[FOM] The Lucas-Penrose Fallacy

[daddycaylor@aol.com]

> Laureano Luna Cabañero wrote:
>
> Human acts of thinking are not in turn always possible
> objects for themselves since this would lead to
> circularity and other problems (no intentional act is
> its own intentional object, in phenomenological
> terms). So we have:
>
> 1. Machines are not always possible 'objects' for
> themselves.
> 2. Machines are always possible objects for human
> thinking.
> 3. Human thinking is not always a possible object for
> itself.

Your points #1 and #3 simply refer to the general self-reference 
problem and don't say anything special about humans.
I think there is only circularity here.
Why couldn't your argument be paraphrased as the following?

a) Algorithms are things that people make. (by definition)
b) People don't make other people. (self-reference problem)
c) Therefore, people are not algorithms.

Tom Caylor

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