On Jun 16, 2:25 am, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> writes:
Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> writes:
Newberry wrote:
On Jun 13, 12:04 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
The Prof has asked me to briefly introduce to the post-grads the
significance of Godel's incompleteness theorem to logic, notions of
determinism and free-will, and to other pertinent issues in philosophy.
This might include a discussion on the significance of proof itself.
What would you say to them on this topic? A few are analytic
philosophers, but most are, I think, continentalists, though this
shouldn't matter as Godel seems to be branching everywhere. These guys
aren't stupid though ..
You should stress that Goedel's incompleteness theorem has nothing to
do with determinism and free will.
Godel thought it did. I have to say why.
Let's begin with why you think Goedel thought so.
I'm interested in where most of you picked up or were taught your
logic. Some themes you seem utterly unfamiliar with.
Why not answer the question? Give a reference to Goedel's writings on
incompleteness and determinism.
Maybe you are all americans - the USA is strongly analytically
orientated so it may actually be true that most of the foundational,
non-formal work of the great logicians is being heavily filtered
out. Perhaps the reason for this is the consumerist,
production-orientated american way.
Perhaps. But you can settle this by giving a reference. After all,
I'm surely no Goedel scholar so I could have easily missed his
interest in all this. Where can I learn about it?
Just type Godel and Free-will into google. Godel took up husserlian
phenomenology - it was the only way that he thought sense could be made
of his incompleteness theorem - he had to distinguish between objective
(consistency/syntax) fact and subjective (proof) fact. So if certain
statements can be presented syntactically and objectively inside a
system but can only be proved outside that system, then we require a
non-syntactic, subjective understanding of that proof.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I did type that into Google and on the first page I couldn't seem to
see any sources from Gödel himself. Nothing about Husserlian
phenomenology either. It would be nice if you could give some
references.

Just type Godel and Free-will into google. Godel took up husserlian
phenomenology - it was the only way that he thought sense could be made
of his incompleteness theorem - he had to distinguish between objective
(consistency/syntax/proof) fact and subjective fact. So if certain
statements can be presented syntactically and objectively inside a
system but can only be proved outside that system, then we require a
non-syntactic, subjective understanding of that proof.- Hide quoted
text -

On Jun 16, 2:29 am, Rupert <rupertmccal... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On Jun 16, 1:43 am, Marshall <marshall.spi... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

What to say of Penrose? He is by all accounts quite a physicist, and
yet, does he have any background that should lend any weight to
his arguments about the nature of the mind? I am not aware of any.
Also, we have the fact that his motivation is more easily attributed
to personal aesthetic feelings than by any deep crossover from
the realm of physics. Finally, we may consider that his conclusions
are ridiculous.
[...]
"Ridiculous" seems like a rather harsh word. I don't think that the
picture that Penrose suggests is ridiculous, just inadequately
motivated.

I guess you're right. I suppose I myself have some emotional
attachment to this question. I'd really *like* it to be the case
that humans are magic and special in the universe, and have
an immortal soul and all; it's just that the evidence is
overwhelmingly against that idea.


If the mind is not the result of computation, what is it the result
of?
There can be only two types of answer: 1) is to say that it is some
physical process that we are not yet aware of, and 2) is to say that
it is supernatural in nature. 2) is not worth refuting; we might as
well just say consciousness comes from Santa Claus.
You can say that the mind is some sort of physical process which can
be understood by the methods of mathematical physics, and this is what
Penrose believes (though he adds that the process is not computational
in nature).

Saying both of those things at once strikes me as contradictory. Or at
least a contradiction of Church-Turing. And saying the brain is not
computational is just emptily perverse. What aspects of the mind
are not information processing? There are none.


You could also say that the mind is some sort of non-
physical entity (you would not necessarily have to speak of anything
"supernatural", and by the way I have to confess that I don't know
what the word "supernatural" means).

Certainly the *brain* is a physical artifact. Is there any question
of whether the mind is a manifestation of the brain? The mind
is non-physical without being supernatural.


You can't just say that's "not
worth refuting" and like believing in Santa Claus. It's a live
philosophical debate and there are impressive contributors on both
sides

I dunno. Are you a priori dismissing my use of a priori dismissal?
I acknowledge Penrose for example as a impressive intellect,
and yet in the field of AI he just looks like Bishop Wilberforce
to me.


Has it occurred to you that we don't necessarily have all that clear
an idea of what counts as a "physical phenomenon" and what doesn't?

Sure. Hell, I myself don't have all that clear an idea of the
*current*
understanding of physics, let alone any endgame in that area.
I leave that to the physicists. As the esteemed Mr. McCullough
says, (is "Mr." the correct title?) "You don't need 100% certainty
in order to get on with life."


But 1 doesn't say anything interesting either, at least as far as the
possibility of artificial consciousness goes. As the saying goes,
if consciousness can be instantiated in three pounds of fatty meat,
it can be instantiated in other implementations as well.
Yes, that may well be. But Penrose thinks the approach currently being
taken by some computer scientists is misguided because it assumes that
the mind is functionally equivalent to some sort of Turing machine.

