Why do we believe more than we can prove? Why does memory deceive us? Why do the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems "hallucinate" false information?
In Homo Credens, Boris Kriger reveals a profound truth about the nature of complex minds: any sufficiently complex system—whether human brain, animal cognition, or artificial intelligence—must believe far more than it can verify. This is not a limitation to be overcome but an architecture to be understood.
Drawing on three research papers, Kriger shows how the complexity-credence trade-off shapes everything from memory and perception to reasoning and artificial intelligence. As systems become more complex, their capacity to verify propositions grows linearly while the space of propositions they must consider grows exponentially. The inevitable result: complex systems must commit to beliefs without verification.
