Re: Olcott is cured of CrackPottery! (Halting Problem)

From: Charlie-Boo (chvol_at_aol.com)
Date: 09/23/04 

Date: 23 Sep 2004 06:21:08 -0700

"Peter Olcott" <olcott@worldnet.att.net> wrote
> In retrospect it was apparently me that was wrong all along.
> Alan Turing was right, and from this I will venture to make
> an educated guess that Kurt Gödel was also right.

All of this discussion over Turing's proof that there are problems
that can't be programmed only misses the real point. Any good
programmer can tell you there are plenty of problems that can't be
programmed, including many more than discovered by Turing. Such as:

1. Specifications that the user refuses to evaluate or approve.
2. Users who keep changing their minds.
3. Incomplete or inconsistent specs.
4. Writing a program to compose a song or critique a work of art.
5. Writing a program that can love, hate or envy.

These are very practical problems - when did Turing ever do anything
useful such as address these problems? (Or, for that matter, anyone
else, aside from me.)

Come to think of it, the halting problem (and Godel's Incompleteness
Theorem et. al.) is just a case of # 3. Ho hum.

C-B

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