Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 13, No. 524.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 02:23:36 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: [Thoughts & References] ON "Minds, Machines, and Turing"
Greetings Scholars,
I tried to write a short overview with my thoughts and references related
to the Minds, Machines and Turing..may be you like this..
Alan Mathison Turing, conceived of the modern computer in 1935. Today all
digital computers are, in essence, "Turing machines". The British mathematician
also pioneered the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, proposing the
famous and widely debated Turing test as a way of determining whether a
suitably programmed computer can think. His forgotten ideas in computer
science..a Well known for the machine, test and thesis that bear his name,
the British genius also anticipated neural network computers and
"hypercomputation"..Few realizing that Turing had already investigated
connectionist networks as early as 1948.
Researchers such as B. Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot are working at
University of Canterburry, New Zealand on Turing Project. Their project
aim to develop and apply Turing's ideas using modern techniques.
Copeland's "Turing's Machines" and "The Essential Turing" are forthcoming
from Oxford University Press, and his "Artificial Intelligence" was
published by Blackwell in 1993. In addition to the logical study of
hypermachines and the simulation of B-type neural networks, both
researchers are also investigating the computer models of biological
growth that Turing was working on at the time of his death..They are also
organizing a conference in London in May 2000 to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the pilot model of the Automatic Computing Engine, an
electronic computer designed primarily by Turing.
NOTE: B-type, a kind of neural networks founded by Turing!
References:--
------------
Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A. M. Turing at:
<http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/archives/comp/papers/199807/199807017/doc.html/turing.html>
In the essay, you will read about, The imitation game, Critique of the new
problem, The Machines concerned in the game, Digital computers and
Universality of digital computers..
Time and The Observer: The Where and When of Consciousness in the Brain by
Daniel Dennett, et. al.
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.dennett.html>
Neoconstructivism: A Unifying Constraint for the Cognitive Science
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad82.neoconst.html>
Minds, Machines and Searle
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad98.searle.html>
Computational Hermeneutics
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad90.dietrich.crit.html>
Lost in the Hermeneutics Hall of Mirrors
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad90.dyer.crit.html>
Other Bodies, Other Minds: A Machine Incarnation of an Old Philosophical
Problem
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad91.otherminds.html>
The Turing test is not a Trick: Turing Indistinguishability is a
Scientific Criterion
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad92.turing.html>
Virtual Symposium on Virtual Mind
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad92.virtualmind.html>
Computers Don't Follow Instructions by Pat Hayes
<http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad93.symb.anal.net.hayes.html>
The Church-Turing Thesis, B. Jack Copeland in The Stanford Encyclopedia of
philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Stanford University, ISSN 1095-5054
It is also available on the net at <http://plato.stanford.edu>
some thoughts on Computers & Human Brain:--
------------------------------------------
Computers are usually sequential binary devices, human brains are often
parallel multidimensional devices which employ fuzzy logic.
The designs of computers are known and so computer functioning can be
measured according to known designs, human brains were designed through
evolution and their designs are not well known corresponding to difficulty
of measurement according to design. There are few evolutionary, genetic,
cultural, and many such infleunces on human brain functioning.
Computers usually process without conflict and new learnings according to
conflict, human brains often process within conflict and gain new
learnings accordingly. Human brains are self aware, computers usually not.
Computer functioning can often be measured w/o the functioning being
hindered, measuring the functioning of a human brain often alters the
functioning of the brain.
We know or can know how computers work, we do not know but are coming to
know (though incompletely) how the human brain works.
Gordon Pask, Heinz von Foerster, and Humberto Matturana, among others have
experimented and written on the subject.
Now, Humberto Maturana in his essay, "Metadesign"..tried to give answers
and explaination to questions like, "Human beings versus Machines, or
machines as instruments of human designs?? The answers to these two
questions would have been obvious some years ago; Human beings, of course,
machines are instruments of human beings! But now days when we speak so
much of progess, science and technology as if progress, science and
technology were in themselves values to be venerated, there are many
people that think that machines as they become more and more complex and
intelligent though human design, may in fact become alive so that they may
supplant us as a natural outcome of that very venerated progess and
expansion of intelligence. Also many people seems to think that evolution
is changing its nature so that technology is becoming the guiding force in
the flow of the cosmic change in relation to us.
I would like to welcome your ideas, and critiques. Thanks a lot in
advance! May be these above ideas will help you in your teaching!
Sincerely yours
Arun Tripathi
Research Scholar
UNI DO, Germany
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