The Lucas-Penrose Argument about Gödel's Theorem (2012)

Re:The Lucas-Penrose Argument about Gödel's Theorem (2012) by empath75 on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @09:27AM (#14445165)

So take the argument as 'if you agree with me that an inconsistent machine is not a good representation of the mind', then the rest of my argument must follow.

Think of it as analogous to all of the mathematical quasi-proofs that assume certain conjectures are true. They can often be valuable steps to an actual proof, as we saw with Fermat's theorem.

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Re:The Lucas-Penrose Argument about Gödel's Theorem (2012) by mannykannot on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @09:56AM (#14445364)

Thanks - that seems to be the idea I was groping for.

In this particular case, though, it seems close to circularity - if the primary purpose of the argument is to refute the computational theory of mind, then ruling out a whole class of machines a priori looks to me like begging a chunk of the question - though I appreciate that it leads to a better-defined question.

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