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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Was: The end of god. Is now: God's back again!
Message-ID: <1994Oct28.051800.20478@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
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References: <383kau$5q2@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> <Cxzo7E.91v@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <Harmon.776.000A2404@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 05:18:00 GMT
Lines: 50

In article <Harmon.776.000A2404@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu> Harmon@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu (Michael G. Harmon) writes:
>In article <Cxzo7E.91v@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>Your example just illustrates the Goedel theorem.  The point I was trying to 
>>make was that to know something 'for sure' we also use mathematics, even
>>if applied to a system external to the one in which this something is true.
>>Short of divine inspiration, what we hold to be true in science is arrived at
>>by logical reasoning at some level. We may propose various conjectures and
>>even have a deep, unfaltering belief that such a conjecture is true, it only
>>becomes a scientific truth if proven using logic. Penrose seems to suggest
>>that there are some scientific (mathematical) truths which logic cannot prove.
>>I have yet to hear an example. Yours does not cut it.
>
>>Andrzej
>
>It may be that Penrose is saying there are some truths that are not 
>scientific in nature that will subsequently remain unprovable by scientific 
>method.  It might be that such phenomenon that would be agreed upon as valid 
>solely by the concurrance of a sufficient number of credentialed members of 
>the scientific community who either try the idea out in their own minds and 
>admit a certain reasonance with respect to the rest of what they know or 
>perhaps be able to gain a statisical basis by experimenting with the 
>subjective perceptions of a group of subjects who claim to be able to directly 
>percieve aspects of the 'truth' in question.  


I finally see what you mean.  You mean, like when almost everyone
agrees that that thunder noise is when the rain god is angry, or that
living things are animated by a vital force, and so forth?  And then
burn the witches and wizards who don't join into that resonance.

Jeez, did you really say "credentialed"?  Just like those "certified
authentic professional psychics on TV?.  And for only $3.99 per
minute?

Still, I'll grant that anyone who posts to all of "comp.ai.philosophy,
talk.philosophy.misc, talk.religion.newage, alt.atheism,
alt.pagan,alt.consciousness, alt.paranormal.channeling, and
alt.consciousness.mysticism" is probably suitably certifiable.
Anyway, much as I disagree with Penrose, I don't think that this is
"what Penrose is saying". But then I'm not completely unsure, however,
that your second sentence is not entirely unmeaningless. My parser
came unstacked around 'they know or perhaps be able to gain'. 

Nice meter, though.

    ___________________________________________
  "Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them."
                                            ---------  Sam Goldwyn

