[Wittrs] Wittgenstein on Machines and Thinking
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:06:05 -0700 (PDT)
[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
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