If Halting problem is decidable, are all RE languages decidable?

Question

Assume the halting problem was decidable. Is then every recursively enumerable languagerecursive?

Answer 1

While we know for sure that the halting problem is (and always will be) undecidable by a Turing machine, we can take the following approach to investigate your question:

Assume that we have a magical machine that can solve the halting problem. We call this machine an oracle. We can now wire this machine into a Turing machine, creating Turing machines that can solve the halting problem.

Unfortunately, the same problem we had with the original Turing machines occurs again: we can enumerate our oracle-enriched Turing machines. We can define the function that computes $T_i(i)+1$. This function cannot occur in our enumeration, because it differs from all Turing machines. In short, if we have machines that can solve the halting problem, we get a new halting problem for those machines.

This principle gives us a hierarchy of uncomputable functions (called the Turing hierarchy). Some functions become computable if we have machines with an oracle for the first halting problem, while others stay incomputable. If we give our machines an oracle for the second level halting problems, more functions become computable, but some functions will always be uncomputable.

And yes, languages that are only recursively enumerable to regular Turing machines are fully recursive to oracle-enriched Turing machines. Let's use the following definitions:

• A recursive set is one for which there exists a TM which can answer yes if a given element is in the set, and no if it isn't.
• A recursively enumerable set is one for which there exists a TM which can answer yes if a given element is in the set and compute indefinitely if it isn't.

In the second case, we can create an oracle enriched TM which checks if the non-enriched TM halts. So the enriched TM can give a yes-or-no answer.

Of course, there will be new languages which are recursively enumerable in the oracle-enriched world, but not recursive. In the non-enriched world, these languages were not enumerable in any way.

NB: In general, the phrase 'oracle' can mean any addition to enrich a Turing machine, not just one to solve the halting problem. If the type of oracle isn't clear from context a phrase like "a Turing machine with an oracle for the halting problem" should be used to avoid confusion.

Answer 2

This is an impossible situation to occur. It will not become decidable. It was proven by Turing in 1936 to be undecidable. So technically you can say anything will happen if it is decidable since it can never be, and would cause a contradiction if it was.

Answer 3

In classical logic, everything follows from a contradiction. Since we know that the halting problem is not decidable, then if we assume that it is decidable, we reach a contradiction, and so everything follows. So the answer is both TRUE and FALSE.