Re: I think, was "Difficulties in communication. . ."

[George Levy]

Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 13-août-06, à 23:48, George Levy a écrit : "I think" also implies the concept of sanity. Unless you assume the first step "I think" and that you are sane, you can't take any rational and conscious second step and have any rational and conscious thought process. You wouldn't be able to hold any rational discussion. Inherent in any computational process is the concept of sanity. Maybe this is what Bruno refers to as "sane machine." All right. The point will be that all machine strongly-believing or communicating or proving their own sanity will appear to be (from purely number-theoretical reasons) insane and even inconsistent. Note that machines communicating that they are *insane* (instead of sane) *are* insane, but remains consistent. This should please crazy John Mikes :)  This only proves that a "sane" machine cannot be sure that it thinks correctly. So the sane machine would say: "I think but, since I may be insane,  I am not sure if I am." Only the insane machine would positively assert "I think therefore I am!" So we know now where Descartes belongs: in an insane asylum, so do most philosophers, religious leaders and politicians. Some mathematicians may be exempt, but only if they don't claim that Godel is right! Don't quote me! George --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---