Darwin and Turing (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 01:53 (4535 days ago)

Dennett compares them:-http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/a-perfect-and-beautiful-machine-what-darwins-theory-of-evolution-reveals-about-artificial-intelligence/258829/-But is this comparison correct?:-"Denyse ... it is worse than either you or Darbensio have described! If only it were a mistake as to the meaning of informatics, Dennet might possibly be let off the hook. But no! Dennet (not unusually) has both his history and his philosophy completely backward!
 
The whole point of Turing's computer was to show that human reasoning was beyond that of computation. Godel had actually already proved this, but Godel's work dealt with contrived problems that made him ignorable. Turing put the question at the center of mathematics.
 
Godel and Turing came along as part of "Hilbert's Program". The goal was to mechanize proofs and especially proof-checking. In other words, the goal was to remove the human element from mathematics. So, what Hilbert wanted, was a mathematics that was well-described-enough that it could be implemented mechanically ... without any thought whatsoever, and to use that as the basis of proofs. Well, what Godel, and later Turing, showed, was that this is impossible. Turing developed a machine that *can* compute *any* *computable* number, and then showed that there were a number of things which the machine cannot compute! In fact, there are infinitely many things which it cannot compute. However, if mathematics is to move forward, we have to be able to prove things which are unprovable by the computer.
 
So, in other words, in the same day, on the same paper, Alan Turing showed that all finitary computational systems are equivalent, and that for mathematics to progress it must mean that the practitioners *must* not be within that same domain!
 
So, quite forcefully, not only did Alan Turing *not* show how the mind is a myth or that materialism is the winner, he actually *proved* the opposite."-johnnyb at uncommon descent