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> Do you have an outline of this proof? Let p be the real number where, iff the k'th program halts, the k'th bit of p (after the decimal point, in binary) is 1
by Strilanc 7y ago
> Do you have an outline of this proof?
Let p be the real number where, iff the k'th program halts, the k'th bit of p (after the decimal point, in binary) is 1.
Let M be the operation "toggle a bit with probability p", which has matrix [[1-p, p], [p, 1-p]].
When given a program k to solve, keep applying M while counting up how many toggles you see. Do this until the chance that the k'th bit of the sample mean equals the k'th bit of p is greater than 2/3 or whatever other threshold you want, which will take a finite number of samples. Return the k'th bit of the sample mean. This is a probabilistic algorithm which solves the halting problem with arbitrarily high probability.