is not in the theory. A logical system is semidecidable if there is an effective method for generating theorems (and only theorems) such that every theorem will eventually be generated. This is different from decidability because in a semidecidable system there may be no effective procedure for checking that a formula is not a theorem.

Every decidable theory or logical system is semidecidable, but in general the converse is not true; a theory is decidable if and only if both it and its complement are semi-decidable. For example, the set of logical validities V of first-order logic is semi-decidable, but not decidable. In this case, it is because there is no effective method for determining for an arbitrary formula A whether A is not in V. Similarly, the set of logical consequences of any recursively enumerable set of first-order axioms is semidecidable. Many of the examples of undecidable first-order theories given above are of this form.

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