2012/8/14 John Clark <[email protected]> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 8:09 PM, William R. Buckley < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Consider that the Turing machine is computational omniscient[...] >> > > Turing's entire reason for inventing what we now call a Turing Machine was > to prove that computational omniscience is NOT possible. He rigorously > proved that no Turing Machine, that is to say no computer, can determine in > advance if any given computer program will eventually stop. > > For example, it would be very easy to write a program to look for the > first even number greater than 2 that is not the sum of two prime numbers > and then stop. But will the machine ever stop? The Turing Machine doesn't > know, I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows. >
Hmmm... well the halting problem is that there is no *general* algorithm to decide wether or not a given program will stop, it doesn't state that there is no algorithm that can determine if a particular program will stop or not. Quentin > Maybe it will stop in the next 5 seconds, maybe it will stop in 5 billion > years, maybe it will never stop. If you want to know what the machine will > do you just have to watch it and see, and even the machine doesn't know > what it will do until it does it. > > John K Clark > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
