A video clip: Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition (hat tip to 'JohnnyB' at Uncommon Descent)
Here is an example of a mathematical truth that cannot be proven by any machine, cannot be proven by any arithmetic logic, but can be grasped/understood by any human mind who is willing to grasp it -- 1/0='infinity' ERGO: the human mind is not a computer ... and no computer will ever be a mind.
And, by the by, while the math problem [1/0=?] cannot be recognized by a machine as being unsolvable by machine logic, the human mind can see, almost immediately, both that it is logically/mathematically unsolvable AND what the solution is. Indeed, to grasp the one is to grasp the other; the two understandings are two sides of the same coin.
This is my transcription of the very last comment of the clip --
"I think people very often, for some reason, misunderstand Gödel, certainly he intention. Gödel was deliberately trying to show that what one might call 'mathematical intuition', [I mean] he referred to what he called 'mathematical intuition' , and he was demonstrating, clearly, in my mind, demonstrated, that this is outside just following formal rules. And, I don't know ... some people picked up on what he did and said, 'Well, he's shown there are unprovable results, and therefore beyond the mind.' What he *really* showed was that for any system that you adopt, which, in a sense, the mind has been removed from it, because you ... the mind is used to lay down the system, but from there on, it [the rules so laid down] takes over, and you ask, 'What's its scope?' And what Gödel showed is that its scope is always limited, and that the mind can go beyond it."
Saturday, September 1, 2012
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