Re: What it would take... TO GET MY REVIEWERS TO PAY COMPLETE ATTENTION?

On 5/12/2025 8:16 PM, olcott wrote:

On 5/12/2025 6:58 PM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

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

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

>
Yes.  That is, as it happens, how I address cranks.  I don't usually
argue against them but try to get them to say, as clearly and as
unambiguously as possible, what they are trying to say.  After a lot of
back and forth I got PO to be clear and unambiguous about what he was
saying.  For example, I asked
>
| Here's the key question: do you still assert that H(P,P) == false is
| the "correct" answer even though P(P) halts?
>

 H is required to compute the mapping from its
finite string input to the behavior that this
finite string actually specifies.

False.  It is required to compute the mapping from its finite string input to the behavior of the algorithm described by that finite string as per the requirements:
Given any algorithm (i.e. a fixed immutable sequence of instructions) X described as <X> with input Y:
A solution to the halting problem is an algorithm H that computes the following mapping:
(<X>,Y) maps to 1 if and only if X(Y) halts when executed directly
(<X>,Y) maps to 0 if and only if X(Y) does not halt when executed directly

 All of the computer science textbooks say that
a halt decider is to report on the behavior of
input as if it was directly executed because
they never noticed that this behavior can possibly
diverge from the behavior that the finite string
input specifies.

If the behavior of direct execution of the algorithm described by the input is different than the behavior the input string specifies, then a halt decider is not allowed to report on the behavior the input string specifies, as that goes against the above requirements.

 We can only correctly compute the mapping from the
finite string input to HHH(DD) to the behavior
that this finite string actually specifies by
having HHH simulate DD according to the rules
of the C/x86 language.

Which is another way of saying that no algorithm exists that meets the above requirements, as Linz and other have proved and as you have *explicitly* stated is correct.
On 3/24/2025 10:07 PM, olcott wrote:
 > A halt decider cannot exist
On 4/28/2025 2:47 PM, olcott wrote:
 > On 4/28/2025 11:54 AM, dbush wrote:
 >> And the halting function below is not a computable function:
 >>
 >
 > It is NEVER a computable function
 >
 >> Given any algorithm (i.e. a fixed immutable sequence of instructions) X described as <X> with input Y:
 >>
 >> A solution to the halting problem is an algorithm H that computes the following mapping:
 >>
 >> (<X>,Y) maps to 1 if and only if X(Y) halts when executed directly
 >> (<X>,Y) maps to 0 if and only if X(Y) does not halt when executed directly
On 3/14/2025 1:19 PM, olcott wrote:
 > When we define the HP as having H return a value
 > corresponding to the halting behavior of input D
 > and input D can actually does the opposite of whatever
 > value that H returns, then we have boxed ourselves
 > in to a problem having no solution.
On 6/21/2024 1:22 PM, olcott wrote:
 > the logical impossibility of specifying a halt decider H
 > that correctly reports the halt status of input D that is
 > defined to do the opposite of whatever value that H reports.
 > Of course this is impossible.
On 7/4/2023 12:57 AM, olcott wrote:
 > If you frame the problem in that a halt decider must divide up finite
 > strings pairs into those that halt when directly executed and those that
 > do not, then no single program can do this.
On 5/5/2025 5:39 PM, olcott wrote:
 > On 5/5/2025 4:31 PM, dbush wrote:
 >> Strawman.  The square root of a dead rabbit does not exist, but the
 >> question of whether any arbitrary algorithm X with input Y halts when
 >> executed directly has a correct answer in all cases.
 >>
 >
 > It has a correct answer that cannot ever be computed