Comments

  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    Nah, much more likely to be:

    L. Did you strike my client with your fist? Yes or no.
    D. Well, he came at me with a tire iron...
    L. I asked you YES or NO did you strike my client with your fist?
    J. Please answer yes or no.
    LuckyR

    That is an excellent example.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    ↪PL Olcott
    Exactly my point. Lawyers are almost universally understood to be a prime example of someone uninterested in the truth, and instead seek to manipulate others to give answers that serve the lawyer's best interest.
    LuckyR

    In the court of law dishonest dodges and deceit land you in jail.
    Judge to Bill: Did you murder Mary or not?
    Bill: What even does the word "murder" mean?
    Bill: Many people are said to "murder" the English language.
    Judge: Answer the question or be charged with contempt of court.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    Though one can argue there's no such thing as an inherently "yes/no" question,LuckyR

    https://teflpedia.com/Polar_question
    If you are in a courtroom and asked a yes/no question and fail to answer
    with a yes/no answer you could be cited for contempt of court and sent to jail.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    There is nothing wrong with the question concept. However it can be criticized as a fallacy known as a "False Dilemma." Then again, my answer might be considered hasty.Rocco Rosano

    When an incorrect question is defined as any question lacking a correct answer
    because there is something wrong with the question, the the question

    What time is it (yes or no)?
    cannot be answered because of the type mismatch error.

    Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
    is a statement that is nonsense because of type mismatch errors.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    ↪PL Olcott
    Science necessarily entails elements of subjectivity. After all, it's about what we (subjects) think is going on in the world.
    Count Timothy von Icarus

    I brought these same ideas up in the logic forum and they stopped getting any replies.

    I am referring to the subset of expressions of language that either have no subjectivity
    or whatever subjectivity they have is not relevant to the objective determination of correct
    versus incorrect.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    It seems to me like you can definitely ask bad questions.Count Timothy von Icarus

    The term {bad} has too much subjective leeway of interpretation compared {incorrect} that hss no subjective leeway.

    An incorrect question is defined as a question that lacks a correct
    answer because there is something wrong with the question.
    PL Olcott

    "something wrong" also seems a little imprecise.
    A self-contradictory question is a specific kind of {something wrong} here is an example of that:

    Can Carol correctly answer “no” to this [yes/no] question?PL Olcott

    What time is it (yes or no)?PL Olcott

    Is an example of a type mismatch error.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    RE: Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    ※→ et al,

    No... It can be answered as a ratio.
    Rocco Rosano

    So the question: What time is it (yes or no)? can be answered with a ratio?
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    It would have a bit more bite to it if he replaced "colourless ideas" with an actual colourless idea.flannel jesus

    His point was that a thing requiring mutually exclusive properties cannot exist.
    Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously? No they do not.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    Is it incorrect to ask what the value of π is?wonderer1

    No, one merely provides the algorithm for obtaining this value.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    ↪PL Olcott
    Uummm... I see a greater problem with the artificial constraint of the set of possible answers than I do with the questions, per sè.
    LuckyR

    Every yes/no question only has {yes, no} as a correct answer.

    Every yes/no defined such that no {yes, no} answer exists is
    probably an incorrect yes/no question.

    yes/no questions defined to contradict both yes/no answers
    are incorrect questions.
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    ↪PL Olcott Does this notion of incorrect question make sense?
    (RESPONSE)

    Yes, it is is possible to have an incorrect question.
    Rocco Rosano
    I accepted your answer. You cited many more good examples.

    An incorrect question is defined as a question that lacks a correct
    answer because there is something wrong with the question.
    PL Olcott
  • Does the idea of incorrect questions make sense?
    Not really to me, no. Questions can contain false hidden assumptions, be leading, be rhetorical, be impossible to answer coherently etc. But only answers can be incorrect. Questions are not claims about anything.bert1

    One of the people doing primary research into the mathematical formalization
    of natural language called Montague Grammar proposed that questions are
    statements with a piece missing.

    The above incorrect question can be translated into its equivalent statement
    The current time is "no". This statement is the same kind of nonsense as
    this very famous statement.

    Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
    was composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures as
    an example of a sentence that is grammatically well-formed, but semantically
    nonsensical.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Here's an excerpt from a book which I did not purchase:L'éléphant

    Logical possibilities are all the statements that cannot be proven false entirely on the basis of the meaning of their words. Here is a very strange logical possibility.

    Although this is attributed to Bertrand Russell, I remember creating this myself in 1993 and then reading that Bert came up with the same thing. Bert's version lacks the key detail that this creation event must have been instantaneous otherwise subconsious memory would have a record of it.

    https://neurochatter.com/continuity-of-self-was-the-world-put-into-place-five-minutes-ago/#:~:text=The%20%E2%80%9Cfive%20minute%20hypothesis%E2%80%9D%20by,into%20existence%20five%20minutes%20ago.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    I said it is not recognized in philosophy. Or Philosophy, for the proper name. The words "logically impossible" is never formally accepted as epistemic terms.L'éléphant

    Impossible worlds is the exact same concept as logically impossible.
    [logically impossible] is contrast wth [physically impossible] and
    covers every expression of language that is proved to be impossible
    entirely on the basis of the meaning of its words.

