THE MYTH OF 'THE MYTH OF HYPERCOMPUTATION'
Abstract
A myth has unfortunately arisen in connection with Martin Davis's rather aggressively titled paper "The Myth of Hypercomputation." The myth is that Davis is profoundly and decisively right therein, and that hypercomputation is indeed therefore a myth. We show herein that Davis is wrong: i.e., that it's a myth that hypercomputation is a myth. We begin by pointing out and putting to use an obvious fact about the adjective 'mythic.' (E.g., if it's a myth that ϕ (= if ϕ is mythic), where ϕ is some declarative statement, then ϕ is false.) These facts allow us to quickly prove that some of the propositions Davis can be charitably read as advancing are provably false, that some are vacuously true, and that the remainder are indeterminate. Since all that he advances falls into one of these categories, his project is an utter failure.
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