XPost: uk.politics.misc 
 From: anw@cuboid.co.uk 
  
 On 22/10/2019 00:31, abelard wrote: 
 [...] 
 > i don't believe conceptual computers which are foundationally 
 >      based on empirically unsound theories(aristotelian logic) an be 
 >      useful... 
  
  Luckily, real computers are not so based, and therefore can 
 be useful.  Turing's original work on this was intended to try to 
 construct a theory of what it is that real people do when they do 
 mathematics;  which is why he conceived of a Turing machine as much 
 the same as a person following instructions and writing the results 
 on a stack of paper.  In the end, this is what enabled replacement 
 of [eg] people solving differential equations [or breaking codes] 
 by computer programs doing the same thing.  I consider that useful; 
 we would [eg] have had great difficulty winning WW2 without it. 
 YMMV. 
  
 > but i'm happy for others(yourself in included) to try :-) 
 > 'your' t-c-g logic will break your computer before it returns anything 
 >     useful... 
  
  T-C isn't "logic";  it's a thesis, founded entirely on 
 observation and pragmatism.  If you find a new effective way to 
 compute things that breaks T-C, then so be it, and a whole new 
 vista of computing will open up.  But most of us consider that 
 unlikely, and I don't propose to waste my declining years in a 
 search for something that almost certainly doesn't exist.  As for 
 G, that isn't exactly "logic" either;  it's a theorem.  At the 
 time it was rather startling and unexpected.  But with benefit 
 of hindsight, it's rather plausible, partly/largely because we 
 now know much better than in the 1920s what computers can do -- 
 and, just as importantly, can't do. 
  
  If "my" "t-c-g" "logic" tells me that something can't be 
 done, you're welcome to disbelieve me and try whatever you like. 
 It's not meant to "return" anything, rather to save you wasting 
 your time looking for unicorns and sunlit uplands.  But a proof 
 in mathematics is a great deal more certain than a proof in [eg] 
 physics.  I don't know whether, despite Einstein, practical faster- 
 than-light travel may ultimately prove possible, with or without 
 the help of Alcubierre;  I expect not, but I wouldn't go to the 
 stake on the issue.  But I am as certain as can be that you will 
 never find two strictly positive integers p and q such that 
 (p/q) == 2. 
  
  May be worth noting that the standard proof of the 
 unsolvability of the "halting problem", a magnet for cranks, 
 is what I call a "destructive" proof;  if you come to me with 
 a program that you claim solves the problem, I don't need to 
 waste time searching for the bug in your program, the "proof" 
 provides me directly with a program, based on yours, that your 
 program will fail on. 
  
 -- 
 Andy Walker, 
 Nottingham. 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)