    There are zero possible worlds where someone can correctly draw a
    a square circle.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    — Impossible Worlds (Stanford Encyclopaedia, my bolding)Banno

    That was a very apt cite.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    PL Olcott "logically impossible" is not recognized in philosophy. It's either "illogical" or "impossible". The two are used in different contexts.L'éléphant

    Logically impossible is the strongest kind of impossible.
    A thing that is required to have simultaneous mutually exclusive properties
    like a square circle that must be round and must not be round is logically
    impossible. Making a perfect angel food cake using only house bricks for
    ingredients might be possible by rearranging the atoms of the bricks.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott It's an inveterate issue in Psychoceramics.Banno

    That a PhD computer science professor of decades has his own
    proof of this and agrees that my proof is correct provides sufficiently
    compelling evidence that this is not the case. He has been published
    several times in the two most prestigious computer science journals.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott Yeah, OK. No progress to be made here. Publish your article and then invite me to the ceremony when you win the Turing Award so you can say "I told you so".Banno

    I have a completely different proof that shows every single detail of
    how H does correctly determine the halt status of the impossible input.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott Yeah, OK. No progress to be made here. Publish your article and then invite me to the ceremony when you win the Turing Award so you can say "I told you so".Banno

    Like always there is no sense publishing anything until some people understand
    that the words are correct. There are now two people in the world that understand
    this and everyone else seems to be so sure that we are wrong that they can't
    even pay complete 100% attention to a single sentence.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Yep. Quite agree. If your conclusion is a logical impossibility, there is something amiss with your assumptions.Banno

    When the halting problem is defined such that solving it is logically impossible
    then we reject this problem definition as unsound for the same reason that
    we reject this question as unsound: What time is it (yes or no)?

    Every question that is defined to have no correct answer is an incorrect
    question.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    If one's assumptions lead to contradiction, then at least one is in error. Assuming we can produce H leads to contradiction. Hence we cannot produce H.Banno

    We also cannot correctly determine the square root of a stack of pancakes.
    Logical impossibilities never create actual limits.
    Logical impossibilities never create actual limits.
    Logical impossibilities never create actual limits.
    Logical impossibilities never create actual limits.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    If you would prove Turing wrong, you will need more than mere assertion.Banno

    You did not pay attention to the words that were targeted for you:

    This key point mostly uses ordinary words.
    The inability to do the logically impossible places no actual limit on anyone or anything.

    Anyone that agrees with the above point agrees with the complete essence of our proof.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    You started this with Carol's question, went on to claim that Gödel's theorem was wrong, backtracked to Turing and now obfuscate.Banno

    I just totally proved my whole point if and only if you fully understand all of its words.
    I have to write them so that computer programmers and computer scientists can
    most easily understand them.

    This key point mostly uses ordinary words.
    The inability to do the logically impossible places no actual limit on anyone or anything.

    Anyone that agrees with the above point agrees with the complete essence of our proof.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott What you have done is to display the contradiction that we all agree on. It's what you conclude from that which is problematic.Banno

    These words may be a little too technical for you.

    It seems that everyone agrees with this:
    (a) When the halting problem is defined with a program
    specification that requires an H to report on the behavior
    of the direct execution of D(D) that does the opposite of
    whatever Boolean value that H returns then this is an
    unsatisfiable program specification.

    (b) An unsatisfiable program specification is merely
    the inability to do the logically impossible thus places
    no actual limit on anyone or anything.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott
    Assume to reach a contradiction that there exists a program Halt(P, I) that solves the halting problem,
    — Prof Kirk Pruhs
    Banno

    My H simulates its D until it can see that D keeps calling H in recursive
    simulation. Then it aborts this simulation and returns 0 for non-halting.
    Page 1 of my paper shows all of the details of this to any expert C programmer.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott I wouldn't be here apart from trying to help articulate the point.

    That's why I've asked you to show as explicitly as you can where Carol's question occurs.

    In the other thread I suggested that the analogue would be "Will Program Z loop forever if fed itself as input?"
    — Banno
    Banno

    That depends on what your H does and you didn't say.

    I have spent two full time years making the x86utm operating system so that I could make a real H and Z so I have complete proof what they do and why and how they do it. My H is called H and my current Z is called D.

    Any expert C programmer can follow this proof by examining all of its source-code.
    The key essence of this source-code is on page 1 of this paper.

    Termination Analyzer H is Not Fooled by Pathological Input D
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369971402_Termination_Analyzer_H_is_Not_Fooled_by_Pathological_Input_D
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott Repetition and appeal to (supposed) authority.Banno

    I keep trying to make my words more clear. That a PhD computer science professor perfectly agrees with my exact words provides a subtantial weight of evidence that I am not simply a crackpot.

