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From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Refute this, refute this, Go"del!
Message-ID: <1378@ucl-cs.uucp>
Date: 22 Jan 91 18:28:19 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucl.ac.uk
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In article <12190@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> Lawrence Detweiler rethreads
* - - -
* 
* Let's start a new thread for those who think that humans are inherently
* `inconsistent'.
* 
* To be more specific, in this context let `consistent' mean that humans are so
* in that they function at the physical level in a completely deterministic way.
* We derive this from the axioms of our system that
* 
* i. physics is completely deterministic (`consistent'),
* ii. physics = reality,
* iii. reality is transitory, and
* iv. humans are entirely physical.
* 
* Already we reach a contradiction.  How then can any human be inconsistent?

``we reach''? Count me out. And Tweety.

[...] 

* P.S. If you don't like my axioms, don't knock 'em.  Start your own thread.
* 
* ``God doesn't play dice with the universe.'' --Einstein
* 
* ld231782@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU

OK, so Einstien did not like the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum
mechanics. ``physics is completely deterministic (`consistent')''; not OK.
Einstein wanted to include Mach's Principle in General Relativity, to which
end he failed since one solution of the theory is a black hole in an
otherwise empty universe.

And then we have action at a distance; the Bell Inequality and All That.

Physicists, a subset of the human race, now believe in chaos. Chaos has
serveral definitions, but one is "sensitivity to changes in initial
conditions." This was used in a recent paper I saw as a working definition.

So, rethread;
i. physics is consistent
ii. physics models reality
iii. reality is what you make of it (cf Arbib and Hesse)
iv. humans are entirely physical (that is, they observer reality, in CERN
and FermiLab and in Safeway)

Gordon Joly                                       +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk          UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT

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