And I am trying to get folks here to confront the problem of putting in their own words things they think are obvious for other folks for whom these things are not obvious.
-----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joseph Spinden Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 8:06 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Isomorphism between computation and philosophy I was suggesting the contributors to this chat could "go read the Wikipedia article" to give them something useful to say to the beautiful woman about the halting problem. (Not to be taken to imply that none of the readers if this are beautiful women, only some of the readers..) Joe On 4/17/13 11:04 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > I don't think the beautiful woman would accept "go read the Wikipedia > article" as am answer. > > N > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joseph > Spinden > Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 8:21 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Isomorphism between computation and philosophy > > Owen is right that there are N! ways to map a set of N objects 1-1, > onto another set of N objects. The first object can go to 1 of N > objects, the next to 1 of N-1, etc. That's pretty standard. > > As to the Halting Problem, Why not start with the first few lines of > the Wikipedia article ? That is simple and easy to understand. > > Joe > > > > > On 4/17/13 7:32 PM, [email protected] wrote: >> Nick asks Owen: >> >>> So, Owen, you meet a beautiful woman at a cocktail party. She seems >>> intelligent, not a person to be fobbed off, but has no experience >>> with either Maths or Computer Science. She looks deep into your >>> eyes, and asks "And what, Mr. Densmore, is the halting problem?" >>> You find yourself torn between two impulses. One is to use the >>> language that would give you credibility in the world of your >>> mentors and colleagues. But you realize that that language is going >>> to be of absolutely no use to her, however ever much it might make >>> you feel > authoritative to use it. She expects an answer. >>> Yet you hesitate. What language do you use? >>> >>> You would start, would you not, with the idea of a "problem." A >>> problem is some sort of difficulty that needs to be surmounted. >>> There is a goal and something that thwarts that goal. What are >>> these > elements in the halting >>> PROBLEM? And why is HALTING a problem? >> Nick, Owen may well disagree, but from my point of view you've >> already staked a dubious claim, by assuming (defensably) that >> "problem" in the MathEng phrase "Halting Problem" can and should be >> understood to be the same word as "problem" in your dialect of >> English. But this is, I > think, a false assumption. Now, at least, whatever the case was when > the "Halting Problem" >> got its original name (in MathGerman, I think), the meaning that >> "Halting Problem" conveys in MathEng is the same (or nearly the same) >> as that conveyed by "Halting Question". "Problem" is there for >> historical reasons, just as, in geometric topology, a certain >> question of considerable interest and importance (which has been >> answered for fewer decades than has the "Halting Problem") is still >> called--even in > MathEng!--"the Hauptvermutung". The framing in terms of "a goal" and > "something that thwarts" is delusive. There is, rather, "a question" >> and--if you must be florid--a "quest for an answer". Note, "*an* >> answer". Of course, at an extreme level (I can't decide whether it's >> the highest or the lowest: I *hate* "level" talk precisely for this >> kind of reason) there is *the* answer ("no"). But that isn't, in >> itself, very interesting (any more: of course it was before it was >> known to be "the" answer). *How* you get to "no" is interesting, and >> there are (by now) many different "hows" (for the "Halting Question", >> the > Hauptvermutung, Poincare's Conjecture, and so forth and so on), each > of which is *an* answer (as are many of the "not hows"). >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at >> cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> > -- "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1913. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
