Re: Can you find anything wrong with this solution to the Halting Problem?

From: Peter Olcott (olcott_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 07/17/04 

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:55:24 GMT

> The mechanism mentioned in the Webpage (which turned
> out to be simpler than my strawman) is simply returning
> nothing from WillHalt() that can be used by LoopIfHalts().
> The strategem works, after a fashion, but does not disprove
> the original result, which can be construed as:
>
> *if* WillHalt() returns a useful value that can be checked
> by an algorithm, *then* WillHalt() can be subverted into
> a contradiction.

I have correctly refuted the Halting Problem according
to the standard defitnion below:

The NIST definition of the Halting Problem is assumed:
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/haltingProblem.html
No program can ever be written to determine whether any arbitrary program will halt

> This includes such things as global variables and side effects.
>
> So while it is possible to construct a WillHalt() that returns
> nothing and solves the problem, it is also possible to
> declare a far simpler DoNothing() function that, as far as the
> user is concerned, does exactly the same thing:

Ah but you are ignoring the fact that void WillHalt() does
return the correct answer to the user, whereas DoNothing()
does not.

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