Re: My view on John's paper
Nate
On 28 Jun 2010, at 14:57, Nate Hayes wrote:
> I also find it extreemely disturbing that with John's propagation mechanism,
> a lengthy computation involving a function that is "nowhere defined" and
> "nowhere undefined" may yield a final decoration that is "somewhere
> undefined". In my view, this is a violation of the concept of structural
> induction in the sense that the final result should represent the worst
> exceptional condition encountered while evaluating the DAG.
This is because you insist on attributing YOUR meaning (e.g., a total ordering of results from "best" to "worst" which is quite absent from my interpretation) to MY more modest data.
To quote from one of your great writers (Hawthorne) reviewing in 1837 a book by another of your greats (Longfellow) and quoting one of our even greater poets:
> There are some honest people into whose hearts "Nature cannot find the way." They have no imagination by which to invest the ruder forms of earthly things with poetry. They are like Wordsworth's Peter Bell;
>
> "A primrose by a river's brim,
> A yellow primrose was to him,
> And it was nothing more."
I say in my paper (5.1, list item (b))
> • ND = 1 is a result: f is nowhere defined on the input box. ND = 0 gives no result.
> • SuD = 0 is a result: f is everywhere defined on the input box. SuD = 1 gives no result.
My all-too-skeptical mind cannot find deeper meaning in the various conjunctions of the bits than these rather boring ones. For instance your explanation, why it is right that exp(wellformed empty set) produces (illformed empty set), seems just too complicated.
If, o prophet of Tetrit, thou convincest me by mighty proofs that this deeper meaning existeth, than shall I worship in the temple of Tetrit for ever more. But till then I remain like Peter Bell.
Regards
John