Path: news.net.uni-c.dk!arclight.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: J Thomas Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets,comp.lang.apl,comp.lang.awk,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.cobol,comp.lang.dylan,comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Einstein's Riddle Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 10:22:14 -0600 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 55 Message-ID: <3AAF9AB6.2E06BEBD@ix.netcom.com> References: <3AACB567.A59B8497@Azonic.co.nz> <3AACE6CF.7F05484D@ieee.org> <0W8r6.178$fo5.14165@news.get2net.dk> <3AAD60F3.120F284A@ieee.org> <3AAE371A.2F9F596F@brazee.net> <98m43a$fe2$1@localhost.localdomain> <3AAEAD1A.BCDE11DB@ix.netcom.com> <98mugg$2mj$1@news.igs.net> <3AAF13CA.C7EA3113@ix.netcom.com> <98njv5$rfh$1@localhost.localdomain> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.27.04.45 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 14 Mar 2001 16:22:11 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.ai.neural-nets:67584 comp.lang.apl:29404 comp.lang.awk:17170 comp.lang.beta:12769 comp.lang.cobol:102663 comp.lang.dylan:24190 comp.lang.forth:78589 aph@redhat.invalid wrote: > In comp.lang.forth J Thomas wrote: > : If you're doing the Turing Test, and you ask what is > : 1355693147 * 25190678237 > : and you get a quick correct answer, you can conclude that it > : probably isn't human. > Why? "It" might have a calculator. True. > : One thing needed to pass the Turing Test is to make the kind of > : logic mistakes that humans make. > Perhaps, but it's no use as a test: a computer can easily be > programmed to make mistakes, and a computer programmed using > heuristics will definitely make "mistakes". It may not be easy to program it to make the kind of mistakes that are recognisably human. But apart from that, how is it an intelligence test if you have to go to extra lengths to make your program make mistakes? > It's about a program that is indistinguishable from someone already > known to be intelligent, that's all. > Turing's point is simply that it is absurd to credit a person with > intelligence if you refuse, given equal evidence, to credit a > computer. OK! Rhat's a good philosophical point. Turing tells us that we don't have a clear concept of intelligence, that defining intelligence as "what humans do" is silly. Taking his reductio ad absurdum and actually doing the test is silly in a different way, but it could have practical results. > :> If you take that line, then the only logical endpoint > :> is that there is no such thing as intelligence (which may be > :> true). > : I doubt that there's a unitary intelligence. Different brains are > : good at solving different problems. We won't be ready to > : understand the intelligence of oak trees > There is no evidence that oak trees do anything related to cognitive > processing. We haven't found any evidence. We *won't* find any evidence unless we get a feel for what problems they solve. I'm sure though that oak trees will never pass the Turing Test, they will never pass azs human beings in conversation. (Although one might possibly pass for someone's wife right after he tells her that what she doesn't know won't hurt her.)