Re: My definitions of Intelligence, Consciousness, Mathematics and Universal Values

From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sun Jan 22 2006 - 21:56:32 MST

> A math system doesn't have to be 100% consistent to
> work, just highly consistent.

The buzzphrase here is "paraconsistent logic"

> For instance there's no
> reason to believe that the human brain runs on a
> formal system which is 100% consistent, yet obviously
> we all still get along in the world quite well.

Yet, the brain seems well-modelable using the equations of quantum
physics, which do exist within a consistent formal system!

My own intuition is that modeling the universe using consistent formal
systems is a good idea! However, I can see the real possibility that
using different, mutually inconsistent formal systems to model
different aspects of reality could be valuable at some point.

I don't see any great philosophical profundity in this point, however.
 If one is using a formal system to model reality, then basically one
is saying that formal system is a pattern in reality. "Two patterns
in the world that are inconsistent formal systems" is just a special
case of "complementary patterns so that looking at the world using
Pattern_1 makes it harder to look at the world using Pattern_2"

-- Ben

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