Philosophy Stack Exchange
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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.

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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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 the authors is quoted "From a more philosophical…
Alexander S King
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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 here. What would lead someone to even speculate about that,…
David Gudeman
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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 problem goes away for example doesn't it? Is a finite universe…
J Kusin
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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 once. Thus, I'd like to ask for some Big-Books on…
Changu Kang
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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 machine with a certain high degree of complexity scores…
silenceislife
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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 human agent A and two other agents - B and C, one…
Leon
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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., Russell and Norvig's, Artificial Intelligence: A…
Roddus
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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 room actually contains, in analogical form, all the…
Roddus
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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 "correlating the second batch with the first batch." The…
BLUC
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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 - or at least the Chinese room argument doesn't…
Roddus
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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 'because A, therefore B'. We can model it in computer.…
Ajax
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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 constructor theory in a cellular automaton…
CriglCragl
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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 in his 1950 paper when talking about the…
Roddus
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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 is this concept adequate? In fact can today's…
Roddus
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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 mysterious. Why did Turing so eagerly promote the…
Roddus
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