ISSN:
1572-8641
Keywords:
Artificial intelligence
;
causality
;
cognition
;
computation
;
explanation
;
mind/body problem
;
other-minds problem
;
robotics
;
Searle
;
symbol grounding
;
Turing Test
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Computer Science
,
Philosophy
Notes:
Abstract Any attempt to explain the mind by building machines with minds must confront the other-minds problem: How can we tell whether any body other than our own has a mind when the only way to know is by being the other body? In practice we all use some form of Turing Test: If it can do everything a body with a mind can do such that we can't tell them apart, we have no basis for doubting it has a mind. But what is “everything” a body with a mind can do? Turing's original “pen-pal” version of the Turing Test (the TT) only tested linguistic capacity, but Searle has shown that a mindless symbol-manipulator could pass the TT undetected. The Total Turing Test (TTT) calls instead for all of our linguistic and robotic capacities; immune to Searle's argument, it suggests how to ground a symbol manipulating system in the capacity to pick out the objects its symbols refer to. No Turing Test, however, can guarantee that a body has a mind. Worse, nothing in the explanation of its successful performance requires a model to have a mind at all. Minds are hence very different from the unobservables of physics (e.g., superstrings); and Turing Testing, though essential for machine-modeling the mind, can really only yield an explanation of the body.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00360578
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