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

From: Robert Low (mtx014_at_linux.services.coventry.ac.uk)
Date: 09/23/04 

Date: 23 Sep 2004 13:28:46 GMT

Charlie-Boo <chvol@aol.com> wrote:
>3. Incomplete or inconsistent specs.
>Come to think of it, the halting problem (and Godel's Incompleteness
>Theorem et. al.) is just a case of # 3. Ho hum.

Except, of course, that it isn't. The specification "f is a
function which takes a TM description and an input tape, and
returns 1 if the TM halts on the input and 0 if it does
not" is neither incomplete nor inconsistent. It just happens
to be a function that cannot be computed by a TM. Proving
that is not so "ho hum" (though it's easy once you know the
answer, of course). 

-- 
Rob.  http://www.mis.coventry.ac.uk/~mtx014/

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