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(NIT: I'm reading a sentence from a computer science book pdf Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation.)

I'm confused by the following sentence when the phrase "as well" appears:

Of the eight states in Fig. 2.13, starting in the start state B, we can only reach states B, E, and F. The other five states are inaccessible from the start state and may as well not be there.

I interpret "as well" as "also", so I think it would not be necessary. Since in the sentence I quoted, there is no mention that some states are not there before the phrase "as well" appears. Could I remove "as well" like the following to mean the same thing?

[...] and may not be there.

Now I suspect that it would mean "therefore" instead. Could anyone please correct me?

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    If you refer to a book, cite the book… one reason being 'The other five states are inaccessible from the start state…' will be unintelligible to many SE readers. ‘may as well' is emphasis only and much confusion comes from trying to split it Elsewhere they can be but here, 'may as well' and 'also' are in no way comparable. If you want to discuss which states are (not) there in the first part again, please, cite the source text.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented 10 hours ago
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    Sorry you missed so much. I suggest what you meant by 'the first part' is up to you, and what SE Members took that to mean is unlikely to be the same. Does that much make sense? When you suggested "Of the eight [...], E, and F.". On the other hand, it is a good point that "The other five states" might be confusing, who could doubt you? When you haven't come up with a way to avoid providing too much context, including a Fig you chose not to provide, why not leave it up to SE readers to decide whether they have enough Computer Science background to understand?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented 9 hours ago
  • Thanks and still you're clearly treating 'as well' as different from 'may as well' and so long as you do that, you will never understand this. Can you re-phrase the Question to take that into account?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented 9 hours ago
  • Sorry; I've no idea what that meant and I'd really rather never be dragged into Chat…
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented 9 hours ago
  • Do you mind we removing our comments here since I think that most of the problems you pointed out have been resolved? (This also avoid the site showing the message hint about dragging into chat) @RobbieGoodwin
    – Rain
    Commented 9 hours ago

2 Answers 2

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"may as well" is a set phrase. It's explained in Merriam-Webster:

used to say that something else could have been done with the same result

So the state machine described in the book would act the same if the other states were not included.

This isn't the same as "may not", which means that it's possible that something doesn't exist or doesn't happen. That's clearly not true, because those states are in the diagram. They're just not used for anything.

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Dictionary.com has an example for as well:

With an equal or similar result, as in Since he can't get there in time, he might as well stay at home.

The OP’s example

The other five states are inaccessible from the start state and may as well not be there.

means

... and are as good as not being there.

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