Minds, Machines and Gdel by J. R. Lucas; God, the Devil, and Gdel.

by Paul Benacerraf
Review by: George S. Boolos
The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 613-615
Published by: Association for Symbolic Logic
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 REVIEWS 613

otherhand, he suggeststhat thereis an identitybetweenexistingand somethinglike havinga

location.A distinctionbetweenformalexistenceand spatio-temporal
spatio-temporal existence
might be useful. GEROLD STAHL
NICHOLAS RESCHER. Non-deductive andproblemsin theanalysisofinductive
rulesof inference
reasoning. Synthese,vol. 13 (1961), pp. 242-251.
Rescher calls a rule of inference " non-deductive" if it can lead from true premisses to a false
conclusion but cannot lead from true premisses to a contradictory conclusion, and suggests that
inductive reasoning is not appropriately analyzed in terms of (non-deductive) rules of inference.
A second version of the definitionrelativizes it to an axiomatized theory with set Tof theorems, all
true. If T* is the enlarged set of theorems obtained by adding a new rule of inference, then-the
new rule is non-deductive (in the second sense) if and only if T* contains a falsehood but con-
tains no sentence together with its denial. Example: Interpret '(Aa)' as the quantifier, for all
and interpret
individualsa withregardto whichwepossessspecificinformation, '(a)' as thenormal
universal quantifier. Then the rule which allows replacement of initial '(Aa)' by '(a)' may be
non-deductive, relative to some plausible theory. RICHARD C. JEFFREY
R. MONTAGUE. Mr. Bradleyon thefuture. Mind,n.s. vol. 69 (1960), pp. 550-554.
R. D. Bradley, in XXV 344, advocated that p is true if it is, will be, or would have been veri-
fiable at the time that it is about. This view Montague contrasts (a) with simple endorsement,
that to call p true is to endorse it; (b) with endorsability, that to call p true is both to endorse it
and to imply that one has good reasons for so doing; and (c) with current verifiability,that to
call p true is to claim to be able to verifyit conclusively now. Montague thus throws into sharp
focus his contention that Bradley loads the argument with "his sense of the words of the
'truth' family, without always allowing much weight to alternative senses" (page 550). The re-
viewer agrees that both Bradley's uses and his modes of argument are loaded: e.g., "The
point is that the inference from 'true always' to 'true now' is illegitimate since the former means
' true at any time' while the latter is ordinarily taken to mean 'true at this time but not at some
other time'-which is very different" (op. cit., page 200). What is illegitimate is the inference
from " always true" in Bradley's alleged timeless sense, which' his opponent does not recognise,
to "true now" in his opponent's alleged temporal sense, which Bradley does not recognise. The
logician who denies truth-values to future contingents may nevertheless hold that p is
always true in the case that p is a tautology, true by virtue of its form; or if p is a proposition
about the past, irrevocably true; or if it is an omni-spatio-temporal law of physics. In each case
such a logician will say that ifp is now always true, it is trivially true that p is true now, since
by "is now always true" he means "is true now and will be true at all future times."
Montague believes that Bradley's use of "true" and the alternatives he sketches are all
acceptable in varying contexts, and in making this point he is correctly drawing attention to
variant uses of the word "'true." There is a sharp distinction to be made, however, between
uses of "true" and theories of truth. None of the alternatives offered is acceptable as a theory
of truth. They are not mutually independent: Montague concedes that endorsability needs to
be buttressed by verification at some appropriate time in order to prevent a prediction from
being true now and false later-the same objection applies to simple endorsement; and any
objection to verification in general applies equally to current verification and to verification at
some appropriate time. Objections to theories of verificationare well known: verifyfor example
that p would have been verifiableat some time in the past, where p is a law of astronomy confirm-
able only at remote intervals. The danger in Montague's approach is that, confronted with a
problem of verifyinga counterfactual or a statement about the past or a law of astronomy
confirmable only at remote intervals or for that matter any scientific law, he will retreat to
another alleged alternative or "aspect" (page 552), and ultimately to simple endorsement. This
would be a mistake, precisely because mutually dependent "alternatives" are not alternate.
RONALD J. BUTLER
J. R.LUCAS. Minds, machinesand Godel. Philosophy,vol. 36 (1961), pp. 112-127.
PAUL BENACERRAF. God, thedevil,and G6deI. The Monist,vol. 51 (1967), pp. 9-32.
Lucas argues that Gbdel's (firstincompleteness) theorem "proves that Mechanism is false,
that is, that minds cannot be explained as machines." The paper is an elaboration of the follow-

