"Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Third, humans appear to be able to do things that have been proven to not 
>be
>capable of being reduced to algorithms.

Can you give an example that can't be handled by the following algorithm:

- Make a handful of well-educated guesses a second
- Filter using a massively parallel pattern matcher with billions of 
computational elements trained with the task for 18+ years
- Repeat a few times. Say "Hmmmm...." while doing this.
- After some stability threshold is reached, say "Aha!"
- Try out the result. If it's wrong, say "Ooops!" and color your cheeks red.

I think you're underestimating how often humans get things wrong.

>Handling self-referential
>statements is one of these things.  I realize that Dennett argues that
>humans only appear to be able to do this, its just that they have 
>algorithms
>that search the possibilities until they stumble over them...like a chess
>playing program.  However, it is very curious that humans would have such 
>an
>algorithm in their heads without being able to access most of the results:
>since such access would be evolutionarily favored.

That just sounds silly. A billion element parallel pattern matcher is great 
at extracting the wheat from the chaff. It's even great at finding wheat 
where there isn't any (e.g. the Face on Mars).

Joshua


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