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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 13: Philosophy of Physics 2

AGPhil 13.2: Talk

Thursday, March 21, 2024, 10:00–10:30, PTB SR AvHB

Godel, Penrose and Paraconsistency: What Goes? What Stays? — •Kartik Tiwari — University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

Penrose in "Emperor's New Mind" and "Shadows of the Mind" uses Godel's Incompleteness Theorem to argue for the non-computability of human intelligence and advocate for the necessity of novel physics to understand consciousness. Objections to Lucas-Penrose argument have received mostly dis-satisfactory responses, leading to a diminished interest in the subject amongst philosophers of mind. Conversely, the study of para-consistent formal systems have gained much traction over the past few decades. Naturally, one wonders about the status of Lucas-Penrose Argument and its objections in light of paraconsistency. In our paper, we briefly introduce Godel's (First) Incompleteness Theorem, Lucas-Penrose Argument and Paraconsistent Formal Systems. Then, we summarize - what is widely considered - an authoritative defeater of the Lucas-Penrose argument by David Chalmers. Following this, we systematically investigate the status of Lucas-Penrose Argument and its possible objections with the machinery of paraconsistent logic. We then conclude with some broader speculations about paraconsistency in the context of human intelligence and the soundness of Penrose's demand for novel physics to understand consciousness.

Keywords: Penrose; Incompleteness; Intelligence; Computability; Paraconsistency