From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!ispd-newsserver!psinntp!scylla!daryl Thu Jan 16 17:22:02 EST 1992
Article 2747 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!ispd-newsserver!psinntp!scylla!daryl
>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Subject: Re: Searle, again
Message-ID: <1992Jan15.180801.28925@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1992 18:08:01 GMT

Frank Boyle writes:

>>Frank, I don't know what on Earth you are talking about. What computer
>>simulation of digestion allows you to put real bananas and hamburgers
>>in and get out energy and waste products?

>You didn't say anything about eating and eliminating waste. You said
>digestion. And your output was energy.

This conversation is almost too silly to continue, but anyway:
digestion is a process that takes in food and outputs waste products
plus chemical energy in the form of ATP (plus other things). To pass
the "Digestion Turing Test", a computer would have to accept the same
inputs and produce the same outputs. Energy is *not* (primarily) an
output of digestion, the chemical ATP is. If you built a machine that
actually did take in food and output ATP plus waste products, then I
have no problem considering it to be a kind of digestion.


In the case of the real Turing Test, the inputs and outputs are
exactly the same as with a conversation involving a real human being:
both the inputs and the outputs are words.

>Maybe you have something else in mind, but I think this passes the
>"digestion Turing test", assuming its a test based on observed
>behavior.

If the inputs and outputs are not the same as with real digestion,
then it doesn't pass the "Digestion Turing Test".

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY



