Simplified to the extreme, the smallest piece of matter will always follow the “rules” of the universe. They will follow the mathematical outcome of whatever force or forces are acting upon it. Larger objects made of small pieces of matter compounded upon each other, will still act the same although the forces and equations will be infinitely more complex. So some object, whether a whale or an atom travels 500 feet at a rate of 100 feet per second. 5 seconds right? So hypothetically let’s say it takes 2 seconds. Nobody knows how but it happened. What would we call this? Magic? Divine intervention perhaps?

Ok, here is where it gets interesting. Now a human being is the object. If these same rules apply to the matter that makes up my brain, then all of the atoms, electrons, and little bits of matter are just following the rules and responding to the forces that are acting upon them. Here’s a small conundrum: If all of my actions when simplified to the extreme level are just the mathematical equation of forces acting upon matter, where is my individuality? Is everything I do a result of some force that has been transfered back and forth between matter for billions and billions of years? If you apply the law of conservation of matter and energy it would be feasible to say that these forces that are acting upon these pieces of matter have been in existence since the beginning of time. Was my life planned out since the big bang? Could everything I will ever do have been predicted at the beginning of time by solving the equations that rule the universe? Philosophically speaking this is a bleak outlook on life. Where is our free will? Does it exist? Did I even have a choice of typing this response, or is it just a result of atoms responding to forces? We as humans think that we have control. “I can move my arm whenever I want.” “I can tell my leg to bend whenever I want.” Can we really?

I think we can. I would equate this to a whale or an atom traveling 500 feet at 100 feet per second in 2 seconds. Magic or divine intervention I say. The soul perhaps. I think we as humans can “create” our own forces, or at least manipulate the “rules” that matter follows in our brains in order to do what we want, to enact our free will. Touring should have come up with a test for this.

Now back to the mathematical representation of a human being. Personally, I think this feat is impossible. It would require the computer or mathematical representation to create its own forces or manipulate the “rules” of the universe. I doubt that this is possible. I have been wrong before though.

So if your objective is the creation of a useful agent then by all means the Turing Test is sufficient (to a point), but if your objective is an intelligent agent then I think in the end the Turing Test has a serious flaw.

In the end the crux of this debate comes down to what you consider ‘artificial’ to denote. Does it mean simulated intelligence? Or does it mean intelligence achieved in a ‘brain’ made out of another substance.

As for the bathroom example, chances are you will be gesturing, using body language, and not just asking them in English (or whatever language). But in the end if they didn’t know the semantics behind your syntax they wouldn’t be pointing you towards the bathroom. And I think it really is as simple as that.

I’ll also confess that the reason I don’t think a program will pass the Turing Test is that I have a very narrow idea of what programming is. I figure you insert a prompt, and then insert an answer to that prompt in the program. Now if that indeed is all that programming boils down to then I think it fair to say the program isn’t intelligent at all.

That isn’t to say that I think humans are somehow special, I just think we are going about our objective in the wrong way.

The important thing about the Chinese room example is that the human is acting as a microprocessor normally would, by decoding the instructions with which it is presented. If you want, you can replace the set of instructions for a computer program with the set of instructions for a human brain.

But the fact of the matter is an agent that passes the Turing Test is not guaranteed to be ‘intelligent’ because Searle’s room would pass the Turing Test, and I don’t think there is anyone who would want to claim that Searle’s room ‘knows’ Chinese.

I’m actually quite interested in this problem from a philosophical perspective, so I don’t know what computer science types think about it. But I think when you object with the claim ‘there is no non-private meaning to a symbol’ (I know that is not how you said it) you are missing the point. 1. A think a strong case can be made for the fact that you understand the symbols that I have typed out. 2. Even if semantics is ‘private’ at least the agent has semantics. Something Searle in his room spitting out random characters (to him) that just happen to make sense (to a Chinese person, speaking the right dialect) does not.

Anyways the Turing Test is imperfect and I think it would be quite easy to come up wit a better way of ‘testing’ intelligence. If you want to know what I think… feel free to check out the link. (Skip down to the Modified Turing Test section if pressed for time.)