Minds, Machines and Gödel (1961)
Cells are machines, (our) minds are running on cells, therefore minds run on machines. It doesn&#x27;t <i>have</i> to be more complicated than that. Unless you are making an argument for supernatural influences. It&#x27;s debatable whether minds <i>are</i> machines, at least in a sense that satisfies us, but that&#x27;s another subject.<p><i>&gt; &quot;Therefore the machine cannot produce the corresponding formula as being true. But we can </i>see* that the Gödelian formula is true.&quot;*<p>Essentially, the other side&#x27;s argument boils down to the idea that minds can reason in a way that machines cannot - they can intuitively look behind the Gödelian curtain so to speak.<p>However, this contest between &quot;mind&quot; and &quot;machine&quot; only works as long as you tie the machine&#x27;s hands behind its back while letting the mind roam freely: a mind forced to operate within the same formal system would come to the same conclusion as the machine, and conversely there is no reason to assume that a machine allowed to apply intuitive reasoning would not come to the same realization as the mind.<p>This entire argument is a philosophical parlor trick that only works as long as you don&#x27;t pay too close attention to the unequal restrictions imposed on the two participants.