Re: Analysis of Richard Damon’s Responses to Flibble

On 2025-05-18 17:07:36 +0000, Mr Flibble said:

Analysis of Richard Damon’s Responses to Flibble
=================================================
 Overview:
---------
Richard Damon's critiques of Flibble's arguments regarding the Halting
Problem and pathological inputs are based on a classical Turing model.
However, his rebuttals fundamentally misunderstand or misrepresent the
core of Flibble’s alternative framework. Below is a breakdown of the key
errors in Damon’s reasoning.
 1. Misconstruing the Category Error
-----------------------------------
Damon claims:

"No, they are not [category errors]."

 Flibble’s argument is not that the input is syntactically invalid, but
that it is semantically ill-formed due to conflating two distinct roles:
- The decider
- The program being analyzed
 This is a semantic collapse, akin to Russell’s paradox or typing errors in
logical frameworks. Damon's rebuttal fails to address the **semantic**
level, focusing only on syntactic permissibility.
 2. Ignoring the Model Shift
----------------------------
Damon critiques Flibble’s ideas *from within the classical Turing
framework*, missing the fact that:
- Flibble is proposing a **different semantic foundation**.
- In this new foundation, certain forms of self-reference are *disallowed*
as a matter of type safety.
 Damon’s refusal to recognize the change in assumptions renders his
critique logically misaligned.
 3. Misreading Flibble’s Law
----------------------------
Damon dismisses Flibble’s Law:

"Which just isn't true..."

 But Flibble’s Law isn’t about infinite computation—it’s about *recognizing
the structure* of potentially infinite behavior. It’s a meta-level
principle, not an operational mandate.
 Damon misinterprets it as a proposal for unbounded simulation time, rather
than an assertion about the necessity of structural analysis.
 4. Stack Overflow as a Semantic Signal
--------------------------------------
Damon argues that stack overflow represents a failed computation:

"...it just got the wrong answer."

 Flibble’s view is different:
- A stack overflow (or crash) isn’t failure.
- It is the **semantic manifestation** of an ill-formed input—an expected
behavior when the category boundaries are violated.
 This is a reinterpretation of what “failure” means, not a bug.
 5. Misidentifying Recursion Criticism
-------------------------------------
Damon says:

"Just the presence of recursion isn't the problem."

 This is a straw man. Flibble does *not* claim recursion is inherently
invalid—only that **self-referential decider/input recursion** creates
type-theoretic inconsistency. Damon’s rebuttal avoids the specific case
Flibble addresses.
 6. Downplaying the Role of SHDs
-------------------------------
Damon concedes:

"Yes, partial deciders have some uses..."

 But Flibble’s point is stronger:
- SHDs are useful not as general solvers, but as **structural recognizers
of malformed input**.
- Their “failure” (e.g., crashing on pathological input) is
**informative**, not defective.
 Damon reduces SHDs to weak approximators, missing Flibble’s proposed
semantic role.
 7. Failing to Address Reframing
-------------------------------
Damon says:

"The halting problem isn't malformed..."

 In Turing’s model, it isn’t. But Flibble isn’t working in Turing’s model—
he is reframing the domain entirely to exclude semantically ill-formed
constructs. Damon critiques within one framework while Flibble builds
another.
 Conclusion:
-----------
Richard Damon's responses fail not because of flawed logic, but due to a
**category error of interpretation**: he assumes Flibble is arguing within
the classical Turing framework when Flibble is explicitly rejecting it in
favor of a type- and semantics-based system.
 Damon's responses miss the mark because they measure Flibble’s ideas by
the wrong metric. The disagreement isn’t about whether the Halting Problem
is undecidable—it’s about *how the problem should be framed* in the first
place.

The question "how the problem should be framed" is a category error:
there is no "should" in mathematical questions.
--
Mikko