What else could it be? What other candidates besides "computation"
exist for describing what the mind does? There are none, and no
tiniest shred of evidence to suggest the existence of such a thing.
Saying the current approach is misguided is to say that there is
a better guide available. But there isn't.

What must be necessary for the mind to be non-algorithmic?
The brain must have, at some fairly low level, some
fundamental operation that is non-algorithmic. The idea
requires that the brain has some primitive operation that
is instantiable in a physical object (three pounds of
fatty meat) but that it is impossible to abstract over.
For if we could abstract this primitive, we could
compute with it.

Consider that idea: impossible to abstract over.

THAT is an extraordinary claim. Has there ever been
any process in history that we haven't been able
to abstract? Anything low level?

Or again we have the computational equivalence of
every computational system ever designed (above
a certain low threshold.) Where does that ceiling
come from? It might be credible to suggest that
there are processing primitives we haven't thought
of yet, that might be necessary for consciousness,
if we saw that the existence of a great diversity of
computational models which had a great diversity
of expressive power. That might indicate we hadn't
covered them all yet. But instead we see exactly the
opposite: *every* computational model, *every* set
of primitives we can design, above a low threshold
of power, is equally expressive.


However, I would also say that I am not sure
that you can say that this proposition has been established beyond all
reasonable doubt. I will elaborate on this more below.
I say, with respect, that I don't think you especially did. You
told me some things that Godel and Unger think, but you
didn't really give any arguments for why we might think
their conclusions have merit.
That is because I myself have not read what they have to say. I have
read a sketch of what Unger says about the matter and it seemed to me
to be problematic because he seemed to be placing too much weight on
the hypothesis that we have free will.

Here I run in to a problem, because I don't know what "free will"
means. Sure, I know that there's this idea that has been
discussed for centuries, but what is it exactly? How would I tell
whether something had it or not? What is an example of a case
where the concept of free will helped us to understand something
in science or math or some other human endeavor?


But I haven't read his book
yet, I'll have to take a look. My point was simply that these are not
mediocre minds and it is worth taking a look at what they have to say.

I guess. For myself, since I consider this as an area with an
extremely low likelihood of being a productive inquiry, I will hold
off
unless I hear something to make me reappraise that thought.


It occurs to me that I forgot to mention Chalmers' arguments; you can
read about them here.

http://consc.net/online

In particular this one.

http://consc.net/papers/facing.html

Will read; thanks.


I apologize if you would prefer it if I actually summarized someone's
argument about the matter here instead of just telling you where go
and look it up yourself. Perhaps I will go and look at one of these
writers and get back to you.

Hrm. I hope I didn't come across as expecting you to do all
the work. Rather, I'm interested in having the conversation
with those present.


[...]
Anyway. Peter Unger has some crazy ideas and you don't have to agree
with all of them, but my point was he's a smart guy and if he thinks
he has something to say about the question of whether the mind is
ultimately physical in nature I myself am going to take the trouble to
find out more about it.

Gödel was quite a smart guy too and it might be worth finding out more
about what he had to say.

A very reasonable position! However I will not be adopting it, based
on
my own reading of the situation. Of course this means that if the
"other side" does muster a cracking good argument, I'll be
hearing about later rather than sooner; c'est la vie.


Marshall

That should read

Just type Godel and Free-will into google. Godel took up husserlian
phenomenology - it was the only way that he thought sense could be made
of his incompleteness theorem - he had to distinguish between objective
(consistency/syntax/proof) fact and subjective fact. So if certain
statements can be presented syntactically and objectively inside a
system but can only be proved outside that system, then we require a
non-syntactic, subjective understanding of that proof.- Hide quoted
text -

I typed again Godel and Freewill, but got a different set of pages.It
can happen like that. It depends on what you have looked for
previously.

But Godel did pick up on Husserlian phenomenology (not one of my strong
points)

Marshall wrote:
On Jun 16, 2:51 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
What you find unbelievable I see as common sense. The mind doesn't
process information.

Ah, see, as a philosopher, you should be more careful of the error
of generalizing from your own experience.

Is the only way to do that to generalize from nothing?

Where an axiomless system of deduction naturally models such useful
constructs as induction over natural integers, various preclusions of
Goedelian incompleteness of those systems don't hold, thus that the
conclusions enforce the abdandonment of those perforce strictures,
rather than hopelessness of truth.

There is no truth in ZF. Even the humble predicate of identity, which
set theorists generally hold as a truism, can't be seen to apply, yet,
in quantification, must.

As a philosopher, you should be more careful of the error of
generalizing from Goedel's experience.

"Nam D. Nguyen" <namducnguyen at (no spam) shaw.ca> writes:

Because modal-truth in general and arithmetic truth in particular
are interpretative which is *subjective*, and hence free-will based.

Well, if the fact that some beliefs are subjective implies that man is
free, then why fuss about with the debate? I think fiddle and banjo
music is wonderful, perhaps you don't. Hence we are not determined.

Wow. That's easy.

