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From: Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: What it would take...
Date: Tue, 13 May 2025 12:49:10 +0300
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On 2025-05-13 03:38:41 +0000, olcott said:

> On 5/12/2025 10:23 PM, Mike Terry wrote:
>> On 13/05/2025 00:58, 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?
>>> 
>>> and PO replied "Yes that is the correct answer even though P(P) halts".
>>> 
>>> Ref: Message-ID: <c8idnbFAF6C8QuP8nZ2dnUU7-avNnZ2d@giganews.com>
>>>       Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2021 13:23:29 -0500
>>> 
>>> This, to my mind, is the steel man that people should be addressing.
>>> What is the point in countering anything other than this clear position?
>>> 
>>> Similarly, he was clear that false (does not halt) was correct for his
>>> sketched simulator because of what /would happen/ if the code was
>>> altered by removing the line that makes the simulation stop.
>>> 
>>> The current nonsense avoids the need for this because PO does not show
>>> the full simulation.  Mike Terry "steelmanned" the simulation by showing
>>> the parts PO hides.
>>> 
>>> On the other hand, you are spending a lot of time arguing about his
>>> knowledge and use of C.  Yes, it's awful.  He knows very little C and
>>> the code is crap, but that /is/ a straw man -- it's the simplest part of
>>> his argument to fix.  Someone, for example, you, could rewrite it all
>>> clearly and neatly so that the real error (declaring false to be correct
>>> for some halting computations) was even more clear.  There is nothing
>>> unfixable about the simulation.
>>> 
>>>>>> 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.
>>> ...
>>>>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> I don't know.  There is, indeed, a small error in the notation that is
>>> easy to fix.  I offered to explain the details but you said you had
>>> paint drying that needed to be watched.  As far as I can see, both ends
>>> of the stick say "easy to fix minor flaw".  What end did you grasp?
>>> 
>>> ...
>>>>> (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.
>>> 
>>> As explained, I (and others) have done a lot of that.  For me the steel
>>> man is that, to PO, false is correct from some class of halting
>>> computations.  I assumed you were engaging with him just for the fun of
>>> it, not that you thought there might be some merit in it.
>>> 
>>>> Even if it's only ash and clinker.
>>> 
>>> False is the correct answer for some halting computations.  Is that ash
>>> and clinker?  I don't know, but I am puzzled by why so many posts don't
>>> address this.  (For the record, I refuse to talk to him because of his
>>> inexcusable rudeness to me.  I can take a lot, but his comments were
>>> finally beyond the pale.)
>> 
>> I think it's just that PO has stopped talking about that point, and 
>> instead embarked on a multi-year project to "prove" his argument tiny 
>> point by tiny point.  For the last year or so he has been stuck on his 
>> first step, focussing on whether the /simulation/ of his DD performed 
>> by HHH progresses as far as DD's return.  People just respond on the 
>> specific points PO posts about.
>> 
>> Mind you it does seem to have gone mad the last month or so.  It seems 
>> there are only about 2 or 3 actual variations of what PO is saying and 
>> all the rest is several thousand repeats by both PO and responders...
>> 
>> 
>> Mike.
>> 
> 
> I will continue to make my points endlessly until
> someone chooses not to dodge them. Ben wasted
> fifteen years of my life with his "change the subject"
> rebuttal.

No, he didn't. You wasted more than that by your own life with your
own "change the subject" rebuttal.

-- 
Mikko