    Most people start with the idea that I must be a crackpot thus pay no attenton to what I actually say and put ALL of their energy into pointing out mistakes that turn out to not exist.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Well, no. The correct thing to do is conclude that H is impossible; that there are things which cannot be computed.Banno

    When a human is asked a question that is defined to have no correct answer
    such as: What time it is (yes or no)? we know to reject the question and not
    blame the human.

    When a computer program is presented with data that has been defined to
    have no correct answer (Boolean return value) we blame the program and
    not the data.

    This is inconsistent. Professor Hehner and I both agree that any program
    specification that lacks a correct (Boolean return value) for some inputs
    proves that this specification is unsatisfiable thus incorrect.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Well, no. The correct thing to do is conclude that H is impossible; that there are things which cannot be computed.
    8 hours ago
    Banno

    That is all that it takes to determine that the halting problem as defined is invalid.
    Another logically impossible problem is making a CAD system that can draw square
    circles. In other words it must draw a thing that <is> a Circle and simultaneously
    <is not> a Circle.

    All undecidable decision problems are simply invalid because their problem definition
    requires the logically impossible.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ...and the trouble with that is that there doesn't seem to be any obvious problem with Z.Banno

    So you can't see that the fact that Z does the opposite of whatever
    H says makes saying the correct thing a logical impossibility for H?
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    When it finds a contradiction is derived by a decision problem
    then it is this decision problem that must be rejected.
    — PL Olcott

    Why? Isn't that just special pleading?
    Banno

    When I ask you the question: What time is it (yes or no)?
    it is dead obvious that your inability to provide a correct
    answer is not your fault it is the fault of the question that
    requires a logically impossible answer.

    It is the same for all questions that require logically impossible
    answers and their analog of

    decision problems that have instances of questions that require
    logically impossible answers.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Yes this applies generally.
    — PL Olcott

    To all reductio arguments?
    Banno

    To all decision problem definitions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
    Finds the logical impossibility thus is fine.

    When it finds a contradiction is derived by a decision problem
    then it is this decision problem that must be rejected.

    When it is contradicted that some H can correctly determine
    the halt status of the direct execution of every D, then this
    definition of the problem is rejected as incorrect.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Does this apply generally? Are all supposed reductio arguments so flawed? They all contain a logical impossibility...

    This by way of pointing out that your argument is not well-formed.
    Banno

    Yes this applies generally. The undecidability of all undecidable decision
    problems is always anchored a the requirement to satisfy a logical
    impossibility.

    Thus the halting problem is analogous determining that computation
    is limited by the failure to satisfy any other logical impossibility such as
    requiring a CAD system to correctly draw a square circle.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    Where's the flaw?Banno

    The flaw is that the whole notion of decision problem undecidability
    is inherently flawed in that it requires the logically impossible.

    Every undecidable decision problem is simply wrong.

    When I ask you What time is it (yes or no)?
    Does the lack of your correct answer indicate that you are stupid
    or is there something wrong with the question?
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    You keep saying that. Sure. Turing's argument is not an example of that. It is a reductio.Banno

    The whole concept of decision problem undecidability is fatally flawed
    because it requires satisfying a logically impossible requirement.


    Instead of determining that some input is undecidable for some decision
    problem we reject the decision problem itself.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott I, and most logicians, agree that
    requiring the logically impossible is an invalid requirement
    — PL Olcott
    and yet see the argument as valid.
    Banno

    An agument cannot possibly be valid if it contains a fatal flaw.
    When-so-ever any decision problem requires the logically impossible
    this decision problem must be rejected as incorrect.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott Again, it just seems to me that you have misunderstood the structure of Turing's argument.Banno

    When it is understood that requiring the logically impossible is an invalid requirement then the whole notion of undecidability is shown to be incoherent.

    All decision problems that require the logically impossible are thus rejected as incorrect.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    When an assumption leads to a contradiction, the assumption must be rejected.Banno

    Yes and likewise for any problem definition that requires the logically impossible.

    When we simply drop the requirement that termination analyzer H report on the behavior
    of the directly executed D(D) and instead H reports on D correctly simulated by H then
    the conventional halting problem proofs fail to prove that halting is undecidable.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    ↪PL Olcott It's a reductio. The contradiction you point to is a direct consequence of assuming that the halting problem can be solved. It is what shows that the halting problem cannot be solved.Banno

    When a problem definition requires a logical impossibility then it is the problem definition that must be rejected.
  • Requiring the logically impossible is always an invalid requirement
    When such a contradiction is met, one ought go back and check one's assumptions. The assumption that must be rejected in your work is that there can be an algorithm that correctly predicts whether any Turing Machine will halt.Banno

    When the definition of the halting problem results in requirement that cannot be met because this requirement is a logical impossibility it is this problem definition that must be rejected. The inability to do the logically impossible never derives any limitation on anyone or anything.

    The logical impossibility of solving the halting problem (within its current definition) is exactly the same as the logical impossibility of creating a CAD system that correctly draws square circles.