In constructive mathematics, the limited principle of omniscience (LPO) and the lesser limited principle of omniscience (LLPO) are axioms that are nonconstructive but are weaker than the full law of the excluded middle.
They are used to gauge the amount of nonconstructivity required for an argument, as in constructive reverse mathematics.
These principles are also related to weak counterexamples in the sense of Brouwer.
The limited principle of omniscience states (Bridges & Richman 1987, p. 3): The second disjunct can be expressed as
The weak schema in which the former is replaced with the latter is called WLPO and represents particular instances of excluded middle.
[2] The lesser limited principle of omniscience states: Here
It can be proved constructively that the law of the excluded middle implies LPO, and LPO implies LLPO.
However, none of these implications can be reversed in typical systems of constructive mathematics.
The term "omniscience" comes from a thought experiment regarding how a mathematician might tell which of the two cases in the conclusion of LPO holds for a given sequence
Because this would require the examination of infinitely many terms, the axiom stating it is possible to make this determination was dubbed an "omniscience principle" by Bishop (1967).
The two principles can be expressed as purely logical principles, by casting it in terms of decidable predicates on the naturals.
The lesser principle corresponds to a predicate version of that De Morgan's law that does not hold intuitionistically, i.e. the distributivity of negation of a conjunction.
Both principles have analogous properties in the theory of real numbers.
The analytic LPO states that every real number satisfies the trichotomy
The analytic LLPO states that every real number satisfies the dichotomy
All three analytic principles if assumed to hold for the Dedekind or Cauchy real numbers imply their arithmetic versions, while the converse is true if we assume (weak) countable choice, as shown in Bishop (1967).