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From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Minds, machines, and Godel
Message-ID: <1991Jan16.233614.25070@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 91 23:36:14 GMT
References: <1991Jan16.035058.7465@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <28087@cs.yale.edu> <89586@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 21

In article <89586@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@dweasel.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes:

>	So that is why I think that Go"del's theorem makes no
>limitation on computers that we do not share, because one can always
>set up a psychological version of the statement G mentioned earlier.

This does not address the argument as stated.  The argument as stated did
not claim "humans have no psychological limitations".  Rather, it is an
argument that claims to exhibit a specific difference between the
capabilities of humans and those of any given Turing Machine (from which
it would follow that humans cannot be simulated by Turing Machines).

Incidentally, your judgment that the sentence "I am incapable of judging the
truth of this sentence" is true leads to an obvious inconsistency.  But this
is not relevant to the Godel argument.  Godel's theorem is much deeper than
ordinary self-reference.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."