mechanickal ducks u.s.w.

[sam at zeppomusic.com]

The Turk was certainly a fascinating entity, but also a
fraudulent one. It required (as can be inferred by any
scientifically-versed cynic, since the alternative
would necessitate a level of cybernetic sophistication
even now only in its infancy) the presence of a human
homunculus in the 'CPU' cabinet, who viewed the
chessboard through tiny slits and operated the
machine's limbs via cogs and pulleys. 

The Duck in M&D is not, we presume, a phoney, since it
can fly and love, and is in any case not physically
large enough to contain a man-sized dissembler.

Still, Searle's remarkable Chinese Room Experiment has
relevance to both cases. Combine it with Richard
Feynman's Quantum Electrodynamical double slits
(through a precursor of which - we hope - a stream of
self-interfering photons was falling on the Turk's
director's retinas), and we are left with the
remarkably Pynchonian situation wherein the Turk only
BECOMES a fake when someone opens the cabinet and
reveals the chicanery. Get it?

- Sam.

Links:
http://members.aol.com/wutsamada/chapter3.html
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/DoubleSlit/DoubleSlit.html

On Mon, 15 April 2002, "Burns, Erik" wrote

> 
> foax:
> haven't seen this mentioned on the list; if you've
been through it, accept
> my apologies.
> otherwise, could be of interest in re things
mechanickal & S.H.R.O.U.D.like.
> etb
> 
>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802713912/qid=1018861586/sr=8-8/ref=
> sr_8_67_8/104-7912338-3509550
> 
> (review below from The Wall Street Journal)
> 
> Mysterious Automaton
> 
> THE TURK
> By Tom Standage
> 
> The question engaged everyone from Charles Babbage to
Edgar Allan Poe: How
> did it work? Wolfgang von Kempelen's automaton was
able to play chess with
> people -- and almost always beat them. As told in Tom
Standage's marvelous
> "The Turk" (Walker, 272 pages, $24), this life-size
mannequin attired in
> Eastern costume, complete with turban, stunned
viewers when first
> demonstrated at the Austrian court in 1770.
> 
> Seated at a cabinet with a chessboard on top, it
responded to the moves of
> its adversaries by moving its pieces. It could also
roll its eyes, wink and
> say "check" when needed. After Napoleon captured
Vienna in 1809, he
> challenged the Turk to a game. By then it was owned
by musician-impresario
> Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who had refined its workings.
The French emperor
> tried three illegal moves, and the Turk knocked all
the pieces onto the
> floor. Napoleon was delighted.
> 
> What a mystery it was! Before each performance the
interior of the cabinet
> was exposed, uncovering elaborate machinery. It was
then turned around so
> that the audience could look into the back, too, and
see that no one was
> hidden inside. Finally, Kempelen wound it up and
stepped back while the Turk
> made mincemeat of its human opponents.
> 
> Mr. Standage, a technology correspondent for the
Economist, conveys the 18th
> century's fascination with automatons, from man-made
ducks that could flap
> their wings, eat grain and then excrete it to entire
miniature orchestras
> playing music commissioned from Beethoven. He also
shows how the ingenuity
> lavished on these toys led to more useful discoveries
and how the Turk was
> the forerunner of IBM's "Deep Blue," the computer
that played and beat Garry
> Kasparov.
> 
> So was the Turk a pure machine or not, you ask? As
Maelzel responded to
> Poe's direct question: "I will say nothing about it."
> 
> -- Stuart Ferguson
> 
> Updated April 12, 2002