Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!NUSVM.BITNET!ISSSSM
From: ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: RE: IF IT DOES NOT PASS TT IT IS NOT INTELLIGENT????
Message-ID: <9106260039.AA13618@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 26 Jun 91 00:40:52 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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X-Unparsable-Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 08:38:28 SST

In article <610@ckgp.UUCP>, thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Thomas) cites (in a
somewhat mangled fashion):
>In article <9106230258.AA12009@lilac.berkeley.edu>, ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET
>(Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>> >Stephen Smoliar writes, on the subject of Turing's orignal paper,
>> > > Unless I am mistaken,
>> > > Turing uses his opening paragraphs to argue that it is a waste of time
>> > > to consider a question as naive as "Can a machine think?"
>>
>>  1.  Supposedly reputable scholars (such as John Searle) who
>>  should know better but are too busy enhancing their reputations
>>  by further elaborating upon arguments whose foundations sit on
>>  this fundamental misunderstanding of the original text.
>>
>>  2.  Students and "curious observers" who seem more inclined to
>>  soak up second-hand accounts from folks like Searle than to set
>>  aside the couple of hours it takes to read what Turing REALLY
>>  had to say.
>>
>>Michael Thomas seems to be our resident representative of the second
>>category.
>
>  Which category do you fit in...?  8^)
>
To use Marvin Minsky's words, I count myself as one who has "read and
considered every single sentence of Turing's original article."  I have
done this several times and took great delight in Hugh Whitmore's translation
of this article into a dramatic monologue opening the second act of BREAKING
THE CODE.  (Jacobi's delivery of Whitmore's text had me so convinced that I
was ready to start asking questions from the audience!  These are strange times
when a playwright and an actor can exhibit greater understanding of a
pioneering paper in artificial intelligence than some philosophers can!)
Like Minsky, I believe that until you, too, have given Turing's text the
serious attention it deserves, you should just give it a rest, Michael.

===============================================================================

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