Subject: Re: Q. on Penrose arg: why new *physics*?
From: "Phil Roberts, Jr."
Date: 1997/08/05
Message: 33e7a8e
JRStern wrote:
>
> On Mon, 04 Aug 1997 17:56:07 -0400, "Phil Roberts, Jr."
> wrote:
> > ... This also
> >implies that the engine in the first "free-thinking"
> >artifact is probably going to be a diesel.
> ...
>
> As enjoyable as that all is, the connection to Penrose's theories does
> not seem to be present in the text, how they say.
>
Explicitly, no. Implicitly, yes, in the line just before the one
you have included above:
"Since the explanation I have proposed amounts to the contention
that the most rational species is beginning to exhibit signs of
transcending the formalism of nature's fixed objective, it can
reasonably be construed as providing evidence and argumentation
in support of Lucas/Godel (see newsgroup discussion)."
In the newsgroup discussion there are a number of relevant postings,
one of which incorporates another crucial element into the discussion:
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[Balter]
> And thus Lucas is trivially wrong that Godel proves that machines cannot
> match humans. Duh.
>
For once we agree, Grasshopper, if only syntactically.
You're right. Lucas is _trivially_ wrong, in that he referred to his
attempt to extend Godel to the material realm as a _proof_ of the falsity
of mechanism (last paragraph). What he offered was merely an argument,
but a pretty damn good one, if I'm not mistaken:
Godel's theorem states that in any consistent system
which is strong enough to produce simple arithmetic
there are formulae which cannot be proved-in-the-system,
but which we [standing outside the system] can _see_ to
be true.
Godel's theorem must apply to cybernetical machines,
because it is of the essence of being a machine, that
it should be a concrete instantiation of a formal
system. It follows that given any machine which is
consistent and capable of doing simple arithmetic,
there is a formula which it is incapable of producing
as being true -- but which we can _see_ to be true.
It follows that no machine can be a complete or adequate
model of the mind, that minds are essentially different
from machines.
With a little reading between the lines, I believe Lucas can reasonably
be construed as providing an argument (not a proof) that rationality can
not be mechanized (or reduced to logic, for that matter) and, conversely,
that rational creatures are not machines. Not only should this come as
great news to moralists and libertarians but, more importantly, it is an
argument which has _empirical_ _implications_ and can therefore be
tested against reality. Since the Lucas thesis predicts that rational
creatures should be _in_determined (assuming he is right in equating 'being
consistent' with 'being determined' or 'being a machine'), demonstrate that
this is indeed the case and you empirically demonstrate Lucas. Simple, eh?
Of course, this indeterminism business is a notorious party pooper and AI
buffs have long thought their position secure from such a demonstration.
Even so, there have been a number of developments in the philosophy of
science which, I believe, offer a somewhat more enlightened
perspective from which to approach the matter, and which render the strong
AI position considerably more vulnerable. The following is from the Manicas
and Secord paper which comprises one of the elements of my Feelings of
Worthlessness paper (see URL below):
If we allow for some arbitrariness and overlapping, what Scheffler
called "the standard view of science" has been undermined from
two sides. The more familiar critique is associated, with
differences, of course, with Toulmin, Feyerabend, especially Thomas
Kuhn, Michael Polanyi and many others. It attacks the "foundationist"
epistemology of the standard view and its unhistorical notions
about scientific change and development (Brown, 1977). This
critique shattered the "myth of the given," entirely recast the
problem of meaning and confirmation in science and powerfully
argued that science was a social activity. All this was salutary --
as far as it went; but as critics saw, the "paradigm" account of
science precipitously courted irrationalism and failed to make
clear how science was to be distinguished from non-science
(Lakatos and Musgrave, 1970). The dominating neo-positivist
view of science could not thus be entirely exorcized.
Concurrent with this strand, there was, however, another strand,
sometimes overlapping and, on the present view, at least as
important. It can be associated with Michael Scriven, Norwood
Hanson and with an effort of great importance by Roy Bhaskar.
This aspect of the critique of the standard view emphasized
the stratification of science and of the world and developes
a conception of theory, experiment and explanation which is far
more coincident with the practice of science than could be
sustained by the standard view. Moreover, it supplements the
former strand by making it clear that the social conception of
science and the view of fallibilism which attends it, presupposes
a view of the world as real, stratified and differentiated.
Perhaps most fundamental, the new conception rejects the orthodox
assumption that "the world is so constituted that there are
descriptions such that for every event, the simple formula 'whenever
this, than that' apples" (Bhaskar, 1975). This regulative ideal,
Laplacean in origin, in turn supports the thesis, derived from Hume,
that scientific laws are statements of constant conjunctions between
events. But for the new view of science, there may be no
description such that for some event the formula, "whenever this,
then that" applies. On this view the world is radically open.
In the new heuristic, scientific knowledge is much closer to that
knowledge which is *more familiarly accessible, through common sense,
literature, and other modes of experience*.
Now then, if these guys are to be taken seriously (and I take them very
seriously, indeed), it becomes apparent that the appropriate place to look
for the indeterminism predicted by Lucas will not be at the level of the
individual, but rather at the more abstract level of the species, and the
formalism/determinism which we will want to focus on will not be some
lawlike constant conjunction, but rather the more abstract design constraints
of the only legitmate scientific theory we psychologists have to work with,
as your buddy, Dennett, also seems to have understood:
So even if mathematicians are superb cognizers of mathematical
truth, and even if there is no algorithm, practical or otherwise,
for cognizing mathematical truth, it does not follow that the power
of mathematicians to cognize mathematical truth is not entirely
explicable in terms of their brain's executing an algorithm. Not
an algorhithm for intuiting mathematical truth --
*we can suppose that Penrose has proved that there could be no
such thing*. What would the algorithm be for, then? Most
plausibly it would be an algorithm -- one of very many -- *for
trying to stay alive* ... (Murmers in the Cathedral).
Oops! Sorry! Wrong again, old bean. But then as someone who has wasted
his life picketing the Cartesian theatre and doing his best to try to
intimidate those of us who regularly attend (see my "Is a Science.."), we
shouldn't be too surprised to find him being quided by his personal
convictions rather than a crucial piece of empirical evidence (feelings
of worthlessness).
I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all
the passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and
*could gladly sacrifice my life for one brief moment of
greatness* (Sigmund Freud).
He, too [Ludwig Wittgenstein], suffered from depressions and for long
periods considered killing himself because he considered his life
worthless (Hans Sluga)
My ruling passion is the love of liteary fame (Hume)
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Of course, if you want to understand why the indeterminism expresses
itself in the specific manner it does (emotional instability) then you
have to consult my theory of emotional disorder (previous post), or
better yet, my theory of rationality:
--
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Feelings of Worthlessness from the Perspective
of So-Called Cognitive Science
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5476