Well Stuart, I don't know that we are able to communicate on the matter. The empirical question is what the thing called "machine" (in the future) is doing when it is said to be "thinking." If everyone understands both of these things -- what the creature is and what it is doing -- then agreement or disagreement with the proposition becomes only a matter of what sense of "think" and "machine" one is using. Asking whether a "machine thinks" asks that you FIRST have in mind a sense of "think" and a sense of "machine." In ordinary senses of these ideas, the answer seems to be "no" -- but ONLY BECAUSE OF THE GRAMMAR OF THE ORDINARY SENSE. That grammar is predicated upon what "machines" being things like typewriters and personal computers. If we say that a dog "thinks" and that a human "thinks," we don't necessarily have the same sense of the idea. Better to say the dog dog-thinks. Or that humans human-think. What you are doing with your futuristic thought experiment is taking a grammar that is in play at a certain time -- human over here, machine over there -- and pretending that a "machine" is created that human-thinks. The reply here is to say that, once you do this, you've un-machined "machine" or, if not, have violated "human-think," because that idea has a species-specific grammar. The reason thinking can have a species-specific grammar is that brains are different across creatures, making their form of life different. If you create a hypothetical where a creature can actually share our form of life, you've completely changed the conditions for languaging about it. There might be a new sense of "think" inaugurated by this -- surely there would be a new sense of "machine." More likely, there would be new terms entirely. Compare these advancements: clone, alien, cyborg, etc. Now, if you deny that "thinking" has a species-specific grammar when using the term, all you have done is introduce a different SENSE of think. Perhaps it's a child's sense. Or perhaps all it means are the behaviors common to dogs, humans and your machine. Whatever it is, it is LOCAL TO HOW YOU ARE PACKAGING THE INFORMATION. If we all agree on what the information is, what package we use is neither here nor there. This is what causes all the confusion: not what the "machine" is doing. This is what makes debates go on for centuries. This is why they are pointless. Like a dog chasing its tail. <sigh> Let's just leave it like this. I don't think it is fruitful to continue the matter. The gulf between our respective frameworks is just too large. I don't want to go round and round in a telephone conversation in here. Let's just leave it be. Regards and thanks. Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. Assistant Professor Wright State University Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org SSRN papers: http://tinyurl.com/3eatnrx Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs
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