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Problems with the computational view

Sometimes problems are seen from within computability theory for the computational view of the mind. Eg.

1931 Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem: Within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn't be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms ... of that same mathematical branch. To prove every conceivable statement about entities within a system you would have to go outside the system for new rules and axioms, thus creating a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical systems of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.

All maths is thus not algorithmic. Is it likely that the mind is algorithmic?

Gödel's Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never model a human thinking because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths ... It plays a part in modern linguistic theories, which emphasize the power of language to come up with new ways to express ideas. And it has been taken to imply that you'll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself.


next up previous contents
Next: Computers Up: AI Lecture 1 Previous: Turing Machine   Contents