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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Penrose Argument Caveats (was Re: Penrose and human math
Message-ID: <1995Aug11.021731.8316@media.mit.edu>
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Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 02:17:31 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.philosophy:31554 sci.logic:13892

In article <40earg$7mf@bell.maths.tcd.ie> tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy
Murphy) writes: (in reply to remarks of Aaron Sloman).

>I'm afraid you are far too kind, at least as far as the "AI people"
>on this thread are concerned.
>I am satisfied that very few of them have taken the trouble
>to discover what Godel's Incompleteness Theorems actually say;
>and yet they are quite happy to "apply" the theorems
>to situations where they make no sense whatever.

All right, I'll be happy to receive instruction about this.  As I read
Godel's theorem, it says that any formal system that is consistent is
not expressive enough to produce all true statements about itself.  I
interpret this to mean that consistency is in very serious conflict
with expressiveness.

What's your view of what Godel's theorem says/implies?

