Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

What did you say? And what did you mean by it?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am There are many incorrect questions..
"Why are we hear?"
Did you purposely misspell here?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am "Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:25 am
PeteOlcott wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 3:40 am There is an enormously greater issue at stake here.
I can't even hint at that until I have a broad consensus.
WHY NOT?

Surely you COULD hint at the alleged 'greater issue at stake' WITHOUT ANY consensus, let alone a BROAD consensus, right?

How MUCH 'consensus' are you WAITING FOR, BEFORE you MOVE ALONG here?
When we understand that within the context of who is being asked
the following question has no correct yes or no answer:
"Can Carol correctly answer "no" to this question?" (Hehner:2017)

When we understand that question is precisely analogous to the halting
problem counter-example instances then we understand that the
only reason that the halting problem cannot be solved is that it is
an incorrect question in some cases.
Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

PeteOlcott wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:16 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:25 am
PeteOlcott wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 3:40 am There is an enormously greater issue at stake here.
I can't even hint at that until I have a broad consensus.
WHY NOT?

Surely you COULD hint at the alleged 'greater issue at stake' WITHOUT ANY consensus, let alone a BROAD consensus, right?

How MUCH 'consensus' are you WAITING FOR, BEFORE you MOVE ALONG here?
When we understand that within the context of who is being asked
the following question has no correct yes or no answer:
"Can Carol correctly answer "no" to this question?" (Hehner:2017)

When we understand that question is precisely analogous to the halting
problem counter-example instances then we understand that the
only reason that the halting problem cannot be solved is that it is
an incorrect question in some cases.
BUT 'this' WAS ALREADY KNOWN, anyway.
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am There are many incorrect questions..
"Why are we hear?"
Did you purposely misspell here?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am "Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
"Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
to a man that has never been married was my first
example of an incorrect question back in 2015.
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.lang/c/ ... Jy7N2vULwJ
Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

PeteOlcott wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:24 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:04 pm
PeteOlcott wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 2:35 pm

OK that is great. Since Carol's question is analogous (in very technical
terms this is an isomorphism) to decision problems having the exact
same self-referential structure that means that input data to some
algorithms is merely an incorrect question thus no actual limitation
of these algorithms.

The PhD computer science professor that wrote Carol's question wrote
it in response to the halting problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

Since he did not explore the subfield of pragmatics within linguistics
to verify that the situational context of the question cannot be correctly
ignored no one was convinced that Carol's question is an incorrect
question. They all continue to believe that it is a perfectly correct
question that Carol just can't answer for some unexplained reason.

When we ask why can't Carol correctly answer this question:
"Can Carol correctly answer "no" to this question?"
by process of elimination we find that the only reason is that
the question is incorrect.
I was able to go along with 'there is something wrong with the question.' Still balking at 'the question is incorrect'.
But I'm just some guy on the internet.
You have done far better than anyone else has ever done.
All of my prior reviewers have insisted that there is nothing
wrong with the question because they simply did not believe
in "situational context". (I never used that term before).
Are 'you' BLIND "peteolcott"?

I AGREED that the question IS WRONG, or INCORRECT, as you put it. AND, I AM STILL WAITING for you
PeteOlcott wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:24 pm When there is something wrong with the question (such as the
question is contradictory) such that it has no correct answer
(within the situational context) then I think it is apt to classify
the question as incorrect (within that situational context).
OKAY, AGAIN.

Are you NOT 'moving along' here BECAUSE REALLY you ACTUALLY have NOTHING ELSE?
PeteOlcott wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:24 pm That you accept that there is something wrong with the question
is better agreement than I have ever achieved previously (since 2004).
you REALLY MUST NOT HAVE READ MY REPLIES TO you here. Or, IF you DID, then you MUST NOT HAVE NOTICED that I HAVE ALREADY AGREED WITH you.

Considering 'this' has been going on since 2004 and 'it' is meant to be somehow 'important' in one way or another, then WHY the SLOWNESS.

An incorrect question is any question that lacks a correct answer because of some fault of the question.

