Human and Machine Logic: a Rejoinder

Abstract

These two articles are very interesting examples of how Lucas’ argument is not a direct proof but a dialectical argument depending from Mechanists’ first move. Good, starting from the Mentalists’ point of view, underlines that it is useless to argue that any program can be improved because the process for improving it can be programmed; he argues against Mentalism by denying that there are particular mental powers, because otherwise they could be described and so a computer could be programmed to simulate them. The Lucas’ answer is constituted by a starting point’s change: his starting point is indeed the hypothesis that Mechanism is true and so that a complete specification of the mental mechanism of any human being can be given; therefore he argues that, once given, such a specification appears inadequate because it cannot produce as true its Gödelian formula, truth that a human being can see.