I want to pose a question to the people of this forum that is well known in philosophy and that many people give very little thought to every day. The question was first critically posed by Alan Turing in his essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" which queries:
Can machines think?
A machine in this instance is just by standard definition, what you would generally regard as a machine in simple terms. This includes anything that we use to perform basic actions including computers. Thinking is quite a different story, as the definition of thinking and the relation between the mind and the brain is still debated.
To compensate for this, Turing modified the question to this scenario: We have a man A, a woman B, and an interrogator C which may be of either gender. They play an Imitation Game, where C must guess the gender of A and B but both contestants are trying to make C guess incorrectly. Is it possible for a machine to replace A and successfully fool C into believing it is a woman?
So I pose the questions:
Can machines think?
What is the actual process of thinking?
Can a machine play the part of A in the Imitation Game?
Try to think this one out; one sentence answers will be quite insufficient.
Can machines think?
A machine in this instance is just by standard definition, what you would generally regard as a machine in simple terms. This includes anything that we use to perform basic actions including computers. Thinking is quite a different story, as the definition of thinking and the relation between the mind and the brain is still debated.
To compensate for this, Turing modified the question to this scenario: We have a man A, a woman B, and an interrogator C which may be of either gender. They play an Imitation Game, where C must guess the gender of A and B but both contestants are trying to make C guess incorrectly. Is it possible for a machine to replace A and successfully fool C into believing it is a woman?
So I pose the questions:
Can machines think?
What is the actual process of thinking?
Can a machine play the part of A in the Imitation Game?
Try to think this one out; one sentence answers will be quite insufficient.