Incompleteness vs. Mechanical Reasoning

A few times lately I've had the experience of mentioning
something about mechanical reasoning and then having
someone mention incompleteness as if that had anything
to do with what I was saying. In fact the attitude seems
to be akin to that woman in the penguin-on-the-telly sketch
who says "there; I've run rings around you logically."

It's puzzled me a good deal.

A thought just occurred to me: could this possibly be
the result of people thinking that incompleteness is
something that affects mechanical systems but not
our brain? Is the idea floating around that the human
mind is somehow capable of doing things not only
that no *current* computer can do, but also that no
possible future computer could ever do? Is that
what's going on here?

How do I say this: I do not subscribe to that hypothesis.


Marshall
.

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