If a question can NOT be answered, then 'that question' is, obviously, nonsensical, or just absurd. Simple, REALLY. Now, if you wan to call 'those questions' 'incorrect questions', then so be it. I HAVE ALREADY AGREED WITH 'this term' of yours. So, if you want to KEEP PROCRASTINATING, then so be it. NO one can MAKE you EXPLAIN YOUR VIEWS.
Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

PeteOlcott wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:20 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am There are many incorrect questions..
"Why are we hear?"
Did you purposely misspell here?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am "Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
"Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
to a man that has never been married was my first
example of an incorrect question back in 2015.
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.lang/c/ ... Jy7N2vULwJ
So what?

I am pretty sure there were countless other examples of so-called 'incorrect questions' BEFORE that one or BEFORE that year.
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:34 am
PeteOlcott wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 8:44 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 8:18 pm
That seems odd to me. Computers, so far, and certainly with many types of programming are less flexible than humans. I mean, Garbage in, Garbage out may have been used for a different context, but I would have thought more people would have been able to extend that core idea to many contexts. I assume people aren't all hitting their computers with hammers when they or their software don't do what they want.
I have spent thousands and thousands of hours on the halting problem proofs since 2004
and it turns out that the only reason that they cannot be solved is that the input program
presents an incorrect question to its halt corresponding decider. I said this in 2004 too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

I spent the last five full time years creating a system that bypasses this problem.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... al_Input_D

My program recognizes the faulty input and rejects it.
I don't think that anyone has
ever done this before because they never even understood that the input was unsound.
Instead of construing the input as incorrect it has always been construed as simply
too difficult for any halt decider to figure out.
Does 'your program' WORK?
Termination Analyzer H is Not Fooled by Pathological Input D
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... al_Input_D
Yes it does work, the fully operational source code is linked on page one.
User avatar
Sculptor
Posts: 8675
Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:32 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Sculptor »

Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am There are many incorrect questions..
"Why are we hear?"
Did you purposely misspell here?
Did somebody speak?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am "Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:21 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:14 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am There are many incorrect questions..
"Why are we hear?"
Did you purposely misspell here?
Did somebody speak?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:37 am "Have you stopped beating your wife. Yes or No."
What we have here is ANOTHER one who appears INCAPABLE of JUST CLARIFYING.

See, if they had purposely misspelled, then that would have been very clever to me.

But, if they did NOT, and ACTUALLY MEANT the QUESTION, 'Why are we here?', is an INCORRECT QUESTION, THEN I could have INFORMED them that ACTUALLY that QUESTION can be and HAS, in fact, ALREADY been ANSWERED.
User avatar
Sculptor
Posts: 8675
Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:32 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Sculptor »

Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:27 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:21 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:14 pm

Did you purposely misspell here?
Did somebody speak?

What we have here is ANOTHER one who appears INCAPABLE of JUST CLARIFYING.
What we have here is a failure to understand basic humour.
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

This message is deleted and rewritten below
Last edited by PeteOlcott on Sat Jul 15, 2023 9:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

Summation:

An incorrect question is any question that lacks a correct answer because of some fault of the question.

When we ask anyone: "Can you correctly answer "no" to this question?" no one can correctly answer it because it is contradictory. Both yes and no answers are contradicted by the question.

When we narrow the scope to a specific individual: "Can Carol correctly answer "no" to this question?" (Hehner:2017) Everyone can correctly answer that question besides Carol. For Carol that question is incorrect.

Carol's question is exactly analogous to a very important undecidable decision problem in computer science.

When a halt decider is asked: "Does your input halt?" and the input does the opposite of whatever its halt decider says this is exactly analogous to Carol's question when posed to Carol.

Thus the halting problem counter-example inputs derive an incorrect question for their corresponding halt decider. This means that those inputs do not show a fundamental limit to computation as that all computer scientists believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

The inability to correctly answer an incorrect question is the same as the inability of a baker to bake a perfect angel food cake using only ordinary red house bricks for ingredients.

The following paper explains the key technical details and links to a fully operational software system that recognizes and rejects the pathological inputs that derive a contradictory question for the halt decider of the halting problem.

