XPost: comp.theory, comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c   
   From: rjh@cpax.org.uk   
      
   On 26/09/2025 18:17, olcott wrote:   
   > On 9/26/2025 12:05 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:   
   >> On 26/09/2025 16:56, olcott wrote:   
   >>   
   >>    
   >>   
   >>> Two other PhD computer scientists agree with me.   
   >>   
   >> That's an attempt at an appeal to authority, but it isn't a   
   >> convincing argument. There must be many /thousands/ of Comp Sci   
   >> PhDs who've studied the Halting Problem (for the 10 minutes it   
   >> takes to drink a cup of coffee while they run the proof through   
   >> their minds) and who have no problem with it whatsoever.   
   >>   
   >   
   > And of course you can dismiss whatever they say   
   > without looking at a single word because majority   
   > consensus have never been shown to be less than   
   > totally infallible.   
      
   That isn't what I said. I said that for every PhD you can appeal   
   to who doesn't understand the proof, there will be thousands who   
   do understand the proof.   
      
   > The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, “Faced with a choice   
   > between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do   
   > so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.”   
      
   We don't even have to do that, because there is no need to change   
   our minds and the proof is already written.   
      
   Contrary to what you appear to believe, a proof doesn't mean   
   someone got it wrong. It means someone proved they're right.   
      
   > Leo Tolstoy was even bolder: “The most difficult subjects can be   
   > explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any   
   > idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear   
   > to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he   
   > knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”   
      
   You are the proof. The Halting Problem is remarkably simple, but   
   as a self-identified genius you are so sure it's mistaken that it   
   has taken people 20 years to persuade you that DD proves HHH is   
   not a halting decider for DD, even though it's never *once* got   
   the answer right, and having briefly accepted it, you have   
   already returned to your overturned bowl; I suppose 20 years is a   
   hard habit to break.   
      
   > What's going on here? Why don't facts change our minds?   
      
   Like "DD halts", you mean?   
      
   > And why   
   > would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea   
   > anyway?   
      
   Because you're so full of it you can't get rid of it?   
      
     How do such behaviors serve us?   
      
   They don't. You have pissed away 20 years.   
      
   --   
   Richard Heathfield   
   Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk   
   "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999   
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