1) I'm not a mathematician (just ask my students!), so I'm not sure
when Godel's theorum can be applied and when it cannot. Even if it
is only being used as an analogy for the sake of arguement, it may
still be important. An analogy arguement is a weak arguement, but it
is not a fallacy. (Am I right here? I'm also not a logician.) Even
if it is not proven, it may still be worthy of consideration.
2) "Godel" needs to have two little dots over the "o". I don't know
how to do that on my computer, but I've seen it done. Anyone know
how?
3) All this sounds vaguely familiar; trying to decide whether or not
there is a meaningful, intelligent message written in a radio signal
from space sounds rather like the Turing test of computer messages.
I'm told Turing argues that if you keep listening to a message for
an infinitely long time, and you can't decide whether or not it is
coming from a thinking person or from a computer, that must mean that
the computer is thinking. (Or something like that, I'm not an AI
dude!)
4) This also sounds like the "infinite number of monkeys trying to
write Hamlet" story. Bob Newhart's comment is that would be a rather
boring job, reading the monkey's script. "Hey, Phil, I think we've
got something here! 'To be, or not to be? That is the
qusoidoiwsccisgf...' Ooops! False alarm."
That's it from me, I'm off to bed...
Brian Hill
Bryan College - Chemistry
Dayton, TN 37332