From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale.edu!yale!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny Tue Nov 26 12:31:24 EST 1991
Article 1488 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:1488 rec.arts.books:10395 sci.philosophy.tech:1053
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale.edu!yale!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny
>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett
Keywords: Godel, Turing, Dennett, Charlatan
Message-ID: <1991Nov21.221339.5736@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 22 Nov 91 03:13:38 GMT
References: <11779@star.cs.vu.nl> <11785@star.cs.vu.nl>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 77
Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <11785@star.cs.vu.nl> 
peter@cs.vu.nl (Grunwald PD) writes:

>In article <1991Nov18.145812.5577@husc3.harvard.edu>, 
>zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>> Searle's argument seems a bit mystical to me in its last ("inherently")
>> part, due, no doubt, to my lack of insight into the inherent nature of
>> human beings; however its semantical part is perfectly good, and can be
>> strenghthened as follows.  Consider a sentence S expressing a meaning M(S).
>> Suppose that the semantical relation M is recursive, as would be required
>> under Church's thesis for it to be effectively computable.  Then, using
>> G\"odel's trick... (continuation and conclusion of this argument is left as
>> an exercise for the reader)

GPD:
>You can use G\"odel's trick for a formal system that you have devised yourself.
>But as a human being, you have in no way devised yourself and your supposedly
>existing PSR (Personal Semantic Relation) M(S). So you cannot apply Godel's
>trick to yourself. Maybe some god or whatever can, but if you could in
>principle be defined as the implementation of a PSR, you could never find
>your own Godel sentences - so maybe you're incomplete, but you'll never know
>it!

You are mistaken in assuming that I am referring to some kind of "Personal
Semantic Relation"; the relation I have in mind is as public as any
arithmetical relation.  Indeed, no personal semantics is of any use in
communication; the cardinal sin of de Saussure consists in treating
concepts as mental entities.  So on the assumption that the semantical
relation M described above is captured in a sufficiently rich language,
containing at least the elementary arithmetic, the G\"odel trick certainly
goes through.  For a reasoned presentation of the thesis that English is a
formal language, see Montague's classic paper.

GPD:
>I don't believe in such a PSR at all, but your argument is not convincing
>enough to me. (I think it is in fact Lucas' argument, but correct me if I'm
>wrong)

If you "don't believe" in formal semantics, you should either stay out of
technical conversations in this subject, or offer an alternative theory
(Wittgensteinians needn't apply, as their views would exclude AI anyway).
The argument is due not to Lucas, but to Richmond Thomason, published in
J.Halpern, ed., "Reasoning About Knowledge", Morgan Kaufman, 1986.  The
conclusion, however, is mine, -- Thomason chooses to espouse skepticism
about propositions, rather than deny the recursiveness of the semantical
relation, for reasons that altogether elude me.

GPD:
>I think Godel himself said that intelligent machines were imagineable to him,
>but either it would be a non-human-like intelligence, or the exact workings
>of the machine (among which a PSR?) would not be known to humans - consider
>a learning machine after having learned.

Reference, please?

>Ciao again,
>Peter

so long,
mz

'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139                                     :
: (617) 661-8151                                                     :
: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :
:                                                                    :
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'


