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Article 4018 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: That damn humongous table again
Message-ID: <1992Feb25.201030.31787@spss.com>
Date: 25 Feb 92 20:10:30 GMT
References: <1992Feb24.064728.23742@oracorp.com>
Organization: SPSS Inc.
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Nntp-Posting-Host: spssrs7.spss.com

In article <1992Feb24.064728.23742@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>Mark, there was no requirement that the table's outputs be the same as
>any particular human would make, only that they pass the Turing Test.
>I suppose in the case where the responses are the same as those of a
>particular human--call him Fred--then conversing with the table could
>be considered the same as conversing with Fred. However, there are
>obviously many more possible tables that pass the Turing Test than
>there are human beings, so therefore there exist (in the mathematical
>sense) tables that (a) pass the Turing Test, and (b) produce responses
>that don't correspond to any human being who has ever lived. How do
>you view those cases?

Every response contained in the table has been selected by the human being
(or the committee) which created the table.  Moreover, to so select the
responses, the humans must weigh the entire conversation up to that point,
rather as if they were themselves participating in that conversation.

The "as if" is important; talking with the table-lookup machine, you're not
simply talking with the table creators-- you're talking with a sort of
imaginary character whose words they are providing.  It's not unlike 
talking to an actor who's portraying Richard III: you're not really talking
to Richard III, and in a sense you're not talking (simply) to the actor;
but you are talking to a human being.


