Re: Proof that DDD specifies non-halting behavior --- Mike correcting Joes and thus Fred too

On 16/08/2024 22:03, Jeff Barnett wrote:

On 8/16/2024 2:11 PM, Mike Terry wrote:

On 16/08/2024 07:57, Fred. Zwarts wrote:

        <BIG SNIP>

It is clear that olcott does not really read what I write. (Or is very short of memory.)
I never said such a thing.
I repeatedly told that the simulating HHH aborted when the simulated HHH had only one cycle to go. I never said that the simulated HHH reached it abort and halted.
In fact, I said that the fact that the simulation fails to reach the abort and halt of the simulated HHH proves that the simulation is incomplete and incorrect, because a complete simulation (such as by HHH1) shows that the simulated HHH would abort and halt.
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It now becomes clear that you either never understood what I said, or your memory is indeed very short.
Give it some time to think about what I say, try to escape from rebuttal mode, instead of ignoring it immediately.

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That's all correct.  Going further I'll suggest that PO really doesn't "understand" /anything/ with an abstract / logical / mathematical content.  He can't understand definitions or their role in proofs, or the role of proofs in establishing knowledge.  I'm not kidding or being rude or anything like that - it's simply the way his brain works.  *Of course* PO does not "really read what you write".  Surely you must have at least suspected this for a long time?!  [I don't notice any problem with PO's memory.]
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For PO it's all just "things he thinks are true", aka his intuitions. Those will not change as a result of any reasoning presented to him, because, literally, PO does not register any reasoning going on.  It's impossible to fully imagine "what it's like to be PO", just like a seeing person can't /truly/ imagine how say a blind person or schizophrenic perceives the world - but as a starter, imagine you're hearing a foreign language and don't understand the words being used. OK, you recognise the odd word through repetition, and over time you've formed your own (incomplete and often incorrect) opinions of "what the words are to do with", but that's all.  You convince yourself you understand "what the words actually mean" but that's a delusion!  When people reply to what you say, you don't "understand" what they're really saying.  ok, you recognise some of the keywords, and can tell from the tone of the reply whether they are agreeing or disagreeing with you, but that's about it!  You recognise some of the common objections people bring up, and over time you've developed stock phrases to repeat back to them, but there's no "logic" involved.  You don't think all this is strange, because it's always been this way for you.  You don't even realise it's different for everybody else...
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The analogy isn't perfect, because as a foreigner you would still be fully capable of reasoning, and you would realise that you don't understand key points and so on.  Instead of a lack of language understanding, the analogy should use a "lack of reasoning ability" theme or something equally fundamental, but that's not a common situation people can appreciate - practically /everybody/ in our lives that we interact with has an ability to reason correctly, understand definitions, understand what people are saying to them and what their beliefs are etc..  But PO is really not like all those normal people!
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If you expect to suddenly convince PO he is wrong, that won't happen. How to dispell a false intuition without using reasoning?  If you expect to prove that PO is wrong, hey that's easy enough, but not really needed!  Nobody with any understanding of HP problem is taken in by PO's duffer speak.  Eventually most posters just get bored repeating the same explanations to him over and over, and umm stop doing it.  [It can take years to get tothat point...]
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Perhaps a case could be made that continually demanding PO "proves" his claims is a form of "cruel and unusual punishment" as everybody here by now must appreciate that's far beyond his intellectual capabilities.  Or as a worst case, perhaps it might be compared with "taunting" a mentally handicapped (or at least mentally ill) person, which is obviously not nice at all.  But PO will not recognise that he is in that position, and the "taunters" only suspect, rather than truly believe, that this is in fact the scenario.  So no harm done perhaps.
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I think other posters here must wonder about this from time to time, but the thought makes them uncomfortable - if PO really /can't/ reason like normal people, then what would be the /point/ in constantly arguing [note: arguing, not debating/discussing] all this with him over and over and over?  This brings into question their own behaviour...  Easier perhaps to fall back on lazy thinking and just call him a liar, lazy, willfully ignorant and so on.
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Perhaps the kindest approach would just be to let him get on with it? For PO, I feel he has abandoned his life plan of publishing his claims in a peer reviewed journal.  Instead I think he has settled for maintaining/reinforcing his delusions of geniushood for whatever time remains in his life.
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I know some will not like this approach - PO is not a nice person; he is arrogant, self deluded, and insults posters to say nothing of those such as Turing/Godel/Tarski who have spent their lives thinking deeply about things and carefully developing their ideas.  It may seem Wrong that PO could live his life casually insulting such people, and then die without getting any come-uppance; it's just ... not ... fair !!!  :)
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I understand that, but suggest that none of that really matters.  People cannot change PO into something that he isn't.  When he dies, his mistakes will be quickly forgotten and the world will just carries on. No harm done...

I agree with virtually every word you wrote above. However, I think there is another ingredient mixed into PO that should not be overlooked: he is extraordinarily lonesome. He is not a nice person, as you have observed, and the way his mind works precludes rational and/or friendly conversation. So he has no friends and he both wants human contact (even electronically - how modern) and to pay back those who shun him and treat him as the mental defective that he probably is.
 So this is his social life; all of it. It is also the torture chamber and in his mind he's the dungeon master. His method of torturing all others is never providing positive feedback to those who want to help improve him. Besides himself, most of the other long term participants in these forums think of themselves as white nights. And they are thwarted at every turn and that makes them try harder so PO wins every encounter in the end.

Yes, PO must have a pretty solitary life with little real social contact.
You're right about the "white night" thing.  Initially it's reasonable that people encountering PO think they can help him simply by explaining his mistakes.  That was my first thought too.  But over time most people come to realise their continued involvement wrt PO achieves nothing useful whatsoever.  That's not to say there are /no/ good reasons for continued involvement.  A case in point would be Richard, who has said he is of an age where he believes continually correcting PO's errors is a way of keeping his mind active, and I don't think he expects anything he is doing will "help" PO, or even help other readers.
For some time at the beginning I continued because I was curious about the details of what PO had coded (his x86utm program), and I just enjoy mucking about with different code hence my curiosity. Also I have the white night syndrome I guess - but no illusions that I can help PO.  Most of my early days on Usenet were spent on groups like alt.math.undergrad, where posters were typically students who were motivated to learn and so listened to what the regulars had to say.  Compare that to sci.math which has almost no students, and instead has dozens of cranks whose aim is definitely /not/ to learn anything!
If I post here these days it is generally for the possible benefit of others conversing with PO - e.g. perhaps it seems to me that weeks of time are being wasted /through some simple miscommunication/ with PO.  I've been around longer than the current (relative) newcommers [not as long as you and Ben I think], so I have more context for what PO is trying to say, even given that what he is saying is clearly wrong at almost every level.  So I might try to short-cut their coming-up-to-speed process.  Or even short-cut their "helping PO" period where they've not yet realised how hopeless his situation really is.  Well, the latter has little impact I admit!  People need to come to their own conclusions and that can take a lot of time.  Despite my efforts, I do also get sucked in to conversing with PO from time to time, I admit it!
Mike.

 Part of what I'm saying above is that all of us who participate in this nonsense have some needs that fit in to the repetition. And those needs not only fit in but also suck us all in. I really wish that Underwood Dudley was still around to write another book exposing the muddled psychology of those who are drawn to the flame of logical and mathematical ideas without any real understanding. Perhaps we should label that whole batch as "Math Moths".