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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: tt, comp.ai.phil etc...
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Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 19:49:48 GMT
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In article <OZ.94Nov30011838@nexus.yorku.ca> oz@nexus.yorku.ca (ozan s. yigit) writes:
>Jeff Dalton [on "fierce" defence of TT]:
>
>   Then you shouldn't have much trouble finding some cases, then.
>   I've been in several TT exchanges here, and there must be some
>   others as well.
>
>various lengthy [and often confused] exchanges on TT does not make
>a "fierce defence of TT", just like a few blustery zeleny articles does
>not make "an extraordinary attack on AI" and various McCullough articles
>are not equivalent to "the functionalist manifesto" of the newsgroup etc
>etc ad nauseam. such broad brushstrokes are demagoguery. 

They're rhetoric.

Now, why were't you able to hold back from "demagoguery"?
I wonder...

Now, so far as I can recall, you avoid making substantial 
contributions to any of these discussions.  You just pop up from
time to time to take a poke, just to make sure no one forgets who
the bad guys are.  :->

But don't you find it just a little distasteful when disagreemwnt
w/ the TT is linked to racial prejudice or to belief in mystical
forces?

>   BTW, much of the "giant table lookup machine" arguments are fairly
>   directly related to the TT, as are a number of points in the "rocks
>   and FSAs" dispute.  Moravec and McCullough's mapping arguments also
>   support the TT.
>
>the reason giant table lookup machines are related to TT because they
>originate from the CR, which uses TT as a prop. the actual discussion is
>over structure, not the prop. I cannot tell how you came up with the idea
>that Moravec and McCullough's "mapping" arguments support TT so maybe you
>can expand on that. Suppose their arguments indeed support TT: have you
>refuted them? if not, why not? what does that tell you?

I "came up with the idea" from Moravec's remark that it was easy
to find mappings for TT-passers and from McCullough's arguments.

>why are you /still/ in this meta-discussion anyway? if you are so damn
>annoyed by TT, kill it once and for all. for example, write up a dialogue
>that contains various refutations, and post it regularly so that you can
>make sure noone is so silly as to talk about it ever again. put up.

Perhaps it was before your time (though I doubt it), but I have
posted a number of articles explaining my reservations about the TT.
I posted some others just a few days ago, though they cover only
a few issues.

BTW, you may recall that my position is that the TT may turn out
to be correct.

>   I can recall two, very brief, remarks against the TT by a "pro-ai"
>   poster.
>
>it is a long article by Drew McDermott, titled "Red Herring Turing Test".

Yup, McDermott's was one that I remembered.

>he was objecting to what you are doing by implication. I can send you the
>whole thing if you wish. 

Sure, please send me the whole thing.

In turn, I suggest this:

   Harnad, S. (1992) The Turing test is not a trick: Turing
   indistinguishability is a scientific criterion. SIGART Bulletin 3(4)
   (October 1992) pp. 9 - 10. [Appears preceded by an Editorial on the
   Turing Test by Lewis Johnson, pp. 7 - 9, and followed by another
   commentary by Stuart Shapiro, p. 10]

>   >Daniel Dennett, "Can machines think?"  in (M. Shafto, ed) _How We Know_.
>   >Harper & Row, 1985.
>
>   But not in his own books (which I happen to have all of, while
>   lacking the one you suggest)?
>
>strongly related article is "Reflections: instrumentalism reconsidered"
>in his "Intentional Stance" [1]. 

Thanks.

-- jd