Termination Analyzer H is Not Fooled by Pathological Input D
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... al_Input_D
Age
Posts: 20343
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Age »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 7:09 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:27 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:21 pm
Did somebody speak?
What we have here is ANOTHER one who appears INCAPABLE of JUST CLARIFYING.
What we have here is a failure to understand basic humour.
STILL absolutely NO CLARIFICATION on IF that was INTENDED or NOT.
User avatar
Sculptor
Posts: 8675
Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:32 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by Sculptor »

Age wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2023 2:45 am
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 7:09 pm
Age wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:27 pm

What we have here is ANOTHER one who appears INCAPABLE of JUST CLARIFYING.
What we have here is a failure to understand basic humour.
STILL absolutely NO CLARIFICATION on IF that was INTENDED or NOT.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
PeteOlcott
Posts: 1514
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:55 pm

Re: Exploring the idea of an incorrect question

Post by PeteOlcott »

Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 2:26 pm
PeteOlcott wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:24 pm You have done far better than anyone else has ever done.
All of my prior reviewers have insisted that there is nothing
wrong with the question because they simply did not believe
in "situational context". (I never used that term before).

When there is something wrong with the question (such as the
question is contradictory) such that it has no correct answer
(within the situational context) then I think it is apt to classify
the question as incorrect (within that situational context).

That you accept that there is something wrong with the question
is better agreement than I have ever achieved previously (since 2004).
I'll give a shot at explaining why I balk at 'incorrect' but not at 'there is something wrong with it'.
A question, in this case, is an attempt to get at information (if we take the question seriously/at face value, rather than say ironic/being tricky/manipulative/etc.) It's not an assertion. It includes implict positions that are like assertions. So, the first problem I have with 'incorrect' is it is a global assessment. Rather than there is a problem with a part of it. If we take it at face value someone is trying to get information and this is conveyed. Even about what. The problem comes in because aimed at Carol, she cannot give one of the options available as an answer. But, if we take this question at face value, we have learned that the person wants to know something, that it has to do either with Carol or what one can do in this situation. There has been some effective communication and then there is something wrong with the question. So, to me it is more complicated than 'incorrect.' I live in Norway and this means I am used to long winter days. That's partially incorrect as a sentence, not simply an incorrect sentence. And part of this is me viewing a question as an act. An act between person A and at least one person B.

The second problem I have with 'incorrect', is that it seems like a category error judgment.
Unless we have the correct/incorrect dichotomy computer science people
will reject what I am saying as vague and thus having no relevance to
computer science what-so-ever.

I also must have the support of linguists and philosophers of language
otherwise the computer science people will construe my ideas as baseless.

Incorrect statements are assertions of natural language that cannot possibly
be resolved to true or false because of some fault of the statement.


In the formal languages of mathematics they would be propositions
that cannot possible have a Boolean value (of true or false).
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously was composed by Noam Chomsky
in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is
grammatically well-formed, but semantically nonsensical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless ... _furiously
Is simply false since there cannot be any "Colorless green ideas" we can know that
they don't "sleep furiously "

It has been 2000 years and many modern day philosophers still do not understand
"This sentence is not true."
Cannot be resolved to a truth value because it is not a truth bearer because
it is self-contradictory. Recent papers are still trying to resolve it to a truth value.

Incorrect questions are questions that because of some fault of the question
cannot possibly have a correct answer.

(This is a brand new category that I am establishing)

Incorrect polar (yes/no) questions are polar questions because of some fault
of the question cannot possibly have a correct (yes/no) answer.

(This is a brand new category that I am establishing)

(1) What time it is (yes or no)?
(2) "This sentence is not true." Is it (a) true or (b) false?
(3) "Can you correctly answer "no" to this question?"
(4) When posed to Carol: "Can Carol correctly answer "no" to this question?"

The reason that this is important is that all of computer science is artificially
constrained by a notions of undecidability that includes the inability of correctly
answering incorrect questions thus preventing huge strides in more powerful
computation under the misconception that these advancements are impossible.

The key life or extinction of humanity depends on these advancements coming
to fruition. We really need to mathematically formalize the notion of (analytic)
truth so that dangerous counter-factual propaganda can be utterly disavowed
every which way before it gets any chance to take root.
Post Reply