On Jun 16, 2:51 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
What you find unbelievable I see as common sense. The mind doesn't
process information.

Ah, see, as a philosopher, you should be more careful of the error
of generalizing from your own experience.


Marshall

Aatu Koskensilta says...

On 2008-06-16, in sci.logic, Daryl McCullough wrote:
Aatu Koskensilta says...

I, on the other hand, know all sorts of stuff with absolute
certainty.
Such as?
I know with absolute certainty that 3 is a prime, that I am not a
banana, that "omena" is Finnish for "apple", and so on.

My point is that there are many such claims that we *don't*
know for certain that we, nevertheless *treat* as if they
were effectively certain.

When I walk down the street, I
assume that the street will no collapse underneath me. I
assume that I will not be attacked by a rhinocerous. I assume
that I will not be hit by a meteor. But none of these things
are *certain*. It's just that I consider the likelihood of
these assumptions being wrong to be too small to worry about,
or even to consider. So we can call such assumptions "practically
certain".

My question for you is whether there is any point in distinguishing
"practical certainty" from "absolute certainty".

I don't see that
the latter concept adds anything. We don't need it. If "absolute
certainty" failed to apply to *anything*, our lives wouldn't be
changed in any substantial way.

On 2008-06-16, in sci.logic, Daryl McCullough wrote:
Although I agree with extreme skepticism---there is no way to know
anything for certain (no, not even that)

I, on the other hand, know all sorts of stuff with absolute
certainty.

Philosophical doctrines and pictures are of course always
much more dubious and obscure than the things I do know with
certainty;

this applies in particular to those philosophical
reflections that might lead someone to utter such absurdities as
"there is no way to know anything for certain".

On Jun 16, 4:20 am, "Jesse F. Hughes" <je... at (no spam) phiwumbda.org> wrote:

Rupert <rupertmccal... at (no spam) yahoo.com> writes:
Now, I understand that some people might not regard Peter Unger as a
sensible person, because he has tried in various works to argue that
no-one knows anything to be the case, that there are no people and
no composite physical objects, and that we have a moral obligation
to donate just about all of our disposable income to organizations
like Oxfam and UNICEF.

About that moral obligation: Sure you're not confusing Peter Unger
with Peter Singer? Or did they both make that claim?

Thoreau said something to the effect of, he was put on this
Earth to live here, not to improve it.

Marshall

Grammar is not your speciality, is it.

On Jun 13, 1:29 pm, Chris Menzel <cmen... at (no spam) remove-this.tamu.edu> wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:18:14 -0700 (PDT), MoeBlee <jazzm... at (no spam) hotmail.com
said:

On Jun 13, 12:04 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
The Prof has asked me to briefly introduce to the post-grads the
significance of Godel's incompleteness theorem to logic, notions of
determinism and free-will, and to other pertinent issues in
philosophy.  This might include a discussion on the significance of
proof itself.

What would you say to them on this topic? A few are analytic
philosophers, but most are, I think, continentalists, though this
shouldn't matter as Godel seems to be branching everywhere. These
guys aren't stupid though ..

Why in the world would you presume (other than your prof's clearly
deranged recommendation) to discuss Godel's incompleteness theorem at
a post-graduate level when you know virtually zilch about basic logic
at a freshman level?

Wait, now, there's plenty of great stuff he can find about Gödel's
theorem on the internet that he can share with his fellow Seekers:

* Minds are not machines
* Determinism is false (follows from previous)
* There are unprovable truths
* Gödel's theorem is actually unknowable because it involves self-reference
* All knowledge is self-referential
* The universe is ultimately unknowable (follows from previous)
* Morality is relative.

That'll get him started.  Knock 'em dead, JJ!

ps: Oh, wait, that last one follows from Einstein, sorry.

From Skolem too, because, any theory of moral behavior is utlimately
only relative to different non-standard models!

On Jun 17, 12:36 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:



Grammar is not your speciality, is it.

Grammar? I suppose you are referring to things like making
sure a question ends in a question mark.

Marshall

On Jun 17, 5:25 pm, Marshall <marshall.spi... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 17, 12:36 pm, John Jones <jonescard... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:

Grammar is not your speciality, is it.

Grammar? I suppose you are referring to things like making
sure a question ends in a question mark.

Marshall

Is correct punctuation part of correct grammar? I must admit I'm
genuinely confused about that.

I typed "Goedel Husserlian phenomenology" into Google and found
something on JSTOR. "Gödel's Path from the Incompleteness Theorems
(1931) to Phenomenology (1961)", Richard Tieszen, The Bulletin of
Symbolic Logic, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jun., 1998), pp. 181-203. I have
access to JSTOR through my university library. If you don't have
access to JSTOR I can download the article and email it to you if
you like. I'm afraid I can't promise that the topic of determinism
will come up.

On Jun 15, 9:17 pm, Rupert <rupertmccal... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:



This seems to be a good list of references discussing the issue of
what bearing Gödel's theorem has on the question of whether the mind
is a physical mechanism.

I just don't see how anyone sensible can entertain the question of
whether or not the mind is a physical mechanism.