Godels Theorem Part 2

I felt bad. So I decided to speak to Sam on the subject in more depth. I caught up with him in the toilets. Women have often known the toilets are a good place for in depth conversations. Besides I find that peeing is a great leveller, theres no ego, attitude or coyness possible when you stood peeing next to a friend. The fact that your easing yourselves put you both immediately at ..... ease.
I also like it because I sometimes get bored of people easily, peeing gives you just enough time for a 90 second conversation (including zipping and waggling) perfect for a non commital like me.
I asked Sam, when he first became interested in AI, he told me that when he was 17 he read a GEB and that I should read it.
"I'll write down I couple of books down for you, you should read them and let me know your thoughts"
"Cool"
Sam brightened up. I think he felt less like a blabbering idiot now someone shared his enthusiasum. Mission accomplished. Just need to shake ,zip, wash and go!
* * * *
That was over 3 months ago and I still hadnt called Sam. Mainly because I HAVENT FINISHED THE BLOODY BOOK... its that deep.


In the book the author draws parallels between the mathemetician Godel, the composer Bach and the Artist Escher.

Godel proved

"All consistent axoimatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions"

..... I didnt understand neither, but the book broke it down nicely.

It just says

"Whenever you try to define a bunch of stuff using a language, you'll always find that theres some bits that you cant define".

this usually happens when your bunch of stuff contains self references
for example if our bunch of stuff is sentences and our language is english ,
you might try defining the following sentence in english :
"a definition of a sentence"

Its kinda impossible - yet we know definitions exist. The dictionary is full of them!

This property extends to all things, and this problem reminds me of a quote by Alan Watts :-

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."

the author is particularly interested in Escher and Bach because they write music and draw pictures with a lot of self references.

The book points out that our intelligence is greater than anything we can define -

We appreciate the self references in Escher , weird tiled pictures, and the Canonical or (Repeating Structure) of Bachs Fuges.
But as soon as we try to extract this intelligence and represent it in any other form out side ourselves; be it english, computer programming or numbers, we are doomed never be able to suceed.

While reading I thought: If Sam didnt realise this at 17 he's never gonna know.
I wished I could have told Sam that while we were having a piss.
I wished I could have told him to give up - go home and try to get laid.

Godels Therom

Im reading a book called GEB an eternal golden braid , it was suggested to me by a dude whose own intelligence seemed tortuous to him. Sitting around in a pub he explained stuff which interested (or troubled perhaps?) him.
"Talk to Greg" Gabriel says , "He's into AI too"
I turn to face Sam, who runs his hands strenously through his hair and speaks
"I just want to know, what is it that drives us, what is intelligence?, can we capture it or is it something that will remain elusive to our species, our own nature?"
My girl turns up and I immediately start thinking about sex, its probably been a week since I got laid - Sam continues relentless. He turns to me.
"You've created intelligent computer programs , thats soo cool, what did you learn, do you feel that computer captured even a small piece of what we are?"
I'm kinda caught unawares, OK I like programming , and I get kicks out making 'clever' programs, I studied AI with a view to making a program that could make money and electronic markets, but was beat to the post in the real word by hoards of money hungry PHD mathematicians and finance companies. My pursuits in AI were never so noble. I start stroking my girls leg under the table, I reckon I'm getting lucky tonight. Meanwhile, the best I can muster is:
"Computers just do what you tell them to, very quickly. "
The fact that I create intelligence in machines and have no interest in its philospical consequences tortured Sam no end. He drew inwards after that and spoke less from then on.
I felt the tingle of the beginnings of a hard-on.