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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Penrose and Searle (was Re: Roger Penrose's fixed ideas)
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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 18:46:59 GMT
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In article <CzH78F.4Eq@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>In article <CzFr3J.990@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>In article <39posv$mr0@nnrp.ucs.ubc.ca> constab@unixg.ubc.ca (Adam Constabaris) writes:
>........
>>>Maybe there have been proponents of AI (not to mention philosophical or 
>>>logical behaviorists) who have claimed that the Turing test gives us an 
>>>operational *definition* of "intelligence" or "thinking", but I don't 
>>>think that such a view is in any way a fundamental assumption of AI.
>>
>>I agree.  Nonetheless, the TT is fiercely defended.
>>
>As someone who defended the TT in this forum, let me once again stress
>the rationale of this defence: better bird in hand than two in the bush.
>If critics of TT proposed any alternative, there would be something to 
>discuss. As it is, saying "there is _more_ to thinking/intelligence than
>passing the TT" is meaningless if you can't say what this _more_ is. 
>Whatever flaws we in the TT we can point out, it is the best we have.

It's a rather small bird, given that we don't know how to construct
artificial TT-passers.

Now, what is the argument for the TT?  That if we can't show it's
wrong, we should treat it as right?  Why not say we don't yet know
one way or the other?  After all, it's not like we're going have
to TT-passers ready tomorrow.  Why the rush?  Why does it *matter*
that we have this bird in the hand right now?

My position is not that there *is* more to thinking, intelligence,
or whatever, BTW.  OTOH, it seems plausible to me that some aspects
of mental life (or indeed whether there is any mental life) might
depend on how the TT-passing behavior is accomplished.

What in the TT shows anything that passes it *must* have subjective
experience, qualia, an internal dialogue, or other such aspects of
human mental life?  Is this question out of bounds for some reason?

-- jeff
