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Article 3700 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Humongous table-lookup misapprehensions
Message-ID: <1992Feb13.073457.16647@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 92 07:34:57 GMT
References: <1992Feb4.162016.13805@cs.ucf.edu> <1992Feb12.002312.19459@ida.liu.se> <1992Feb12.145716.22305@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Lines: 50

In article <1992Feb12.145716.22305@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>>Anyway, I seem to meet no further resistance to my original 
>>statement that
>>  a) the table-cheat is in principle possible
>>  b) it would pass the Turing Test
>>  c) it would be completely uninteresting.
>>Even the ever-combative mr. Zeleny has agreed to drop his objection.
>>
>>Is everybody happy that a DFA exists which passes a Turing Test, and
>>does so in a completely uninteresting manner? Is the Turing Test still
>>a good criterion for intelligence?
>
>If it quacks like a duck!
>All I would like to argue is that if it was possible to actually construct
>such a table (which it is not!) what is your objection to calling it
>intelligent???

 I am not sure what Antun's objection would be; however mine is simple.
If our intention of understanding intelligence is to understand the
human mind because the human mind is intelligent; then we must determine
intelligence within in a human setting.  Since, as you mentioned, such
a table would not be possible, and since it is thought, unless we be
dualistic or something, that our minds are not humongous tables then
why would we want to deem it intelligent?  If intelligence is purported
to be a human characteristic (an possbily animal, although I have objected
to this as well before on grounds of possible equivocation) then 
we can not attribute it to something like a humongous table since the
table does not exist in our minds.  IN sum, our minds are something
different than a humongous table.  
  Of course, one could attempt to redefine intelligence without thinking
of it as particularly human.  If this be the case, and if we accept
that such a table is intelligent, and if the research project is founded
on understanding the mind by means of the table; the look-up table is
uninteresting because
all it has done is confirm a particular theory of "intelligence" and
not a theory of "how-the-mind-works."  

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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