'have been debunked' - quite an emotionally laden phrase to introduce what is in fact an opposing view by another mathematician don't you think? The hostility

'have been debunked' - quite an emotionally laden phrase to introduce what is in fact an opposing view by another mathematician don't you think? The hostility the Strong AI camp have for Penrose's views is fascinating - it must be infuriating to have such a respected mathematician and physicist take the time to write a few books refuting the reductionist approach. There certainly seems to be no room for a contrarian around those parts! Thanks for the link, but to state that it debunked anything does not seem to be correct. It was an attempted refutation by a computationalist, and Penrose answers these criticims in: http://web.archive.org/web/20080618195657/http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-23-penrose.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080618195657/http://psyche.csse... I'd recommend reading the section "4. The "Bare" Gödelian Case". Two particularly relevant points! "4.5 The many arguments that computationalists and other people have presented for wriggling around Gödel's original argument have become known to me only comparatively recently: perhaps we act and perceive according to an unknowable algorithm; perhaps our mathematical understanding is intrinsically unsound; perhaps we could know the algorithms according to which we understand mathematics, but are incapable of knowing the actual roles that these algorithms play. All right, these are logical possibilities. But are they really plausible explanations? 4.6 For those who are wedded to computationalism, explanations of this nature may indeed seem plausible. But why should we be wedded to computationalism? I do not know why so many people seem to be. Yet, some apparently hold to such a view with almost religious fervour. (Indeed, they may often resort to unreasonable rudeness when they feel this position to be threatened!) Perhaps computationalism can indeed explain the facts of human mentality - but perhaps it cannot. It is a matter for dispassionate discussion, and certainly not for abuse! "