From: Jef Allbright (jef@jefallbright.net)
Date: Fri Oct 08 2004 - 12:24:35 MDT
Bill Hibbard wrote:
>Hi Christian,
>
>
>
>>You don't solve anything by answering that his argument is flawed
>>because the human brain is an even more restricted type of Turing
>>machine. Then, he could ask: "How comes that an even more
>>restricted type of Turing machine can solve such a hard problem?"
>>Does not it really show that the human brain in fact is *not* a finite
>>state machine?
>>
>>
>
>This is the funny thing about infinite sets: they have
>very different properties than finite sets. By assuming
>that humans can do things that require infinite sets of
>states, he has moved his argument into a realm irrelevant
>to human brain behaviors.
>
>I would note that some of the most interesting approaches
>to AI, such as those by Pei Wang and James Rogers, are
>based on the very explicit assumption that brains have
>finite capacities and avoid the implicit infinite states
>assumed in things like traditional stack recursion and
>list processing.
>
>
Speaking of which, I would be most interested if someone could provide
an example of a perfect line, a perfect circle or an infinite set
anywhere in nature. We could then move on to completely defined systems
and absolute truth. (Except in that case it appears movement itself
would be impossible.)
- Jef
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