Re: Halting Problem Final Conclusion
From: Kent Paul Dolan (xanthian_at_well.com)
Date: 09/06/04
- Next message: G. Frege: "Re: [PO] Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- Previous message: G. Frege: "Re: [PO] Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- In reply to: Peter Olcott: "Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 23:41:39 +0000 (UTC)
"Peter Olcott" <olcott@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
[Oh, joy, here we go for another 3500-odd postings
of Olcott drivel.]
Peter, in the movie _The Princess Bride_, the Six
Fingered Man, one of the villains, says to Inigo
Montoya, one of the heros, "Oh, dear. Are you still
trying to win?". Montoya pulls the dagger out of his
gut and proceeds to out-duel and slaughter the Six
Fingered Man, as an answer in the affirmative.
That is a fantasy, this is real life; you are not
Inigo Montoya, your arguments are all stabbed
through the gut, firmly and forever dead, yet you
are still trying to "win". It will never happen.
This attempt is ill-advised, as I will go on to
demonstrate [since you continue to insist on making
enough of a fool of yourself that even a lightweight
like me can point out your errors].
> The Liar Paradox can be shown to be nothing more
> than a incorrectly formed statement because of its
> pathological self-reference.
This is a falsehood. The liar paradox is simply a
tool to show that in two valued logic systems,
statements can be constructed which cannot be
evaluated to either logic value. There is nothing
the least bit "pathological" about it. That is a
value judgement arising from your false world
concept that faith can replace logic.
> The Halting Problem can only exist because of this
> same sort of pathological self-reference.
That is a falsehood, as I will go on to demonstrate.
> The primary benefit of solving the Halting Problem
> was to detect programs that failed to halt,
The primary benefit of a universal Halting Problem
solver, had it been possible to construct one, which
it was not, would have been a way to find out by
a finite-duration analysis that a program would not
halt, rather than finding out by running it for
infinite time to discover the same information, an
impractical alternative.
> thus were incorrect.
That is a falsehood. There is nothing "incorrect"
about programs that fail to halt. They fail to be
useful, but that doesn't mean that they fail to be
correct. "Write an endless loop" is a common
beginning computer programming assignment, and that
specification results in a correct program which
does not halt.
> Pathological self-reference can also be viewed as
> a form of error.
That is a falsehood, unless, of course, one is
palpably insane, as you are.
> If the Halting Problem is redefined
You can redefine it to be an exercise with tinker
toys, if you want, but that doesn't make your
redefinition the least bit useful or intellectually
important.
> (which does not refute anyone),
That is a meaningless noise.
> then this redefined problem can be easily solved.
That is nonsense. The writing of a universal Halting
Problem analyzer is beyond the capacity of
humankind, not in the least because it is impossible.
The "solving" of an Olcott "I wish I could tell you
if this program would halt" analyzer may be as
simple as "always answer no, and take your lumps on
the minority that do halt", but to be useful would
require at least the equivalent effort of all the
PhD theses that have gone into creating analyzers
that solve the Halting Problem for some tiny subset
of all possible Turing machine programs and
associated input data. That doesn't satisfy any
normal person's definition of "easily solved".
No one is interested in the creation of a less than
universal Halting Problem solver, since it is
guaranteed to _fail_ almost universally, an easy
proof left as an exercise for the reader.
> Now we have three possible correct results:
> (a) Halts
> (b) Does Not Halt
> (c) Pathological Self Reference to Halt
No, you don't. Quick proof:
If it is possible to write one halting analyzer,
it is possible to write another that produces
exactly the same results, but shares no common code.
[Subproof: For example, this is done in computer
practice every day; it is called "reverse
engineering". For another example, the manned
space missions use independently developed code
sets run in parallel to control launch, so that
failures in one code do not occur in the other
code, More to the point, there isn't any (known)
computer algorithm that cannot be rewritten
completely to produce the same results, so any
purported universal Halting Problem analyzer A
can be patched algorithm by algorithm to produce
a completely unrelated new purported universal
Halting Problem analyzer B.]
Now feed one purported halting analyzer, plus
disproof wrapper, to the other one, and vice versa.
Both will be unable to produce an answer, yet in
neither case will it be because there was some
"pathological" (semantic freight due to your baby
bedtime boogie-men) Self-Reference to Halt, neither
case would involve self-reference.
This still constitutes a proof that producing the
first one is a contradiction in logic.
> Compared to my prior claims, this one seem trivial
> and obvious.
You are continuing to make "claims", despite having
contended just a few postings ago that your
invincible ignorance was "cured, neener, neener".
What does this tell us about your veracity?
What does this tell us about your mental health
status?
Your claims seem "trivial and obvious" to you only
because you fail to invest an erg of intelligent
thought in checking their correctness or even
reasonableness, perferring to waste the time of
others to point out the stupidity you are employing.
> Possibly this claim adds a slight nuance to the
> problem that has not been widely discussed before.
This is a falsehood. 3552 postings refuting exactly
this drivel from you, I contend, constitutes "widely
discussed"; painfully so.
There is no "slight nuance" involved; you are still
spouting utter counterfactual nonsense, easily
demonstrated to any informed participant, a set of
which you unfortunately fail to be a member.
> If we construe pathological self-reference as
> another error condition, then this does remove the
> impossibility of creating a useful tool.
This is a falsehood, and a demonstration that your
invincible ignorance is still in full flower, as
demonstrated above.
xanthian, dueling on sheerly for the love of
swordplay, not for any hope of curing even one
victim of his "invincible ignorance".
-- Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
- Next message: G. Frege: "Re: [PO] Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- Previous message: G. Frege: "Re: [PO] Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- In reply to: Peter Olcott: "Halting Problem Final Conclusion"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Relevant Pages
|
