From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!mtecv2!pl160988 Tue May 12 15:49:09 EDT 1992
Article 5424 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: pl160988@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx (Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: re re penrose
Message-ID: <5705@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx>
Date: 5 May 92 21:12:24 GMT
References: <zlsiida.64@fs1.mcc.ac.uk>
Organization: I.T.E.S.M. Campus Monterrey
Lines: 30

In article <zlsiida.64@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
>You're calling neural net architectures heuristic as opposed to algorithmic?
>I read him as saying: computers are algorithmic; the halting problem is 
>unsolvable algorithmically; computers can't think.  My problem with this is
>that his definition of computer is much tighter than mine - I'll allow an 
>entire system including multiple networked machines of varyingarchitectures,
>he resorts to the human ability to 'stand back' when something like the 
>halting problem is found, saying the algorithm can't do this, which I see as
>a false limitation on the algorithm (like he won't let it be self-modifying 
>and ignores the multi-tasking ability of op.sys algorithms), and he is
>incredibly vague about what thinking, awareness, consciousness etc actually
>are.
>I expect to see him proved wrong within 50 years.

Penrose speaks of principles. He calls anything that can be reduced to a
Turing Machine a computer (most people have the same concept of a
computer). All Von Newman machines, Lisp machines, paralell machines, in
fact, ALL known architectures are reducible to TM with a finite tape. So
Penrose's definition of computer is not thin; in fact, it is much
broader than you think. Self modifying algorityms have nothing special,
either, since they are also reducible to TMs. So what Penrose questions
is whether the human brain can be reduced to TMs too, and he argues that
QM and modern physics in general hint that this might not be the case.

I expect to see him proved right within 40 years. :-)

Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso
Centro de Inteligencia Artificial
ITESM, Campus Monterrey, Mexico
pl160988@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx


