Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Testing Intelligence (Re: Turing Test). Message-ID: <3608@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 5 Dec 90 11:31:10 GMT References: <4832@gara.une.oz.au> <1990Nov30.180650.26648@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK. Lines: 37 In article greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green) writes: >In article <1990Nov30.180650.26648@watdragon.waterloo.edu> cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes: > In article greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green) writes: > > ... > >reasoning and self awareness in any > >non-trivial senses require language. > > > How do you figure that? Do you mean a mental language? If so, what > do you consider 'mentalese' to be like? >No, not a mental language. An actual, socially derived language. >What is reasoning without talking to oneself, or actually writing to >oneself? We do this all the time when reasoning with tough problems. We also solve lots of tough problems without reasoning linguistic-like at all. Sometimes, e.g. engineering problems, the visualisations can be cast into words afterwards, albeit with difficulty. Sometimes, as with musicians who lack a formal musical education, they can't explain the problem or solution in words at all. People use non-linguistic-like reasoning very succesfully even in very narrow formalisable domains such as chess, as simultaneous lightning chess displays demonstrate. Even in cases where linguistic-like reasoning seems to be the method used, this reasoning is hosted on a substrate of non-linguistic abilities, such as the kind of immediate comprehension we often refer to as "seeing". And I haven't mentioned "action-problems" at all, such as which way to run when crossing the road and something nasty happens. "Talk to yourself" then and you're dead! -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna +44 31 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205