Turing, A.I. and ESP (2/2)- part one

[jporter]

(The 2/2 had to be broken into two parts, sorry if this is a repeat)

Seb:

>>
>>In other words, in most cases all the observer is looking at is
>>the respondent's answer to the question and nothing but the
>>question (bearing in mind previous questions, to make the test
>>more difficult).  An ESP question, in contrast, demands that the
>>respondent has additional knowledge, _beyond_ the question that
>>is asked - the psychic knowledge that the questioner is holding a
>>Star Zener card, for example.
>>
>>This is outside the rules of the game (as people have said on the
>>list).  The rules of the game are all about simulating (OK, let
>>it pass again) intelligence/humanity through strictly verbal
>>responses.   A satisfactory performance on ESP questions is not
>>about simulating intelligence/humanity through strictly verbal
>>responses - it brings in the additional criterion of knowledge at
>>a distance, or as it's put in the usual explanation of the ESP
>>mechanism, knowledge of another mind.

That's right, E.S.P. would be cheating. What better way to mark the hide of
the critter with whom we are so familiar: "You Cheater!" like catching a
sleeze bag relative boogering cards in a game of crazy eights. But, it
would be cheating within the structural limits of the game. The queries and
answers are still only verbal. The question: "What number am I thinking of
at this moment?" would be perfectly legitimate, because both the question
and answer are verbal and can be transmitted by the appropriate channels.
If the human is able to "visualize" the number with a 20% better accuracy
than chance, too bad for the machine. By acknowledging that E.S.P. might
spell doom for the ability of a dsm to pass the test, Turing is admitting
that he is not sure that human thought is a completely deterministic
process. He is saying also, that if E.S.P. is a pseudo-phenonmenon and
there are no other non-deterministic processes hiding in the bushes, than
computer scientists of the future will eventually be able to build and
configure a machine that will pass the test. It's just a matter of time.


>>There's a lot packed into Turing's ESP argument.  HIs assumption
>>that a machine could not have an ESP faculty is, I think, another
>>form of the "Head-in-the-Sand" argument he presents in the
>>article.  Which goes something like "let's hope that a machine
>>can never perform this game so as to pass for a human...think of
>>the consequences...".


That's not exactly his assumption. He assumes that 1) discrete state
machines can imitate verbal behavior sufficiently, in principle, to fool a
human observer into believing that it is a human responding.

[By the way, he assumes they can do this, because, not only are dsm's
determined, but also, due to the discreteness of there outputs, they are
resistant to the "butterfly effect" familiar from chaos theory, which he
describes in his example of the man and the avalanche (see the article).
This was another truly prescient insight of Alan Turing. It would be about
another decade before Edward Lorenz would publish the results of his
computer-weather simulations, and recognize the chaotic phenomenon of
nonlinear "chaotic" systems: sensitve dependence on intial events (the
butterfly effect), and even later for Mandelbrodt to recognize
self-similarity across scales, and give "Chaos" Science a formal birth.
Turing was there in 1950.]

2) E.S.P. may not be a completely determined phenomenon, and, if it is not,
it cannot be mimicked by a dsm. Therefore, if humans are capable of E.S.P.-
or stronger- if thinking itself depends on such non-programmable behavior
(which Turing hints might be the case)- dsm's, no matter how powerful, will
never be able to simulate completely human thought, as manifested within
the bounds of the test.


>>The fact that this assumption ("a machine could not do ESP") is
>>unexamined, and not even presented explicitly, makes me very
>>suspicious that it is another HeadintheSand argument.  The HITS
>>argument is based on fear of the enormous consequences of
>>admitting machines to membership of the community of intelligent
>>beings.  I think that Turing's assumption is a safety mechanism
>>against this anxiety - something along the lines of "well, even
>>if machines do pass this test and many others, we'll still be
>>safe - there still is a difference, thank God: we can do ESP and
>>they, the machines can't."

So, your saying, Turing was concerned that people would be afraid of the
prospect of "thinking" machines, and offered the possibility of E.S.P. as a
last refuge for ol' Mr. Natural- a fob to fend off the "angry villagers,"
torches blazing,  making their way up to the castle...But that scenario
only works as long as there's a Frankenstein to fear. Once Frankie's been
routed, they can't put the genie back in the bottle. E.S.P. becomes a wedge
that forces open the door and allows all sorts of bogies and ghosts to come
issuing in and trip the light fantastic- not to mention the imagination of
the husband of the woman next door. At least Frankie was ugly and had bad
breath. In your scenario, E.S.P. would be a mixed blessing, indeed.
Boundries once taken for granted would never be the same. A.I. v. E.S.P. is
a Hobson's choice, Turing explicity acknowledges this in his article and
laments that fact.

>>A very good reason to get het up about ESP, but not a reason to
>>believe in it (I'm sceptical but ignorant on ESP, but admittedly
>>it would make me breathe easier if it was proven to be real).
>>
>>Assuming that humans do have an ESP faculty.  Who says a machine
>>couldn't?  i.e. who says Turing's assumption is true?

Turing's concerns about E.S.P. are, as mentioned, that it's a
non-determined phenomenon, possibly important in human cognition. The
argument was recycled by Penrose, who dropped the bogie inducing
paranormal, and invoked Godel, as "proof" that even ordinary human thought
lies beyond the capabilities of a discrete state machine. Godel, however,
unlike Turing, was fond of the paranormal- actually embraced it- although
Penrose conveniently ignores that aspect of the man. Penrose also feels the
need to invoke quantum mechanics to explain the peculiarites of
consciousness- a separate issue, not relevant here.


(continued...)