ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun19.111622.5491@tygra.Michigan.COM> dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) writes: > >The Turing Test does not test for intelligence. At a literal level it tests >for a specific ability, the ability to mimic human answers to questions, >which we may hope requires at least some kind of 'intelligence'. > >But more importantly, it points out that physical form is not really an >indicator of intelligence. This is a very important aspect of Turing's paper. Turing takes us right up to the brink of Cartesian dualism; and, as far as I am concerned, he throws his lot right in there with Descartes. Not only is physical form not an indicator of intelligence, but the feasibility arguments which form the heart of his paper basically argue that having ANY SORT of physical form is not NECESSARY for intelligence. In other words the mathematical machinery which Turing musters ultimately supports the argument for the separation of mind and body. The early decades of artificial intelligence were probably eager to embrace this separation and understandably so, since it represented perhaps the highest level of the "divide-and-conquer" approach to solving a difficult problem. It is always dangerous to throw a forward pass to history, but I would not be surprised if the last decade becomes remembered as the one in which the possibility of rejecting dualism passed from philosophers sitting in comfortable armchairs to scientists sitting behind terminals and building robots. We may credit Turing for having the first "vision" of artificial intelligence; but we may have to confront the possibility that his dualist stance pointed our first steps into the field in the wrong direction. =============================================================================== Stephen W. Smoliar Institute of Systems Science National University of Singapore Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge SINGAPORE 0511 BITNET: ISSSSM@NUSVM "He was of Lord Essex's opinion, 'rather to go an hundred miles to speak with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town.'"--Boswell on Johnson