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Article 2491 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bsimon@elvis.stsci.edu (Bernie Simon)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence testing
Message-ID: <BSIMON.92Jan3150757@elvis.stsci.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 92 20:07:57 GMT
References: <1992Jan1.115429.2331@arizona.edu>
	<BSIMON.92Jan2070527@elvis.stsci.edu>
	<1992Jan3.122235.26340@aifh.ed.ac.uk>
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In-Reply-To: bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk's message of 3 Jan 92 12: 22:35 GMT

ME:
>>The Turing test is a behavioural test for intelligence and it is
>>unconvincing as a test for the same reason that Behaviourism is
>>unconvincing as an explanation of intelligence.

YOU:
>The Turing test claims that if a machine could behave convincingly like
>a human (in the use of language) then it must (or at least, is very
>likely to) do so because it has similar internal mental processes
>('thinking' or 'consciousness' or 'understanding') to those of a human.
>I.e. the behaviour is clear evidence of the internal processes. 

>In summary, the Turing test (which ascribes 'thinking' to anything that
>exhibits the intelligent behaviour of a human) is based on the
>assumption that such internal processes are _necessary_ for the
>behaviour to occur. This completely contradicts the Behaviourist
>doctrine, as above, that the behaviour is in _no way_ explained by
>referring to such internal processes.

I found your post somewhat unclear. I will try to explain further.
Even if we assume that all intelligent beings necessarily show certain
behaviour it does not follow from this that all beings that show this
behaviour are intelligent. This is a logical fallacy similar to the
statement that because all Texans are American then all Americans are
Texan. Thus unless we assume Behaviourism, which says behaviour is
identical with intelligence, the Turing test fails. Because the Turing
test treats the "being" as a black box, inferences about the internal
structure of the "being" are not part of the Turing test.

The belief that other beings are intelligent must rest on other
arguments than merely observing behaviour, such as the argument that
similar effects occurs from similar causes, thus other humans are also
intelligent. 

--
Bernie Simon	(bsimon@stsci.edu)


