Re: [PO] Re: Refutation of the Halting Problem's Proof (Clarifications Wanted)

From: Peter Olcott (olcott_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 08/26/04 

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 00:27:07 GMT

"Simon G Best" <s.g.best@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:412CA1D1.4070003@btopenworld.com...
> Peter Olcott wrote:
> > www.halting-proiblem.com
>
> You didn't even get your own web address right.

I was not awake yet.

> > I want to make what I am saying as clear as possible.
>
> That is an excellent idea :-)
>
> > If anyone
> > has any points that are still not clear, this is the thread to ask for
> > clarifications.
> >
> > Also I would like to work towards a consensus of the best way
> > to present the ideas that are mentioned on my website, and in
> > these threads. This might require me to formalize some of these
> > points. I would be happy to make my material easier to understand,
> > and eliminate any ambiguities. I welcome all constructive critiques.
> >
> > The end result of these discussions will be a website posting that most
> > everyone can agree on the meaning of. In other words it should be
> > clear to everyone what I am saying.
> >
> > If there seem to be any major gaps in what I am saying, please point
> > these out. The most significant gap that I can see is exactly how to
> > construct the augmented UTM without going beyond the capabilities
> > of an regular TM. That this can be accomplished seems obvious.
> > Exactly how this would be accomplished is less obvious.
> >
> > Thanks again for your time.
>
> The first thing is the heading on the page, "Refuting the Undecidability
> of the Halting Problem". It doesn't make sense. It's like, 'refuting
> the ambiguity of English', or, 'refuting the redness of ripe tomatoes',
> or, 'refuting the Welshness of Tom Jones', or, 'refuting the invincible
> ignorance of net.kooks'.

One claims that is gaining acceptance is that I have correctly refuted
every existing proof of the Undecidability of the Halting Problem.
What is a more concise way of saying this?

> The second thing is that you're calling your abstract a "Quick Summary",
> rather than "Abstract". Of course, an abstract /is/ a quick summary,
> but I'd suggest labelling it as an abstract. Other than that, your
> abstract needs to be completely rewritten. Fortunately, that's

I want to eliminate any percieved ambiguity, do you see any?

> something that can be left until the rest of your document has been
> completely rewritten.
>
> Next, "Definition of the Halting Problem". It's still wrong. The
> Halting Problem is the problem of determining whether or not an
> arbitrary Turing Machine, M, would halt on an arbitrary input, x. More
> specifically, it is the problem of finding a Turing Machine which
> carries out such determinations in the general case where M may be any
> (in the sense of each and every) Turing Machine, and x may be any (again
> in the sense of each and every) input.

Someone else provided that form. I think that I wil eventually go with
something like that.

> You may also need to include a number of other definitions, or at least
> clearly refer to accepted, established definitions of terms and the like.
>
> The rest of the document also needs to be completely rewritten.

Ernest Hemingway thought that his every rewrite was garbage until
about the twentieth one.

> It'll still be wrong, though.
>
> Simon
>

I do admit that this continues to be the presumption.
That is why I am going to clean it up for academia.
Hopefully if the audience is restricted to PhD computer
science professors that have an emphasis on automata
theory I will reach a group of people that will more
often than not know the burdern of proof of proving
a negative. In any case If I reach twenty such people,
and I am right, at least one of them will see it too.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: [PO] Re: Refutation of the Halting Problems Proof (Clarifications Wanted)
    ... >> clear to everyone what I am saying. ... > The first thing is the heading on the page, "Refuting the Undecidability ... every existing proof of the Undecidability of the Halting Problem. ... Ernest Hemingway thought that his every rewrite was garbage until ...
    (comp.theory)
  • [PO] Re: Refutation of the Halting Problems Proof (Clarifications Wanted)
    ... The first thing is the heading on the page, "Refuting the Undecidability ... abstract needs to be completely rewritten. ... "Definition of the Halting Problem". ... arbitrary Turing Machine, M, would halt on an arbitrary input, x. ...
    (comp.theory)
  • [PO] Re: Refutation of the Halting Problems Proof (Clarifications Wanted)
    ... The first thing is the heading on the page, "Refuting the Undecidability ... abstract needs to be completely rewritten. ... "Definition of the Halting Problem". ... arbitrary Turing Machine, M, would halt on an arbitrary input, x. ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Basis for bypassing the Halting Problem ?
    ... No, that is not what she was saying, nor was it what I was saying. ... Like I already said, and you disagreed, it is only guessing. ... If the result of TheProgramHalts) is not Boolean, then the above example ceases to form the Halting Problem as long as the if-else has no way to definitely determine the meaning of the return value. ... It always guesses false for every Halt Analyzer return value. ...
    (comp.theory)
  • Re: Basis for bypassing the Halting Problem ?
    ... No, that is not what she was saying, nor was it what I was saying. ... Like I already said, and you disagreed, it is only guessing. ... If the result of TheProgramHalts) is not Boolean, then the above example ceases to form the Halting Problem as long as the if-else has no way to definitely determine the meaning of the return value. ... It always guesses false for every Halt Analyzer return value. ...
    (comp.theory)