I think the limitation is better expressed as,
Halting problem - no one arbitrary algorithm can decide whether or not another arbitrary algorithm will halt. There are some cases, typically one to one, or one to some small and well defined set, where decidability is satisfied. There is no case of one to all others where decidability is satisfied. wrb From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why AI is impossible On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 1:29 PM, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote: > Hmmm... well the halting problem is that there is no *general* algorithm to decide wether or not a given program will stop Yes. > it doesn't state that there is no algorithm that can determine if a particular program will stop or not. Obviously. It's easy to tell that some programs, like the program "add 1 to the number 2 17 times then stop" will stop, but its not so easy for other programs and the only way to know if the program will stop it to watch it and see. And if the program never stops you can never know that because no matter how many billions of years you've been watching it for all you know it might stop in the next 5 seconds, or maybe the next 5 billion years, or maybe never. 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. -- 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.
