Questions tagged [turing]
Alan Turing was a computer scientist during World War 2. Working for the British Government Code and Cypher School, he developed a machine capable of breaking the German Enigma encryption. Turing addressed problems in artificial intelligence integration with society and proposed a test, the Turing test.
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Defending Pereboom's deliberation-compatibilism from Widerker's objections, conceptualizing "agents" as Turing machines
I am trying to overcome David Widerker's objection to Derk Pereboom's account of rational deliberation. I include both Pereboom's account and Widerker's objection as a reminder/introduction at the end ...
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Fodor's central systems in computability terms
According to Fodor, the mind is comprised of both peripheral systems that are modular (and thus can be computed), and central systems which are not modular (and thus cannot be computed).
On the ...
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Kant's commentary on the faculty of judgment: did he anticipate things like incompleteness/halting/truth-undefinability?
First, to cite the (Meiklejohn) version of the argument:
If understanding in general be defined as the faculty of laws or rules, the faculty of judgement may be termed the faculty of subsumption ...
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A universal construction on some data D
I am picturing a sequence of symbols S, of length L. The symbols are from alphabet A, with k distinct symbols. The symbols can repeat, there can also be 0 of a particular symbol in sequence S.
This is ...
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Church-Turing Thesis and the human brain
A question on my homework: Imagine that scientists discover that the behavior of the brain can be completely described by some mathematical function. Given the Church–Turing Thesis, would this ...
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The Relationship between the Church–Turing Thesis and Physical Computation
Consider the following thesis (aka Church-Turing (CT) Thesis): Every function that can be calculated by an effective method is Turing-computable.
Suppose there is a physical process that allows for ...
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What is an operational definition (eg as often said of the Turing test)?
The Turing test seems often to be regarded as an operational definition of human-like intelligence (eg in Russel and Norvig, AIAMA). What is an operational definition and how does the Turing test ...
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Didn’t Turing simply expand the space of algorithmic problems?
Code breaking brings the realization that, for the other side to generate their code (used my multiple people, not a private language), there must be an “algorithm”.
Jacquard machines, analog Pong, ...
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Why do some physicalists use the Turing Machine as a model of the brain?
It has always puzzled me when people casually make comments like "Since the brain is a Turing Machine...". Just to clarify: I'm talking about generic discussions, not philosophical journals ...
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Is anything wrong with this argument about the Turing test?
I seem to be having a bit of difficulty explaining what seems to me to be an important failure of the Turing test as performed. A failure that means that to date, no performance has yielded any ...
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A question about the Turing test
Alan Turing bases his famous test for human-like machine intelligence on a party game between a man and a woman. Each communicates with a hidden judge by teleprinter (text alone). Nowadays, consoles ...
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If the universe is finite does that nullify Godel's incompleteness, halting problem, and Church-Turing thesis?
I'm not well versed on these topics but they all seem to rely on infinity, mainly infinite recursion or infinite space of mathematics.
If there is no always "next" algorithm, the halting ...
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Question on Godel's Remark on Algorithmic Nature of Mind
Gödel claimed that what the Theorems do entail (specifically, the Second Theorem) is that mathematics is inexhaustible:
It is this theorem [i.e., the Second Theorem] which makes the
incompletability ...
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Some doubts on Incompleteness Theorems
An important point to note about first incompleteness theorem is that while a certain formula is "true" but unprovable, it is "true" on the basis of my understanding (intended ...
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Is logic about a priori mind?
What is logic?
One can imagine Turing, Godel or Post writing a paper on logic. What provides the "validity" to the content they write? One proper answer to this question is the a priori &...
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Is VonNeumann's universal constructor ontologically distinct from the universal Turing machine?
I have recently been reading and watching Chiara's take on universal constructor theory. I knew about VonNeumann probes, as for instance described in Asimov's 2001 sequence. I hadn't taken in his ...
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Robinson Arithmetic and Church-Turing Thesis
What is the connection (if any) between proving the undecidability of Robinson Arithmetic and the Church-Turing Thesis? If there is any connection to CTT, is it necessary?
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Functional Abbreviation for Inst Expression in Turing's Paper [closed]
In Turing's 1936 paper On Computable Numbers Page 30-31, and its Correction Page 1-2
For a Turing Machine M, Inst(i,j,k,LEFT,l) means that if M scans symbol j under m-configuration i, then the symbol ...
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Is Turing test still serving as criterion of machine intelligence?
