Re: Alan Turing's Halting Problem is incorrectly formed

From: George Greene (greeneg_at_greeneg-cs.cs.unc.edu)
Date: 06/20/04 

Date: 20 Jun 2004 16:18:30 -0400

"Peter Olcott" <olcott@worldnet.att.net> writes:
 : > The problem that your line will have with TMs is that NOTHING EVER
 : > "alters" the answer to the question. A TM is,
 :
 : This is only a point of view.

NO IT ISN'T, DUMBASS.
TM's HAVE A WELL-known definition.
The fact that YOU DON'T KNOW this definition does NOT reduce
the definition to "a point of view" OR entitle YOU to a DIFFERENT
point of view. YOUR point of view either EXACTLY MATCHES
the DEFINITION xor IS JUST *WRONG*.
Period.

 : A more useful, and perhaps accurate point
 : of view is that a TM is merely the machine language

No, no TM is "the machine language" for anything.
a TM[program]is[sepcified by] a finite list of (state,inputcharacter,state,direction)
tuples. PERIOD.

 : for anything that you ever want to specify.

That is so nebulous that it does not even qualify as a tehcnical
definition OF ANYthing!
 
 : It does not matter that the low level machine
 : language lacks direct representations of the higher level constructs
 : that I am referring to,

It DOES SO TOO,dumbass!

 : they still exist.

SO WHAT? The issue IS NOT whether they exist!
The issue IS whether A TURING MACHINE COMPUTING THEM
can exist! 

-- 
 --- The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.
 --- (Feb.3,2004) Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (4-3), adv.Sen.#2175