X-Message-Number: 8530
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 10:51:41 -0400
From: "John P. Pietrzak" <>
Subject: Re: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
References: <>

Peter Merel wrote:
> [I wrote:]
> >The _only_ thing a computer does is flip switches.
> 
> [...] Flipping switches is their fundamental, but not necessarily
> their most significant activity. Ignore their interactions with
> their environment, and you may as well have no computer at all.

Ah well, I guess it depends on your point of view.  I spend all day
working on algorithms; in essence, my ability to create a structure
which is appropriate for the computer to deal with is circumscribed
by the limits of what you can do by flipping bits.  I tend to find
that limit to be the most significant aspect of computers.  (You can
hook the machine up to just about any environment you want, it doesn't
really matter...)

> Turing knew this, of course; a Turing machine has an infinite paper
> tape to distinguish it from some lowly FSM.

Hey man, what do you think a tape is? :) :)  (Actually, it's not
supposed to be a paper tape, it's a magnetic tape, but then it's only
a theoretical tape anyway, so why am I arguing...) The TM places it's
head over a discrete section of the tape, performs a discrete action,
and the tape retains the state specified by that action from then on
(or until it is changed by another action).  All that the tape is,
then, is an infinite, ordered series of *switches*.  The TM was the
logical next step up from the FSM; it added an "external store"
ability to it.

[Further on, TT/uploading:]
> In the world of fact, Turing's test is not the philosophical vagary
> detested by so many here. The Turing Test provides us with a real
> litmus for determining the success of an upload: if the upload is
> adequate to give its original no reason to think that it is not his
> equivalent, then it is a success, so far as he is concerned. Isn't
> that the whole point of the exercise?

Unfortunately, the TT is an extremely poor test for this purpose;
not only is it (in my opinion) weak in determining whether intelligence
exists, it was never designed to show equivalence between two 
intelligent entities.  I'd prefer a test able to show more of a
biological similarity between the two structures...

John

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