During the first half of the last century Alan Turing proposed his 'Turing test' as means by which to answer whether machines have intelligence. To recall: the test amounts to a conversation between ...
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Why is Turing claiming that a complete and computable axiomatization of arithmetic would imply the decidability of first-order logic?
So I'm reading the famous paper of Turing "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem". At the beginning of his proof of the undecidability of first-order logic (FOL), he ...
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Symbolic Processes & Thinking
My question is if there is some concrete symbolic logic at the foundation of human reasoning -something very rudimentary, but still formal? Question may be seen in context of the article given below.
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Turing Test and Functionalism
I know Turing Test and functionalism respectively but get confused about:
What is the influence of Turing Test on functionalism? (I suppose
Turing Test is both behaviorist and functionalist.)
Is ...
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Human Mind vs Computer
We start from axioms, use rules of logic, and derive theorems. These theorems establish what is the case in relation to the context. In all disciplines employing mathematics, we reason by saying '...
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Why does Searle's room receive three batches of Chinese characters and two English instruction manuals as input?
Searle's Chinese room receives input in the form of a batch of chinese characters, then twice after receives a batch of Chinese. The second batch of Chinese comes with English instructions for "...
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A reply to the Chinese room argument
All replies to the Chinese Room Argument (CRA) that I've seen assume the computer science concept (explanation, "definition" as Searle says) of the electronic digital computer. But what of other ...
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Why did Turing say computers manipulate symbols?
In his 1936 paper, Turing explains that humans compute by manipulating symbols that are external to the human brain (humans compute with pen and paper). Electronic digital computers do the same thing -...
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What is a Turing Machine having Probabilistic Automation?
In Turing machines, “each instruction of a Turing machine is deterministic: Given the internal state and the symbol being scanned, the immediate next operation is wholly and uniquely determined.”(Kim ...
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How could a computer acquire knowledge of its environment?
I've quite often seen AI respond to John Searle's Chinese room argument by accepting the systems reply: while the man in the room doesn't understand Chinese, the room (the system) as a whole could - ...
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Book Recommendation for Computational Theory of Mind
These days I'm really into studying the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM)
and I have read papers and documents online.
However, I have difficulty capturing the overall (received) theories of CTM at ...
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In the Turing test how can the computer understand the interrogator?
I thought an important feature of the Turing test was that the situation was exactly equal for each contestants, human and computer. The interrogator communicates with each using a teleprinter. Turing ...
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Where is the knowledge that AI's "knowledge representations" represent?
I find this really confusing. AI often says its computer systems "know" things, but when AI explains how to program a computer to be intelligent, it talks only about "knowledge representation". E.g., ...
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Can computers do things Turing machines can't?
Today's electronic digital computers are often referred to as universal Turing machines. That is, the concept of the UTM is used to understand today's stored-program electronic digital computers. But ...
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Why did Turing promote ESP (extra sensory perception)?
I've spent quite a while studying Turing's 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", regarded by many as the mission statement of AI, and one part of this paper has always seemed completely ...
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Why doesn't the Chinese room learn Chinese?
I just can't see how John Searle's Chinese room makes sense. The room passes the Turing test. People outside the room think there's a human inside who understands Chinese. But, Searle explains, the ...
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Is ESP, in particular telepathy, not computable?
In Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” he writes in 6(9) The Argument from Extrasensory Perception that
I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory ...
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Does adding structure make the Chinese room semantic?
The Chinese room reacts just to syntax, or shape of symbols (is purely syntactic). But brains are full of structure. In the room, Chinese symbols sit scattered in "piles" on the floor or are moved ...
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Do relationships rebut the Chinese room argument?
Searle says syntax is neither sufficient for nor constitutive of semantics, all a computer gets (eg from sensors) is syntax (tokenised shapes) therefore computers will never understand the world. ...
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Scientificity of the Church-Turing's thesis
The definition of the Church-Turing's thesis is an attempt at capturing the intuitive idea of effective computability or "things that can actually be calculated".
It has been said that it is not ...
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In what type of world is free will possible, if at all?
Why is free will a widely discussed, established concept? Does this concept emerge from religious / spiritual doctrine? Why is there so much interest in this topic?
If a neural-network based AI ...
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What are the philosophical consequences of the undecidability of the spectral gap in quantum theory?
An article published in Nature yesterday proves that finding the spectral gap of a material based on a complete quantum level description of the material is undecidable (in the Turing sense).
One of ...
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