The Halting Lizard

Conversation started May 31, 2022 at 20:25.

Mayube

May 31, 2022 20:25

The halting problem was solved on 2041 by Prof. James Jameson, who had devoted most of his life to the problem. As it happens, the solution was a small lizard Jameson found in his yard one day. The lizard would only eat paper, and specifically only paper that had a halting program written upon it.

Ginger

Dispatches from an Alternate Universe #002

Mayube

To demonstrate this, Jameson presented the lizard with a piece of paper upon which he had written while (1) {} The lizard looked at the camera with an expression of unamusement. Jameson then took the paper, and between the braces wrote break;. The lizard lept up and devoured the paper from his hands.

Radvylf Programs

If that lizard existed it would break every cryptographic protocol, solve every open mathematical question, and quite possibly save billions of lives. Hopefully nobody steps on it.

I ehar the NSA has a special pair of spiky boots on hand in case it ever shows up.

Ginger

did you just write that now?

Mayube

@Ginger me?

Ginger

May 31, 2022 20:29

yes

Mayube

Yeah, my brain gets a lil loopy after a long day of crying over other peoples' code

Ginger

wow

Radvylf Programs

You're rather easily impressed lol

Mayube

Oh crap I accidentally said on 2041 instead of in 2041

Ginger

I am

Mayube

May 31, 2022 20:30

@RadvylfPrograms Hey give em a break, maybe they can't afford imagination :D

Radvylf Programs

We all have imagination lizards, maybe Ginger's ran away

Ginger

I have a Ginger Technologies GT114 Humor Processing Card

is that good enough?

Mayube

my imagination lizard evolved into an imagination dragon, then got fat and lazy and started making bad music instead

Unrelated String

😔

Radvylf Programs

My imagination lizard keeps getting fed JS and PHP and it sometimes goes missing and comes back with a long beard and a moderately good shitpost carved into the wall of a cave

Mayube

May 31, 2022 20:32

When questioned about how this lizard could possibly know whether a program halts or not, Jameson gave a shrug. "Magic, I guess."

thejonymyster

my imagination lizard keeps poisoning my imagination spock

Ginger

my imagination lizard moves backwards in time and exists in 4 dimensions of space

Radvylf Programs

What if you gave it a program that connected to a camera, watched the lizard, and infinitely looped until the lizard declared that the program it was given would eventually halt.

Or worse, waited until it decided the program would go on forever

Mayube

Unfortunately, two days later, Prof. Jameson snapped and killed the lizard. He was arrested by authorities and seen being dragged away screaming that his whole life was a waste and that science is a lie. He died of unknown causes whilst awaiting trial

Radvylf Programs

@RadvylfPrograms The lizard would explode.

Mayube

May 31, 2022 20:35

Well I guess we'll never know thanks to that asshat Jameson

Ginger

lizard emulation when

Mayube

@RadvylfPrograms The lizard actually considers all programs it looks at to run within a sandbox, so the paper would also have to define the camera, at which point it's no longer a real camera, just one on paper

and therefore can't look at the very real lizard

Radvylf Programs

The lizard was actually the ghost of Alan Turing in Narnia, and he just thinks really quickly and writes it down, and since the time is weird in Narnia it seems instant

des54321

@Mayube but if the paper defines the lizard the camera is looking at, then that lizard has to be looking at a piece of paper with the same program, and that paper has to define its lizard, and etc etc ad absurdium

Mayube

@des54321 the lizard has a finite stomach

also the lizard is not a computer, nor a piece of code, so if the paper defined the lizard it would no longer be a program

and therefore the lizard wouldn't eat it

Radvylf Programs

May 31, 2022 20:40

What if the code is a polyglot

Ginger

what on earth is going on here

Radvylf Programs

@Ginger chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/240

Mayube

@RadvylfPrograms the lizard only knows D

but by 2041 D has incorporated a rust-like borrow checker and become the defacto language for all types of development.

Ginger

bold of you to assume that Y2K38 won't have ended civilization by then

Mayube

@Ginger Society banded together and sacrificed Linus Torvalds to the Unix gods in 2035, and they gave us 400 extra years

Ginger

May 31, 2022 20:48

wow

Radvylf Programs

Nah everyone just started using floats for the time. In a few million years seconds will start to pass slightly faster.

Mayube

When asked what we plan to do in 2438, world leader Jake Paul shrugged and said "Iunno about you but I plan to be dead by then" before sticking out his tongue at the gathered press and shotgunning a white claw

Ginger

the year is 2041. the Stack Exchange network is long dead. chat.stackexchange.com is still online, kept alive by a coalition of TNB users running a custom backend.

Mayube

having rewritten it in D

Ginger

the nation of Python is under constant attack from armies of D users seeking to steal their tabs and brackets to fuel their Doomsday D-vice