Logo notas.itmens

Refutation: Mental Exceptionalism

There's a current of pseudo-thought that by adhering to incompleteness results hold that human mental power and "creativity" is superior to computer algorithm, which I call mental exceptionalism. I'm not a so-called materialist in the sense that everything can and should be computerized and everything "human" is superficial, but this mental exceptionalism I find extraordinarily stupid, especially when it comes to purely mental stuff like mathematics.
Incompleteness result is both ontic and epistemic. Epistemically, it says that, for example, Chaitin's constants are not computable with Turing machines, but it never says that a Chaitin's constant is not determined prior to computation and is contingently generated upon computation, or is a purely contingent thing that cannot in principle be covered by a theory. Ontically, it says that it is not any inability that prevents the computation of Chaitin's constant, but it is in principle not computable given only Turing machines. 

The ontic one means that if you follow the rules, if the axioms are not altered, in principle it is not possible to get a certain result. The epistemic one means that this is in principle only when the axioms are strictly followed - it says nothing about the validity or invalidity of theorems that cannot be decided by an axiomatic system - there can be some axiomatic systems that validate a theorem not provable (and not refutable) in, say, ZF. 

Hence, even if it is an infinite being who's trying to prove or unprove the Continuum Hypothesis in ZF(C), he cannot do it. It is unrelated to whether there's a mental element or not.

The only thing that can be proposed to be exceptional for the mental is that it can do something arbitrary to some degree. I mean propose. For example it is possible for the mental to just ignore ZF and propose a new axiomatic system for set theory which doesn't agree with ZF. But I suppose it has nothing to do with proving or disproving something - since by proving or disproving we require that universally the proof can be understood in principle.

What's the universality here? It is quite certain that someone with intellectual disability won't be able to understand the definition of a manifold and subsequently results about manifolds, and it is problematic to suppose that there's a threshold for the ability to understand mathematics which also decides whether someone can be classified as a human being, thus we formulate the so-called laws of logic, and we ensure that in principle proofs can be rewritten in terms of purely logical inferences. When a proof cannot be thus rewritten, it is hardly a proof.

Hence it can rightly be said that mental exceptionalism is shunned out in principle when it comes to mathematical proofs, in conjunction with the evocation of incompleteness results.

Amusingly people never think about the creative conceptualization that is involved in mathematics. The formulation of new hypotheses, the making of new definitions, etc. They always concentrate on solving problems, as if everything is about solving problems.