From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!minsky Mon Aug 24 15:40:48 EDT 1992
Article 6615 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Message-ID: <1992Aug13.230220.23021@news.media.mit.edu>
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References: <BILL.92Aug12122254@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> <1992Aug13.024527.2079@news.media.mit.edu> <BILL.92Aug13130725@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 23:02:20 GMT
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In article <BILL.92Aug13130725@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>
>Anybody working in Artificial Intelligence must have at least an
>implicit notion of what intelligence is.  Otherwise I could build a
>screwdriver, and say look, I've achieved artificial intelligence! --
>and there would be no grounds for complaint.
>
>Making these implicit notions explicit is a large part of what
>philosophy is about.  It's a dangerous job -- a bad definition can
>lead into nasty tangles of paradox -- but the alternative -- working
>entirely with unanalyzed notions -- is even worse. 

Well, yes.  It seems to me that we use the word "intelligence" in
regard to mental performances that we admire.  So in my view, one
wants to analyse situations of the form "A says that what B did was
intelligent," in an *approving* sense, usually -- and this means that
the "definition" is relative to someone's values and goals.  Also, if
I know a lot about how you solved a problem, then I regard it as more
a "skill" than as an intelligent performance.  

What I considered to be wasteful of time were the various lists, over
the past month or so, of criteria for defining intelligence as a
thing, rather than as a relationship.  This leads people to worry
about whether rocks or plants are intelligent, and similar silly
things.  (There are better things to wonder about rocks and plants.)

AS for philosophy, I wish I could agree with Skaggs but, for the past
century, it seems to me, the methods of philosophy have lagged too far
behind those of psychology and (more recently) of AI to be taken
seriously.  Except for Dennett and maybe a couple of other
professionals.  As Bill Skaggs says, .."It's a dangerous job.  And
what has happened, so far as I can see, is that almost all recent
philosophers have in fact assumed bad definitions, and led themselves
and their students into nasty tangles of paradox.

BTW, there were some participants who were advocating the relativistic


