Mechanism, Mentalism and Metamathematics [Book Review]

Review of Metaphysics 35 (1):176-178 (1981)
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Abstract

In a strictly deterministic universe a Laplacian superman undertakes to predict if a certain ongoing Turing machine will ever halt. Well, he may predict that the machine will be struck by lightning tomorrow but Judson Webb invites us to "idealize" the case sufficiently so that it is not any lack of physical knowledge that stymies the Laplacian superman but rather the negative result of Turing's metamathematical or formal "indeterminacy" that suggests to Webb a the-Turing machines are thus seen to enjoy a certain sort of "indeterminacy" or "unpredictability" which, while not physical in character, might readily be styled metamathematical. It is precisely that metamathematical or formal "indeterminacy" that suggests to Webb a theoretical basis for overcoming the traditional dichotomy of mind and mechanism. The ostensibly negative results of Turing, Gödel, and Church, far from showing that minds cannot possibly be machines, Webb interprets positively as supplying us with rich instructions as to what sort of unpredictable machines we have right to expect them to be.

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