Path: utzoo!yunexus!gall
From: gall@yunexus.UUCP (Norm Gall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Algorithms, Turing, Semantics
Message-ID: <6472@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jan 90 20:37:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: yunexus.6472
References: <12883@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: gall@yunexus.UUCP
Organization: York University   Department of Philosophy
Lines: 28

kadickey@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Kent Andrew Dickey) writes:


| I clearly must be missing something very important to all of these
| discussions.  Therefore, before I spew out my version of the world, I
| have three questions:

| 1) Could someone name one process which cannot be broken down into an
| algorithm?  That is, many people have said the mind may not be simulated
| through an algorith, but personally, no other examples of
| non-alogorithmical processes occur to me.  Please, someone, tell me what
| obvious example I'm missing.

Well, no one has convincingly established that 'the mind' is a process
(or collection of precesses, etc), so I can say that all processes
_can_ be broken down into an algorthm, there is nothing that isn't a
process that can be 'algorithmised', and hence, the mind cannot be
broken down into amn algorithm.

I am quite sure few _here_ will concur.

nrg

-- 
York University          | "Philosophers who make the general claim that a 
Department of Philosophy |       rule simply 'reduces to' its formulations
Toronto, Ontario, Canada |       are using Occam's razor to cut the throat
_________________________|       of common sense.'             - R. Harris