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From: harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Searle, Turing, Symbols, Categories
Message-ID: <5@mind.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Oct-86 10:59:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: mind.5
Posted: Mon Oct 20 10:59:30 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 23:45:54 EDT
References: <158@mind.UUCP> <150@cwrudg.UUCP> <160@mind.UUCP> <2495@utai.UUCP> <1636@watdragon.UUCP>
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.ai:3796 net.cog-eng:784
Summary: On the Turing Equivalence of Having Intelligence and Having a Mind


rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP (Randy Goebel LPAIG) replies:

>	I doubt that it is possible to test whether something has a mind,
>	unless you provide a definition of what you believe a mind is.
>	Turing's test wasn't a test for whether or not some artificial
>	or natural entity had a mind. It was his prescription for an
>	evaluation of intelligence.

And what do you think "having intelligence" is? Turing's criterion
effectively made it: having performance capacity that is indistinguishable
from human performance capacity. And that's all "having a mind"
amounts to (by this objective criterion). There's no "definition" in
any of this, by the way. We'll have definitions AFTER we have the
functional answers about what sorts of devices can and cannot do what
sorts of things, and how and why. For the time being all you have is a
positive phenomenon -- having a mind, having intelligence -- and
an objective and intuitive criterion for inferring its presence in any
other case than one's own. (In your own case you presumable know what
it's like to have-a-mind/have-intelligence on subjective grounds.)

Stevan Harnad
princeton!mind!harnad