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Article 2757 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jbaez@jordan.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Penrose on Man vs. Machine
Message-ID: <1992Jan15.222457.4889@galois.mit.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 92 22:24:57 GMT
References: <1992Jan14.182546.7560@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Jan14.211840.2423@arizona.edu> <1992Jan15.143037.7600@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Jan15.143037.7600@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Jan14.211840.2423@arizona.edu> 
>bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Jan14.182546.7560@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>
>MZ:
>>>To sum up, my position is that, were I a Turing machine, there would exist
>>>some formal mathematical theory whose meaning I couldn't understand.
>>>Personally, I find this implausible; feel free to judge to the contrary.
>
>BS:
>>  What a remarkable claim!  Are you saying that if I create an axiom
>>system consisting of 10^100 axioms, each 10^1000 symbols long, you
>>would be able to understand it?  I envy you.  I myself have never
>>been able to understand quantum gravity, which is surely trivial
>>in comparison.
>>
>>  Or what exactly are you saying?
>>
>>	-- Bill
>
>You create it, and I'll understand it, provided that there is anything to
>understand.  One proviso: the axioms must all be written by hand, in your
>handwriting.  

Curioser and curioser: there is no formal mathematical theory whose
meaning he can't understand, and yet his optical character recognition
is so bad he cannot read typewritten material!


