From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl Wed Sep 16 21:23:11 EDT 1992
Article 6894 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!scylla!daryl
>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re:
Message-ID: <1992Sep11.154029.14574@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:40:29 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <1992Sep8.205807.10882@linus.mitre.org>,
mark_turnbull.g033@qmgate.mitre.org (Mark Turnbull) writes:

>> The real point of the TT is that if we had a
>> pen-pal whom we had corresponded with for a lifetime, we would never
>> need to have seen him to infer that he had a mind. So if a machine
>> pen-pal could do the same thing, it would be arbitrary to deny it had a
>> mind just because it was a machine. That's all there is to it!
>
>> [stuff deleted]
>
>Well, that's all there would be to it if, whenever I embarked on a 
>lifetime pen-pal relationship, I could make no reasonable assumptions 
>about the nature of the pen-pal.  I wouldn't arbitrarily deny a pen-pal 
>its mind just because I knew it to be a machine of a different type than I 
>am, nor would I expect its performance to be better in any respect than 
>that of the human I assume has a mind, but isn't there a lot left out if one 
>takes the responses, verbal and otherwise, of a device, to be the only 
>relevant (and indeed, sufficient) information to be used in judging the 
>presence of a mind?  I'm not willing to jettison all the other things I 
>believe about my currently likely pen-pals and state that biological facts 
>play no part in my assessment of the chances that my correspondent has a 
>mind.  The TT is only "enough to allow us to correctly infer that a real 
>person has a mind" with the appropriate background information.  Of 
>course, you may be saying (and may have said elsewhere) that we have no 
>reason to even consider anything other than the responses and that those 
>who do consider other factors ought to rethink their habits ...

Harnad was only presenting Turing's reasoning. He agrees with you that
the Turing Test is not enough. But I don't.

I find it strange to you assert that your assumptions about the
*biology* of your pen-pals plays any kind of role in knowing whether
they have minds. What aspects of biology are relevant? What
assumptions about my biology are needed for you to conclude that I
have a mind?

Personally, I think that biology is relevant only to the extent that
it affects performance: for example, we know that things without
brains (or with only tiny ones) are generally incapable of the kind of
behavior that we associate with having a mind. I think that behavior
tells us what biology is sufficient, rather than (as you suggest)
biology tells us what behavior is sufficient.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY













