Abstract:
People may be surprised by noticing certain regularities that hold in existing knowledge they have had for some time. That is, they may learn without getting new factual information. We argue that this can be partly explained by computational complexity. We show that, given a database, finding a small set of variables that obtain a certain value of R^2 is computationally hard, in the sense that this term is used in computer science. We discuss some of the implications of this result and of fact-free learning in general.
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA The price is None.
More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation, Yale University Address: Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA Contact information at EDIRC. Series data maintained by Glena Ames ().
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