Re: What it would take...

On 12/05/2025 18:21, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
 

The HHH code doesn't exactly invite confidence in its author, and his theory
is all over the place, but a thought experiment suggests itself.
>
If we were not all wasting our time bickering with a career bickerer... if
we were to really /really/ try, could we patch up his case and send him on
to his Turing Award? And if so, how?

 Eh?

Do you know the term 'steelmanning'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning

ISTR that there is suspected to be a theoretical window for him, so I
suppose what I'm asking is what sort of boathook we would need to poke that
window a little wider.

 What on Earth do you mean?  What window?

Well, you know the history better than I do and I'm not about to trawl through a month's worth of back-messages, so maybe I'm talking nonsense, but I was under the impression that the line he was taking to attack on Linz's argument could conceivably have merit.
In Message-ID: <871pt0pfzl.fsf@bsb.me.uk> you quoted me and replied:

Having been on the receiving end of lengthy Usenet diatribes by cranks in
my own field, I don't hold out much hope for our current culprits
developing either the capacity for clear thought or any measure of respect
for expertise any time soon.
>
Nor do I believe they are capable of understanding proof by contradiction,
which is just about the easiest kind of proof there is. In fact, the most
surprising aspect of this whole affair is that (according to Mike)

 It was me, but Mike may well have pointed it out recently.
 

Mr Olcott seems to have (correctly) spotted a minor flaw in
the proof published by Dr Linz.

Maybe I grasped the wrong end of that stick.
<snip>

(a) It is obvious that there are uncountably many non-computable
functions since there are only countably many TMs.
 (b) Direct (i.e. not by contradiction) proofs of the halting theorem use
a diagonal argument, like Cantor.  I think I outlined one earlier, but
there is one in Linz that PO refuses to read.

Yes, I've already learned that reading isn't his long suit.

Is there, in short, any way of putting out this un-halting flame war and
turning this group to better use?

 I have tired to suggest that everyone simply stop replying to PO.  He
does not want to be right, he wants the attention and after a final
flurry of insulting posts he would probably go elsewhere.
 (Rather belatedly, it occurs to me that you might be being sarcastic.

Moi?!? Perish the thought!
But no, I just thought that Mr Olcott is obviously not good at presenting his case, and it occurred to me that we could probably do a far better job. We could fix his code, clean up his reasoning, all that, and see what falls out the bottom.
Even if it's only ash and clinker.

You might be suggesting we just agree with PO and see if that stops him
posting.)

It's a thought. It probably won't stop him posting, but it might be far more satisfying than offering arguments he doesn't understand and will never accept.
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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