[Avery Andrews 920925.1236]
Here's a Harnad posting from comp.ai.philosophy that I think
is rather a propos wrt the Turing Test:
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From: harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad)
Subject: Re: My (arbitrary) definition of intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Sep19.164232.24652@Princeton.EDU>
Summary: On defining before understanding...
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References: <1992Sep9.025119.15500@uwm.edu> <1992Sep9.032813.19773@uwm.edu>
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Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1992 16:42:32 GMT
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"Intelligence" is an arbitrary word denoting clever performance that
ordinarily requires "X" (where "X" is the mental state that allows humans
and animals to do those same clever things). This simply shifts the burden
from "intelligence" (now trivially "defined") to "X," which is not only
still undefined, but clearly something that is so completely
un-understood that our "defining" it now would be as sensible as
Aristotle's "defining" gravity, 2000 years before Newton. (Even less
sensible, because of the extra dimension of perplexity added by the
mind/body problem.)
So don't bother trying to define intelligence; it's an empty, arbitrary
exercise. Focus instead on what it takes to generate the clever performance
that ordinarily requires X.
Harnad, S. (1992) The Turing test is not a trick: Turing
indistinguishability is a scientific criterion.
SIGART Bulletin 3(4) October
(Retrievable by anonymous ftp from host: princeton.edu
directory: pub/harnad filename harnad92.turing]
--
Stevan Harnad Department of Psychology Princeton University
& Lab Cognition et Mouvement URA CNRS 1166 Universite d'Aix Marseille II
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu / harnad@pucc.bitnet / srh@flash.bellcore.com
harnad@learning.siemens.com / harnad@gandalf.rutgers.edu / (609)-921-7771