From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!sis!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!brunel!xxctcjc Tue Jul 28 09:41:29 EDT 1992
Article 6460 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: Christopher.Carne@brunel.ac.uk (Christopher J Carne)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Defining other intelligence out of existence
Summary: The impossibilty of definition
Message-ID: <BrDw9t.8L1@brunel.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Jul 92 14:58:40 GMT
Sender: Christopher.Carne@brunel.uk.ac
Organization: Brunel University, West London, UK
Lines: 29

To me what is valuable about the Turing Test is that it does not
ask (or give) absolute or essentialist definitions. Rather it is
sensitive to the dynamics of the social and relational ways in which
humans construct concepts. In effect the Turing Test gives a sociological
view of intelligence rather than an (essentialist) philosophical or
scientific one. Moreover, it is a test that is reflexively sensitive
to the roles that the increasing capabilities of machines have in
our attitudes towards intelligence. 


Definitions of intelligence may be useful in persuing our own
disciplinary aims, but any definition will be the result will
only make sense within our discursive practices and will remain
socially constructed. Indeed I feel that the lack of any definition
we can all agree on is a healthy feature, reflecting the wide 
diversity of viewpoints and methodologies in AI. Calls for
absolute definitions seem to refelct a lack of philosophical
enterprise and a privelaging of cognitivism as the only available
grounding for work in AI, leading to a narrowing of vision and 
delimit the type of work that can be done in AI. 

Maybe we should have a comp.ai.sociology group as well :-) 

Chris Carne,
Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture & Technology [CRICT],
Brunel University,
Uxbridge,
Middlesex
UK    


