<story><title>Yours in distress, Alan</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/yours-in-distress-alan.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>babarock</author><text>About the whole &amp;quot;machines can think&amp;quot; debate, I love this quote by EWD:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Alan M. Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether Machines Can Think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&amp;#x2F;users&amp;#x2F;EWD&amp;#x2F;transcriptions&amp;#x2F;EWD08xx&amp;#x2F;EWD898.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&amp;#x2F;users&amp;#x2F;EWD&amp;#x2F;transcriptions&amp;#x2F;EWD08xx&amp;#x2F;EW...&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s not fall prey to the temptation of thinking:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  Turing believes machines think
  Society acted terribly towards Turing
  Therefore machines do think.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
EDIT: formatting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Tloewald</author><text>Turing in fact dismisses the question in the famous letter. The Turing test isn&amp;#x27;t proposed as a test of whether machines can &amp;quot;think&amp;quot; but a test of whether they can imitate a person.&lt;p&gt;Turing considered the question of whether machines could think as being &amp;quot;too meaningless to deserve discussion&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;books.google.com&amp;#x2F;books?id=CEMYUU_HFMAC&amp;amp;pg=PA317&amp;amp;lpg=PA317&amp;amp;dq=turing+test+chomsky&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=dNkaRT24fG&amp;amp;sig=6I-Kx8yVpAg277E5Ayhc3-ksEQI&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=LIWyUb_bB6uh4APg5oH4DA&amp;amp;ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=turing%20test%20chomsky&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;books.google.com&amp;#x2F;books?id=CEMYUU_HFMAC&amp;amp;pg=PA317&amp;amp;lpg=P...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;plato.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;entries&amp;#x2F;turing-test&amp;amp;#x2F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;plato.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;entries&amp;#x2F;turing-test&amp;amp;#x2F&lt;/a&gt;;&lt;p&gt;Sorry this links quote Turing, I couldn&amp;#x27;t find the original source.</text></comment>
<story><title>Yours in distress, Alan</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/yours-in-distress-alan.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>babarock</author><text>About the whole &amp;quot;machines can think&amp;quot; debate, I love this quote by EWD:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Alan M. Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether Machines Can Think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&amp;#x2F;users&amp;#x2F;EWD&amp;#x2F;transcriptions&amp;#x2F;EWD08xx&amp;#x2F;EWD898.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&amp;#x2F;users&amp;#x2F;EWD&amp;#x2F;transcriptions&amp;#x2F;EWD08xx&amp;#x2F;EW...&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s not fall prey to the temptation of thinking:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  Turing believes machines think
  Society acted terribly towards Turing
  Therefore machines do think.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
EDIT: formatting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jlgreco</author><text>I prefer &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Can planes fly?&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle seems pretty uncontroversial when we ignore quantum mechanics (and remains &lt;i&gt;questionable&lt;/i&gt; when it is considered).  Add to this the lack of any evidence for any irreducible quantum requirements in the mind anyway and it seems pretty damn likely that the mind is algorithmic.&lt;p&gt;Even if the CTD Principle does not hold for whatever reason, that still does not put the mind and machines on different levels.  It would merely imply that machines more powerful than Turing machines can be built (the mind being an example of such a machine).  Not even Roger Penrose disputes a materialistic mind.</text></comment>