From: Ian Wright (ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Mon Jan 19 2004 - 15:02:24 EST
Jerry wrote: >The Church-Turing thesis, evidently, assumes that all human mental >activity is expressed through formal logic. This is a very dubious >proposition. > >(btw, will machine dialogue at some point in time replace OPE-L and >other forums for the discussion of political economy, Ian?) I think we are machines, ultimtately built by a more encompassing process of induction, which is evolution. So I think machines are already discussing political economy. The crux of the question is what is meant by "machine". I do not have a 19th centrury machine metaphor in mind, in which systems are composed of mechanical relations. The human mind is not like that. Instead I have a modern metaphor in mind, one inspired by the computer, that considers that minds are semantic information processors. The discipline of trying to build mind-like artifacts has taught us a lot about how it is possible that minds operate in material terms. So by "machine" all I am really saying is that the mind is a natural object that in principle can be understood by science, and that some of our current artificial machines have mental properties, albeit of a simple kind. The best hypothesis of how minds work is the computational approach, as unlike previous approaches it is both more explanatory and has practical consequences, such as the ability to automate mental operations. The Church-Turing thesis doesn't assume that minds work according to the principles of formal logic, or at least the field of AI does not make that assumption. Formal logical systems, of which there has been an enormous proliferation of types, do have their uses when building robots, but are useless for controlling effectors to move around, catch balls and the like. What engineers have found is that to build mind-like control systems requires a whole range of mechanisms and representations, from quick, fast-acting feedback loops, to statistical inference mechanisms, pattern-matching, and at levels less tightly-coupled to the physical world, logical and symbolic deductive mechanisms, such as kinds of formal logics. The point is, however, that all these kinds of mechanisms are implementable on a Universal Turing Machine. Sorry to get off topic. This is not exactly political economy! But to be a little cheeky I'll claim that any theory of a dialectical logic worth its salt should be able to be formalised and implemented on a computer. The problem in general with philosophies is they don't run. So they're hard to test. -Ian. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
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