Re: [Wittrs] Wittgenstein on Machines and Thinking
- From: "SWM" <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittgenstein's Aftermath <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:34:04 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Han Geurdes <wittrs@...> wrote:
>
> Indeed Stuart, if aliens were created out of Silicon and not Carbon would
> they count as thinking machines?
>
My point, Han, is that merely being different from what we're used to, when
applying a word like "thinking" to the entity in question, isn't enough to
preclude the application of the term. To some degree, of course, word usage may
change (it always does in our applications over time in any event). But also
something like "thinking" isn't all that well defined either. There may be no
fixed referent for the term but only a range of applications. Why shouldn't
machines be made that can think in some fashion akin to what we count as
thinking in ourselves, even if no current machine qualifies? -- SWM
> On 20 June 2011 16:25, SWM <swmirsky@...> wrote:
>
> > --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@> wrote:
> > >
> > > [corrected version]
> > >
> > >
> > > 'Is it possible for a machine to think?' ... the trouble
> > > which is expressed in this question is not really that we
> > > don't yet know a machine which could do the job. The
> > > question is not analogous to that which someone might
> > > have asked a hundred years ago: 'Can a machine liquify
> > > gas?' The trouble is rather that the sentence, 'A machine
> > > thinks (perceives, wishes)' seems somehow nonsensical.
> > > It is as though we had asked 'Has the number 3 a
> > > colour?' (BB 47)
> > >
> > > But a machine surely cannot think! - Is that an empirical
> > > statement? No. We only say of a human being and what
> > > is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no
> > > doubt of spirits too. Look at the word 'to think' as a tool.
> > > (PI §360)
> > >
> > > SW
> >
> > And the issue, Sean, would be whether a machine can be like us in a
> > relevant way. Say a machine were built to speak to us in a thoughtful and
> > autonomous way. (By "autonomous" I mean without being pre-programmed to give
> > certain answers to certain questions under certain conditions.) Now we have
> > a machine that is like us in a relevant way. Maybe it lacks a body like ours
> > (it's not Commander Data). Maybe it lacks all our sensory capabilities
> > because of different equipment to which it is attached. But if it has enough
> > sensory capability to share enough of our world and language capability (for
> > putting information into words we can understand) AND it has the capacity to
> > learn and think about what it encounters and has learned, then if it
> > answered questions intelligibly (without being programmed to the question,
> > as it were) then what would the problem be?
> >
> > Is it that "think" or "understand" are not simple terms with simple
> > meanings? Well that's fine because a great many of our terms are not, even
> > when applied to entities like ourselves.
> >
> > Would you make the case that Wittgenstein, in the above passages, was
> > saying that it makes no sense to say of a machine that it thinks?
> >
> > But what about an ape, many of which have shown clear thinking behaviors.
> > Or dogs? What about an alien organism from another planet? Could we not
> > think of it as thinking merely because it is sharply different from
> > ourselves?
> >
> > If any of these can be said to think, why not a machine, too? Of course
> > this is not to say that it would make sense to say of any old machine that
> > it's thinking! My toaster certainly shows no signs of contemplation before
> > browning my bread. Nor does my pc. But why would we not be able to say of
> > some machines that they think, even if there are no such examples as of now?
> >
> > SWM
> >
> >
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> >
>
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