Good write-up. I hear you about the patterns of debate that prop up in these threads. My favorites are the ones where people show up with specific logics, techs, or R&D suggestions that others and I learn from. Such an approach might lead to people solving hard problems over time.

My favorite counter to the Godel thing, esp about termination, was sklogic showing how far from reality these concerns were by illustrating that a while loop counting down toward zero with "stop if zero" condition will guarantee a termination of any algorithm working piece-by-piece in inner loop so long as hardware functions. No magic math at all required to defeat the termination requirement in real-world. I added watchdog timers or even shelf-life of modern parts can do the same.

I did something similar when I was concerned about infinite loops or DOS attacks from malicious input. Just box it up in something I know will work with something checking up on it. Another was algorithm theory telling me QuickSort performed better but choose HeapSort if worst-case is a problem. A smarter programmer told me to just time average for QuickSort, run it with a watchdog, kill it on any instance it takes too long, and use HeapSort for that instance. Those are the kind of tips I appreciate about these terrible problems the theoretical side brings me. Hell, if only theory people would find, generalize, and expand on all the effective cheats in engineering instead of idealistic or abstract stuff. :)