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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: Olcott lies
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2022 02:44:58 +0100
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Mike Terry <news.dead.person.stones@darjeeling.plus.com> writes:

> On 16/10/2022 01:28, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> Mike Terry <news.dead.person.stones@darjeeling.plus.com> writes:

>>> Overall, I wasn't talking about anything PO says, rather purely about
>>> what Sipser agreed with.
>>
>> OK, but I think (if replying to PO) we /should/ be talking about what PO
>> writes.
>
> I get the idea, but also PO writes "[Sipser agrees with /my
> interpretation/ of blah blah subjunctive blah blah subjunctive blah
> blah]".  It seems reasonable for posters to put PO right on that
> point.

OK.  But I think (were I ever to reply) I would do both.  That can be
summarised as "you tricked the professor (possibly unintentionally)".

> Otherwise whatever anyone says to PO, he will just keep reposting his
> "Sipser support" mantra, convinced in his own mind he is answering the
> points people make to him.

It's really hard to imagine that he think he has found support for his
made up non-halting criterion.  Everyone else knows he has not, not
least because the professor did not say "Oh no, I've been wrong all
these years.  I need to re-write my textbook."

But then I suspect that we have no idea how badly he understands other
people and their motivation.  His understanding of other people's mental
states may be as poor as his understanding of Turing machine states.

<big cut>
(I'm not ignoring what you wrote, I just have nothing pertinent to say
about it.)

>> Do you agree that the actual words, as best we can understand them given
>> PO's lack of technical writing skills, re-defines non-halting so H can
>> report "non-halting" for a halting computation due to what would happen
>> if H did not do what it actually does?
>
> tl;dr : I'll say more or less "yes", but I don't think things are
> quite that simple..
>
> I don't think we could get PO to clarify his words to anything that
> has a precise meaning.  So in some ways, I'd say suggesting that PO is
> "really" thinking something that is *coherent* but different from the
> actual problem statement [POOH or whatever], is giving too much credit
> to PO.

Hmm...  It's just that there is a strong thread going right back to the
"if line 15 were commented out" post.  He's said the same thing in all
sorts of ways, but it's the same trick.  But maybe I am attributing too
much consistency to his various remarks.  After all, he has posted
directly contradictory statements within hours without, it seems, a
second thought.

-- 
Ben.