Re: Sophism: Halting problem is decidable - relaunched

On Oct 14, 10:46 pm, Proginoskes <CCHeck...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

How do you know one of the two outcomes will be produced? If you
don't, then the "algorithm" will run forever, and hence not be an
algorithm.

That is interesting: I've not seen before the idea that halting
is part of the definition of "algorithm" but a quick consult
with

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aalgorithm

shows several definitions that include this.

That seems odd to me because it means we can't decide
in general if a program is an algorithm or not.


Marshall

.

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