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Re: VMs: Criteria for a successful solution



When my children were young they would ask me if aliens were real. My answer was "yes they are and I am looking at one". I would tell them that if they were to go to another planet, then they would be the aliens. They understood this concept and were satisfied not to have to ask the question again. The question then becomes, would there be anyone on another planet to see them, if they could get there?


Regards, Dana Scott

BTW, the egg came first.



From: elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: VMs: Criteria for a successful solution
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 08:49:41 +0200

Zitat von "Dennis S." <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>:

> Elmar wrote:
>
> >(If the VM is only gibberish, it's obviously impossible to prove this fact,
> and
> >there simply is no solution.)
>
> Yes. However, if it is in fact gibberish, can we prove it? The only way
> I can think of is to produce a valid solution. Can anyone think of another?
>
> Perhaps this is a philosophical question. In designing a scientific
> experiment, one assumes the null hypothesis, that an observed difference is
> due to chance, one specifies limits of confidence, and then one rejects the
> null hypothesis if the experimental results show a difference exceeding the
> limits of confidence. Perhaps this is analogous.
>


Exactly my point:

Although it's possible to prove the non-existance of anything in a _logical_
manner ("something can't be big and small at the same time"), it's impossible
to do the same in an empirical manner:


I might go around and show that 100 UFO sightings were false, and not a single
one was true, but this doesn't prove there are no UFO's -- the 101st one might
be for real.


Likewise, it's impossible to prove (in the strict sense) the Gibberish
hypothesis: Even if you refuted 100 encoding schemes, the 101st one might still
turn out to be the solution.


At the same time, it's possible to _show_ that the VM is gibberish. If eg
Rugg's method can come up with a ciphertext which exhibits all the statistical
phenomena of the VM etc., we may safely assume that this is the way it's been
done.


Cheer,

Elmar, philosopher's stone in a nutshell


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