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From: biep@klipper.UUCP (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.math,net.physics
Subject: Re: Mind as Turing Machine: a proof *and* a disproof!
Message-ID: <509@klipper.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 07:09:46 EST
Article-I.D.: klipper.509
Posted: Fri Nov  1 07:09:46 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 09:36:59 EST
References: <1996@umcp-cs.UUCP> <667@hwcs.UUCP> <2031@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: biep@klipper.UUCP (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 47
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2993 net.math:2460 net.physics:3469
Summary: Be sure to realise which equivalence relation you use!

[]
	The problem in the discussion in that nobody has stated clearly
	which equivalence relation he is using. Psycholinguistics has
	found that humans can search their memory in < log n time, n
	being the number of items. Turing machines clearly can not do
	better than order n time. Proof that humans are not Turing machines.
	(Note I took an equivalence relation which did look at time.)

	Now take the equivalence relation "true(x, y)", and it is equally
	clear that anything is equivalent to a Turing machine. 

	The reason math has done so well for the last so many years is,
	that they have provided us with a set of equivalence relations
	which left out anything math couldn't deal with. So, using those
	(normally only implicitly used) relations, any real world pheno-
	menon turned out to be equivalent to some mathematical model.

	There are many aspects of reality which are not easily modelled
	mathematically, and the result has not been that mathematical
	models have been abandoned, but often that the existence of 
	those aspects has been denied.

	For those who look at the reality from a mathematical point of view,
	there will be a mathematical model for the human mind for every
	equivalence relation they can think of; for those who look at
	mathematics from reality, there will never be such a model for
	any equivalence relation *they* can think of.

Notes:

1) Before you flame me: yes, I have a masters of mathematics.

2) At the moment a human says he is equivalent to a model he has thought out,
	he is like a correctness proving program that is saying it has
	proven itself correct

3) Now first start discussing the form of your equivalence relation, that is
	much more productive. Mathematicians, don't get angry if the other
	guy's relation is not mathematizable!

Success in learning to understand each other's point of view!
-- 
							  Biep.
	{seismo|decvax|philabs|garfield|okstate}!mcvax!vu44!biep

Is the difference between a difference of degree and a differ-
ence of sorts a difference of degree or a difference of sorts?