rmooney@uicsl.UUCP (05/16/84)
#N:uicsl:17200001:000:1375 uicsl!rmooney May 16 15:57:00 1984 My usual answer to this question is that unless one believes in mind body dualism (which I regard as needless mysticism which is quickly ruled out by Occam's razor since it requires an increased ontology and resolving the historically difficult problem of mind-body interaction), then the answer to whether computers could ever be said to think must be yes. Since a computer is effectively a Turing machine it can perform any computational task. If nothing else it could numerically simulate every neuron in a human brain. The question about it only "simulating" such activity seems to be a a meaningless remark since a perfect simulation must be, for all practical purposes, equivalent to the real thing. The only perfect map is a physical duplicate of the territory. (see Mind's Eye by Hofstadter & Dennett , specifically essay #5 on the Turing test for more on this.) As for the question whether any computer "thinks" now, I would not commit myself since I believe "thinking" ability is a continuum and present software is rather low on this continuum; however, I believe the Turing test would be a sufficient empirical test since everyone but solipsists grant that other people "think" and their only knowledge of them is their input/output behavior In fact Turing originally proposed the test as a substitute for the question "Can a computer think?"
rmooney@uicsl.UUCP (05/17/84)
#R:uicsl:17200001:uicsl:17200002:000:137 uicsl!rmooney May 16 16:04:00 1984 Sorry, I left off my name/path Ray Mooney ..ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!rmooney University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
karl@dartvax.UUCP (05/18/84)
Why do people keep referring to The Mind's Eye, [edited] by D. Hofstadter and S. Dennett? It's the Mind's I, at least the last time I looked at the cover.
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (05/24/84)
Hofstadter pointed out at a lecture that one of the great problems with computer translations between languages is that even humans have too hard of a time. A frenchman once come up to him and complemented him on his book "zhe mind's one". -ROn