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Article 2417 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smaill@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Alan Smaill)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic,sci.math,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Penrose on Man vs. Machine
Message-ID: <SMAILL.91Dec27125910@tay.aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Dec 91 12:59:10 GMT
References: <1991Dec23.165606.5935@oracorp.com>
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In-Reply-To: daryl@oracorp.com's message of 23 Dec 91 16:56:06 GMT

In article <1991Dec23.165606.5935@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:

   Agreed, the point of such an argument is to reduce the truth of some
   questionable statement to the truth of some statements that we find
   more intuitively valid. However, I think that Penrose' premises, that
   we can solve all instances of the halting problem, and that we can
   tell whether an arbitrary collection of axioms is consistent, is much
   *less* plausible than his conclusion, that our minds are not
   algorithmic.


Penrose does not make this claim - indeed he specifically denies it.
"I nowhere claim that mathematicians' insight would enable them, in
principle, to resolve _any_ mathematical question . . .  I merely
claim that the insights which _are_ available to mathematicians are
not formalizable."
Penrose, Response to peer reviews, Behavioral and Brain Sciences
V 13, no 4, Dec 1990, p694.


--
Alan Smaill,                       JANET: A.Smaill@uk.ac.ed             
Department of Artificial           ARPA:  A.Smaill%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
       Intelligence,               UUCP:  ...!uknet!ed.ac.uk!A.Smaill
Edinburgh University. 


