>It seems that most of the people on this mailing list have read a lot more >about the topics of discussion thal I have. Where can I read about such >things as the Dovetail Argument, conciousness with comp, Church's thesis, >etc. There's a lot of stuff I don't understand, and I want to read up on >it.
The answer could depend on the time you are willing to invest in these matter. If you want read only one good introductory book, read BOOLOS G. S. and JEFFREY R. C. Computability and Logic, Cambridge University Press, 3rd edition 1989. I learn a lot in the very classical book by KLEENE S. C., Introduction to Metamathematics, North-Holland, 1952. The bible is the selected original papers by DAVIS M, 1965, The Undecidable, Raven Press, Hewlett, New York. It contains the Godel'papers, and those by Church, Kleene, Rosser, Turing, Post and also the (never published before) incredible anticipation by Post in the twinties. Post papers are my favorite and I think supersede all the others (Don't infer I agree with all what he said). A nice and relevant, but mechanisticaly minded, book on Church's Thesis is: Judson WEBB, 1980, Mechanism, Mentalism and Metamathematics: An essay on Finitism. D. Reidel Pub. Company, Dordrecht, Holland. For the provability logics search in the archive the name BOOLOS and SMULLYAN. Or look in the bibliography of my thesis. For comp and consciousness and the dovetail argument see my thesis. Bruno
