# The Complexity of Comparative Text Analysis -- "The Gardener is always the Murderer" says the Fourth Machine

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.07637 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07637/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [The Mathematics of Comparing Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07032/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

There is a heated debate about how far computers can map the complexity of text analysis compared to the abilities of the whole team of human researchers. A "deep" analysis of a given text is still beyond the possibilities of modern computers. In the heart of the existing computational text analysis algorithms there are operations with real numbers, such as additions and multiplications according to the rules of algebraic fields. However, the process of "comparing" has a very precise mathematical structure, which is different from the structure of an algebraic field. The mathematical structure of "comparing" can be expressed by using Boolean rings. We build on this structure and define the corresponding algebraic equations lifting algorithms of comparative text analysis onto the "correct" algebraic basis. From this point of view, we can investigate the question of em computational complexity of comparative text analysis.