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From: Richard Damon <richard@damon-family.org>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: Simulation vs. Execution in the Halting Problem
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2025 22:29:45 -0400
Organization: i2pn2 (i2pn.org)
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On 6/3/25 4:00 PM, olcott wrote:
> On 6/3/2025 12:59 PM, wij wrote:
>> On Tue, 2025-06-03 at 16:38 +0100, Mike Terry wrote:
>>> On 03/06/2025 13:45, dbush wrote:
>>>> On 6/2/2025 10:58 PM, Mike Terry wrote:
>>>>> Even if presented with /direct observations/ contradicting his 
>>>>> position, PO can (will) just
>>>>> invent
>>>>> new magical thinking that only he is smart enough to understand, in 
>>>>> order to somehow justify his
>>>>> busted intuitions.
>>>>
>>>> My favorite is that the directly executed D(D) doesn't halt even 
>>>> though it looks like it does:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 1/24/24 19:18, olcott wrote:
>>>>   > The directly executed D(D) reaches a final state and exits 
>>>> normally.
>>>>   > BECAUSE ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE SAME COMPUTATION HAS BEEN ABORTED,
>>>>   > Thus meeting the correct non-halting criteria if any step of
>>>>   > a computation must be aborted to prevent its infinite execution
>>>>   > then this computation DOES NOT HALT (even if it looks like it 
>>>> does).
>>>
>>> Right - magical thinking.
>>>
>>> PO simply cannot clearly think through what's going on, due to the 
>>> multiple levels involved.  In his
>>> head they all become a mush of confustions, but the mystery here is 
>>> why PO does not /realise/ that
>>> he can't think his way through it?
>>>
>>> When I try something that's beyond me, I soon realise I'm not up to 
>>> it.  Somehow PO tries, gets into
>>> a total muddle, and concludes "My understanding of this goes beyond 
>>> that of everybody else, due to
>>> my powers of unrivalved concentration equalled by almost nobody on 
>>> the planet, and my ability to
>>> eliminate extraneous complexity".  How did PO ever start down this 
>>> path of delusions?  Not that that
>>> matters one iota... :)
>>>
>>>
>>> Mike.
>>
>> People seem to keep addressing the logic of the implement of POOH, but 
>> it does not matter how
>> H or D are implemented, because:
>>
>> 1. POOH is not about the Halting Problem (no logical connection)
> 
> Likewise ZFC was not about what is now called naive set theory.
> ZFC found an error in the foundations of set theory and fixed it.

Note, "ZFC" isn't a person how could do anything, it is the name of a 
theory create by Ernest Zermelo and Abraham Fraenkel (the C represents a 
later addition to the basic theory of adding the axiom of Choice to the 
theory).

That there was an error had been previously found by Russel's paradox.

Zermelo, based on work done by others came up with an alternate method 
of defining sets to overcome the problem. Fraenkel pointed out some 
problems with the theory that it wasn't able to prove that some needed 
sets exist, and together they refined the theory to come up a set theory 
called ZF, which was then later improved in capability by adding the 
axiom of Choice (or an equivalent) to get what is now the system 
commonly called "Set Theory", the system more precisely called ZFC.

If you want to do the same, you need to start like Zermelo did, and 
build up your set of axioms that you are going to use for your system of 
computations. And then show what it can do, and if needed, work with 
people who show problems and limitations in your system.

If you can convince enough people that you system is better, then 
perhaps you can cause a renaming of computaiton theory to something like 
Turing Computaton Theory (or some other similar name) and that Peter 
Olcott Other Program Theory might become the "default" when people talk 
about just "Computation Theory". But until you can actually axiomize 
your system, and show what it can do (and just breaking the simplest 
proof of the Halting Problem will not be enough) you can't just call it 
"Computation Theory".

> 
>> 2. POOH is not reproducible (you are all addressing your own 
>> imagination).
>>
>> What the discussions appear to me is that people are learning the 
>> Halting Problem themselves by
>> 'teaching' olcott (I think few can really provide a valid HP proof, 
>> even what a proof is).
>>
> 
>