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 614 REVIEWS

ing argument: There can be no mechanical model of the capacities of the mind to prove
theoremsof arithmetic,for to any machine therecorresponds a formalsystemwhose theorems
are just those arithmeticalstatementsthat the machine can produce as true. The Godelian
formulaforany consistentformalsystem(the formulathat asserts its own unprovabilityin the
system)cannot be proved in the system."But we can see that the Gbdelian formula is true:
any rational being could follow Godel's argument, and convince himselfthat the Godelian
formula, although unprovable-in-the-given-system, was nonetheless-in fact, for that very
reason-true." Thus, "for everymachine thereis a truthwhich it cannot produce as being true,
but which a mind can. This shows that a machine cannot be a complete and adequate model of
the mind."
It seems to the reviewerthat Lucas's claim that a mind can produce as true the Godelian
formula for any consistentmachine is either unsubstantiated,for,if "produce as true" means
"'show to be true," it is tantamountto the assertion that minds can prove the consistencyof
any consistentmachine,or insufficient to distinguishminds from machines, for,if "produce as
true" means "display," it is merely the claim that minds can find G6delian formulas. But
machines can do this too, for the Godel number of a true formula that is not a theorem of
a consistentaxiomatizable extensionof (say) Robinson's systemQ is a mechanicallycalculable
functionof the Godel number (recursivelyenumerable index) of the set of axioms of the exten-
sion. This mightbe put: Given a formalsystemcorrespondingto a machine, we can calculate a
formulasuch that we can prove that if the systemis consistent,then the formulais unprovable
in the system.This is not the same as saying: Given a formalsystem,if it is consistent,then we
can calculate a formulasuch thatwe can prove thatthe formulais unprovable in the system.The
Gbdelian formula for a sufficiently strong consistentsystem might indeed not be capable of
being shown true by a machine, but then the systemmightwell be so strongthat a mind could
not show the formula true,either,as it mightnot be able to show the systemconsistent(con-
sider Zermelo-Fraenkei set theoryor Peano arithmetic+ Fermat's Last "Theorem").
Lucas states that we can know that we are consistent (page 124), but he allows that it is
conceivable that simple arithmeticis inconsistent(page 123). The reviewerfinds it hard to
reconcile these assertions.
Error: page 112, lines 17-18. . . . in any consistentsystemnothingfalse can be proved-in-
the-system,but only truths." Misprints: page 120, line 8, read "consistent" for "complete";
page 123, line 14, delete "not."
Aftersummarizingthe proofs of Godel's incompletenesstheorems,Benacerraf proceeds to
criticizethe article of Lucas reviewedabove. His objections are that (1) Lucas's argumentthat
the mind has a prowess that Godel's (first)theoremshows machines lack equivocates: Though
a (consistent) machine cannot prove its own Godelian formula in the correspondingformal
system,neithercan a mind. At best,a mind can give eitheran informalproof of it or, perhaps,a
proof of the conditional with the hypothesisof the machine's consistencyas antecedent and
the formulaas consequent. A machine mightdo these too. (2) On a non-equivocal versionof the
argument,Lucas is claiming thatgivenany machine,he can prove somethingthe machinecan't.
Little reason has been given for believingthis. (3) Lucas's claim that he could finda flawin any
mechanist's model of the mind is inconclusive,as a mechanist is " but a man, and therefore
probably a machine of relativelylow order of complexity," who may be limited as to the
kinds of machines he can devise.
Benacerraf then presents an argument which he claims representswhat underlies Lucas's
arguments,and "which contains the assumption that the mind is at best a Turing machine,
employs both Godel theorems,and ends in a contradiction." The argumentis the derivationof
a contradiction from the assumption that there is a number j such that " Q c WI" X S*,
" Wy' S*" X S*, and S* c Wf,where Q is Robinson's arithmetic,W, is (the output of) the
machine with program numberj, and S* is the closure under first-orderlogic of the set of
statementsBenacerraf can prove. (The sense of "prove" used in the derivation implies that
what is proved is correct,but does not implythat what Benacerrafcan prove is the output of a
machine.) Benacerraf asserts that the derivation shows "that given any Turing machine WI,
eitherI cannot prove that W1 is adequate forarithmetic,or ifI am a subset of W1,thenI cannot
prove that I can prove everythingW, can. It seems to be consistentwithall thisthatI am indeed

