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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Lucas & Penrose's use of Godel
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References: <3t9e1u$1geq@news.doit.wisc.edu> <1995Jul4.165329.16706@media.mit.edu> <3te0gj$ilq@mars.earthlink.net> <3tf8lo$2a3@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 09:37:14 GMT
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In article <3tf8lo$2a3@bell.maths.tcd.ie>,
Timothy Murphy <tim@maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
>Jim Balter <jqb> writes:
>
>>As I've commented before, all this Penrose and Searle stuff about the
>>extraordinary super-computational powers of the human brain is so trivially
>>refutable that they must be a result of human psychology.  
>
>Could you give _one_ example from Penrose's book (page number please)
>of a statement which is "trivially refutable".
>
>>All of
>>Penrose's claims, about his own insights and those of other mathematicians,
>>are epiphenomenological.  
>
>Could you give _one_ example (page number please) of a claim by Penrose
>about his own insight.

On what page of what book, Timothy, did you learn this inane rhetorical
device?  Is this method something you've seen from those whose intellects you
respect?  Have you ever wondered why not?  Why do you demand that I do your
reading and your thinking for you?  Unless you can provide some evidence that
there is some controversy about my characterization of Penrose other than in
your own fevered brain, why should I waste my time pointing out to you what
you should already know if you had read the book?  It's not as if this were
some *subtle* point worthy of debate, you know.

However, since it gives me such delight to show you for the fool you evidently are,
I quote from page 81 of my hardback copy:

	"Does this mean that the supposedly non-algorithmic mathematical
	insight--the insight that allowed us to appreciate the fact that
	C<sub k>(k) never stops--is actually algorithmic after all?"

Now, unless you want to further your inanity and hypocrisy by attempting some
argument that Penrose does not include himself among "us", I suggest that you
extend to me the courtesy that you profess, and apologize for wasting my time
and for the hostile motivations that led you to make this demand.

And if you want to ask me another of your stupid questions about exactly where
in his book Penrose says what it is so obvious to anyone who has read and
*comprehended* the book (perhaps you are an AI that Penrose has planted here
in an attempt to show the difference between a robot that merely knows how to
request page numbers and a real human capable of comprehension), then you
should be prepared to provide to me a complete machine-readable version of the
book and a suitable search engine, because I have limited time to waste on
your foolishness and I do not have a photographic memory; my brain only holds
the content of his book *conceptually*, something I'm sure you wish were true
of your own.

-- 
<J Q B>

