Newsgroups: comp.ai.games
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From: bruck@actcom.co.il (Uri Bruck)
Subject: Re: do AI games exist ;-)
Organization: ACTCOM - Internet Services in Israel
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 21:28:12 GMT
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Melle Koning (melle@rtbbs.iaf.nl) wrote:

: Computers don't have a "soul" (whatever that might be) and they will never
: have it. Therefore no-one will ever consider a computer "*true* intelligent".

In Turing's article "computing machinery and Inteligence" he addresses 
this objection to his ideas of machine inteligence. It is the first of 9 
categories of objections and is titles 'the theological objection'.
I qoute from his response :"It appears to me the argument qouted
above implies a serious restriction of the omnipotence of the Almighty. It 
is addmitted that there are certain things that He cannot do such as making
one equal to two, but should we not believe that He has freedom to confer
a soul on an elephant if He sees fit? We might expect that He would only 
exercise this power in conjunction with a mutation that provided the 
elphant with an appropriately improved brain to minister the needs of this 
soul. An argument of similar form may be made for the case
of machines. It may seem different because it is more difficult to 
"swallow". But this really only means that we think it would be leww 
likely that He would consider the circumstances suitable for conferring
a soul. The circumstances in question are discussed in the rest of 
this paper. In attempting to constuct such machines we should irreverntly
usurping His power of creating sould, any more that we are in the procreation
of children: rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will
providing mansions for the sould that He creates" (Alan M.Turing)

(turing@enigma.uk  :)
?????????????????????
