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From: minsky@ml.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Open Letter to Professor Penrose
Message-ID: <1996Jun22.032026.9575@media.mit.edu>
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References: <4e5fi3$4m8@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie> <4e5ntq$7lq@hammer.msfc.nasa.gov> <4qe5rr$8nn@decaxp.HARVARD.EDU>
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Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 03:20:26 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.logic:18846 comp.ai:39504 comp.ai.philosophy:43153

In article <4qe5rr$8nn@decaxp.HARVARD.EDU> jwest@law.harvard.edu (james west) writes:
>In article <4e5ntq$7lq@hammer.msfc.nasa.gov>, brock@ssl.msfc.nasa.gov wrote:
>
>>Now, what about Godel's theorem does Penrose use to distinguish brains from
>>computers?  I still don't know the answer to that question.  You can tell me
>>all day that brains and computers are different, somehow, because I can't
>>prove otherwise, but what does Godel's theorem have to do with it?  
>
>Perhaps, unlike computers, brains (e.g., Godel's) can, in principle, construct 
>an unending hierarchy of novel metalanguages within which the 
>(representational-semantic) limits of object languages can be modelled and 
>thereby surpassed.

Um, do you see any reason why you said " unlike computers" in that
sentence?  Can you really not see how to program such things?  If so,
I'd love to know the trick you use to not see it!

How about this as a serious question for what we might call metatheory of
philosophy.
     How can so many people who understand recursive proof
     theory not see how to construct sequences of metalanguages.

Surely this has something to do with the late John Myhill's theory of
creative sets.


