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From: jwl@ucbvax.ARPA (James Wilbur Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.math
Subject: Re: Sc--nce Attack (really on minds and computers)
Message-ID: <10708@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 16:13:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10708
Posted: Fri Oct 18 16:13:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 20-Oct-85 04:39:26 EDT
References: <299@umich.UUCP> <10699@ucbvax.ARPA> <10700@ucbvax.ARPA> <10702@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: jwl@ucbvax.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 45
Keywords: Turing machines vs. the mind
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2884 net.math:2386

In article <10702@ucbvax.ARPA> tedrick@ucbernie.UUCP (Tom Tedrick) writes:
>
>>What is so mysterious about the
>>latter kind of reasoning? All one needs to do is define a more powerful
>>system, and then by reasoning within the new system you can show the
>>incompleteness/inconsistency/whatever of the weaker system.
>>Of course, the formal system for any given Turing machine is fixed, and
>>that machine will be unable to 'jump out of the system' to reason
>>about its own properties.  But we can always design a more powerful 
>>machine which *will* be able to reason about the weaker one.
>
>[Yes, this is exactly the point. Exhibit the turing machine that
>is claimed to be equivalent to the human mind, and the human mind
>can reason about the system in ways impossible within the system.
>Thus we contradict the assumption that the machine was equivalent
>to the mind.]

Foo! By reasoning about an equivalent Turing machine, the human mind
is *also* constrained to operate within the system. No fair jumping
out of the system here.  I ask again: what is your basis for claiming
that human reasoning can't be duplicated by a 'mere' machine, at least
in principle? Are you saying that machines are incapable of the kind of
reasoning involved in, say, the proof of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?

>
>OK, we at least have a clear point of disagreement. I don't believe
>human beings are deterministic. I also don't accept the laws of
>physics as absolute. I accept them as an absolutely brilliant
>model but not as complete truth. I don't accept the notion that
>the human being is just a very complex machine. 
>

I'm not sure why this is relevant. Are you saying the laws of physics
are incomplete (because we don't know them all yet?) Or that certain 
phenomena are inherently inexplicable by ANY laws of physics, a la
religious arguments?  Whatever those laws of physics are, humans and
machines both must obey them. 

>
>     -Tom the Human
>      tedrick@ucbernie.ARPA

-- Jim Lewis, a Lean Mean Computing Machine!
   U. C. Berkeley
   ...!ucbvax!jwl     jwl@ucbernie.BERKELEY.EDU