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Page 38
opposing point of view, see Putnam [156] and Pullum [154]). In any case we shall later consider paradigms that incorporate rationality requirements in one or another sense (see Chapter 5).
Definition 3.12 is slightly different from the criterion of successful performance that we introduced informally in Section 1.3. Our earlier criterion required the learner to produce a last, correct guess, and to cease guessing thereafter. It thus corresponds to the following version of identification, here labeled ''identification*."
3.16 Definition Scientist F identifies* 0038-001.gif just in case for every text T for any 0038-002.gif, 0038-003.gif is finite and nonempty, and content(T) = WF(T[n) for the greatest 0038-004.gif. In this case Image-0459.gif is identifiable*.
The reader can easily verify that the two criteria of success are equivalent in the sense of the next proposition.
3.17 Proposition 0038-005.gif is identifiable if and only if Image-0460.gif is identifiable*.
Identification* is one of many criteria that are transparently equivalent to identification; another is presented in Exercise 3-4. (Criteria that are not equivalent to identification arise in Chapter 6.)
To close this section we record the identifiability of a collection of languages that. recalls the discussion of Section 1.3.
3.18 Proposition Let 0038-006.gif. Then Image-0461.gif is identifiable.
Proof: Given any 0038-007.gif, let x s  be the least 0038-008.gif such that 0038-009.gif. Let scientist F be defined by the condition that for all 0038-010.gif, F( s ) = the least index for N - { x s  }. It is clear that F identifies Image-0462.gif.
§3.5 Identification as a Limiting Process
Let scientist F identify text T, and let 0038-011.gif be given. We say that F "begins to identify T at moment n" just in case n is the least integer such that:
(a) 0038-012.gif
(b) 0038-013.gif

 
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