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 REVIEWS 615

a Turing machine, but one with such a complex machine table (program) that I cannot ascertain
whatit is."
In an appendix Benacerraf notes that the derivation of the contradiction makes use of the
principle that whatever he can prove is true, a principle from which he shows the existence of a
statement that he can and cannot prove to follow. This second contradiction appears to him to
cast "serious doubt on the meager results that we had been able to salvage for Lucas."
In conclusion, Benacerraf expresses the,hope that the principles used in his reconstruction
of Lucas's argument can be shown to preserve the implications drawn from it, but he does not
indicate how this might be done without the use of principles that lead to inconsistency.
Misprints:page 12, line 18, read ")" for ","; line 23, read "sometimes" for "sometime";
page 31, line 23, insert"n" between" F" and "6". GEORGE S. BOOLOS

JULES VUILLEMIN. De la logique a' la thiologie. Cinq c&udessup Aristote. Flammarion,

Paris 1967, 235 pp.
This book is fiveloosely connectedessays on Aristotle.In threeof these (Le systemedes
Categoriesd'Aristoteet sa signification logiqueet m~taphysique,De la regressiona l'infinicomme
moyende rnfutation, La theoriedes relationsmixtes)the author comparessome of Aristotle's
ideas withrelatednotionsin Cantor,Russell,and Lesniewski:Can one use the modernauthors
to clarifyand correctAristotle'sarguments?
If one can, Vuilleminhas not shownit. There are some hundredsymbolicformulasscattered
throughthe book, about halfof whichcontain gross errorsof all kinds. The surroundingtext
is in partsequally wild. (Page 162: "Si l'on multiplieune relationordinairepar sa converseon
obtientl'identit6:R I k = I.") One particularanomalyis thateveryconceivablekind of formula
is labelled "Definition" or "Df."
More detailed points: (i) In Categories2f., Aristotleintroducesa relation"a is said of b,"
whichhe says is transitive:ifman is said of an individualman, and animal is said of man, then
animal is said of the individualman. Vuilleminnotes (p. 54 ff.) that the standard interpreta-
tions of "c" and "e " in set theoryare not the same as Aristotle'srelation,and neitheris the
standardinterpretation of the relation"is part of" in Legniewski'smereology.So he inventsa
symbolforAristotle'srelationand triesto discoverwhatrulesitobeys.This sectionis interesting
but oftenunclear.
(ii) In Metaphysicsa2, Aristotlemaintainsthat everychain of (distinct)causes must have
firstand last elements.From thisAristotleinfers(a) thattherecan be no w-or wC-sequences of
distinctcauses, and hence (b) that therecan be no infinitesequence of distinctcauses. Vuille-
mins comment(p. 127 ff.): suppose we allow ourselves, like Cantor, to "imagine a new
number" whichcomes afterthe positiveintegers;the resultingsequence is infinitebut has first
and last element.Thus "if we admittedthis construction"Aristotle'sargumentfrom(a) to
(b) would fall through.Reviewer's comment: Aristotleneed only note that a segmentof a
causal chain is again a causal chain, and Vuillemin'sexample becomes entirelyirrelevant.The
businessof imaginingnew numbersis irrelevantanyhow,and misrepresents Cantor.
(iii) In the fourthessay (on "mixed relations"), Vuillemincontends (p. 153 ff.) that Aris-
totle denied the theoremof Principia which says that every relation has a converse. "En
r6alitd,la conclusiond'Aristoterepose sur la confusionde l'implicationformelleet de l'impli-
cation mat~rielle.. " None of the formulasand logical jargon in thisessay should be taken
too seriously;theyare suggestiveat best, at worsttheyare a positivehindrance.By and large
the same is true for the book as a whole. WILFRID HODGES

E. J. LEMMON. On sentences verifiableby their use. Analysis (Oxford), vol. 22 no. 4 (1962),
pp. 86-89.
JAAKKO HINTIKKA. Cogito, ergo sum: inferenceor performance? The philosophical review,
vol. 71 (1962), pp. 3-32.
Lemmon proposes "the following definition: A sentence S is verifiable by its use if and only
if there are circumstances and a manner of delivery such that it is analytic that, for all people: .
if in those circumstances x delivers S in the given manner then what x delivers is true." He hold!
that Descartes' sentence 'Cogito' is verifiable by its use, on the grounds that "speech entail

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