Showing posts with label Renés Descartes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renés Descartes. Show all posts

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Long before the universal Turing machine

"...for while reason is a universal instrument that is alike available on every occasion, these organs, on the contrary, need a particular arrangement for each particular action; whence it must be morally impossible that there should exist in any machine a diversity of organs sufficient to enable it to act in all the occurrences of life, in the way which our reason enables us to act." (Descartes, DMM, p. 43)

Friday, June 10, 2011

Why Descartes values truth

"...I have always had a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed in it with confidence." - DMM, p. 9