The modal argument for hypercomputing minds
Selmer Bringsjord and Konstantine Arkoudas
Abstract:
We now know both that hypercomputation (or super-recursive
computation) is mathematically well-understood, and that it provides a
theory that according to some accounts for some real-life computation
(e.g. operating systems that, unlike Turing machines, never simply
output an answer and halt) better than the standard theory of
computation at and below the "Turing Limit." But one of the things
we do not know is whether the human mind hypercomputes or merely
computes--this despite informal arguments from Godel, Lucas, Penrose
and others for the view that, in light of incompleteness theorems, the
human mind has powers exceeding those of TMs and their
equivalents. All these arguments fail; their fatal flaws have been
repeatedly exposed in the literature. However, we give herein a novel,
formal modal argument showing that since it's mathematically possible
that human minds are hypercomputers, such minds are in fact
hypercomputers. We take considerable pains to anticipate and rebut
objections to this argument.
BibTeX Entry
@Article{TCS2004BringsjordAndArkoudasHyperComputation,
author ={S. Bringsjord and K. Arkoudas},
title ={The modal argument for hypercomputing minds},
journal ={Theoretical Computer Science},
volume =317,
pages ={167--190},
year =2004}
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