On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- On Mon, 10/20/08, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I do have a limited argument against these ideas, which has to do with > > language. My point is that, if you take any uncomputable universe > > U, there necessarily exists some computable universe C so that > > > > 1) there is no way to distinguish U from C based on any finite set > > of finite-precision observations > > > > 2) there is no finite set of sentences in any natural or formal > > language (where by language, I mean a series of symbols chosen > > from some discrete alphabet) that can applies to U but does not > > apply also to C > > That is only true in C. In U you might be able to make an infinite number > of observations with infinite precision. Matt, What I said is that there is no way to tell an uncomputable entity from a computable one based on a finite set of finite-precision observations. Hypothetically, if you could make an infinite number of observations, or an infinite-precision observation, then you could distinguish uncomputable entities from computable ones. My point is that **if** we are going to restrict our communication to the realm of finite sentences in languages with a finite number of symbols, **then** we can never talk about the uncomputable in any useful way ... the uncomputable will always be an unnecessary and spurious hypothesis. -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
