Centre for Open Education

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
NSW 2109 AUSTRALIA

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

(For Open Universities Australia students)
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Unit Code

PHI310

Assignment No.

Assignment Title

Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Due Date

17/06/2012

Contact Info

Phone:0403424484

Unit Name

Philosophy of Cognitive Science

COE USE ONLY

Date Received

Email:joseph.zizys@gmail.com

Word Count:

Turnitin No.:

(If Applicable)

(If Applicable)

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Student Name:

Family Name Zizys

Student Number:

42351979

Date:

15/06/2012

Given Name Joseph

PHI 310: Expository exercise one

Due Date: 5pm, Sunday of Week 3
Length: 450-550 words

On Turings Computing Machinery and Intelligence

By Joseph Zizys
Std No: 42351979

In Computing Machinery and Intelligence Alan Turing outlines a thought experiment in which a
questioner tries to identify the gender of two people behind closed doors by asking them
questions about themselves via typed messages. The participants attempt to deceive the
questioner by lying about their gender. Turing then asks what we might be led to think if one of
the participants was replaced by a computer, and the computer was successful in deceiving the
questioner into thinking it was a human.

The problem the thought experiment is designed to address is whether or not a machine could
think, and how we could possibly tell if it did. This question is significant not just for artificial
intelligence but also for epistemology, for the plausibility of mechanistic or naturalistic accounts
of the mind and thought in humans and for the problem of other minds, thus the article touches
on philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and even ontology.

Turing asks the question; if a machine could behave as if it had a mind, what grounds would a
naturalistic science have to deny that it had a mind? Turing carefully avoids many of the loaded
terms by making his discussion focus on intelligence and by restricting the domain for
intelligence to an exchange of written messages. Turings fundamental contention is that we
have no naturalistic grounds to withhold the ascription of intelligence from something that
manifests it. Turing's main argument is that if a machine where smart enough to trick you into
thinking it was smart then you would have no good reason not to think it was smart.

Turings argument is a powerful one. It works by illuminating the facts about intelligence or
thinking that might meaningfully be studied by a naturalistic science, and indicating the
demarcation line beyond which such study is impossible. To indicate what we mean by this it is
useful to examine Searles famous Chinese Room objection to Turings Strong A.I argument:
Searle says that answering questions in English is a very different cognitive process for an
English speaker than answering questions in Chinese (without knowing any Chinese) by
following mechanical rules laid out in a rule book (or program). The problem with Searles
objection is that it relies on a privileged point of view, that of subjective introspection, that is not
available to a naturalistic science, Searle can never tell, and no naturalistic science can ever tell,
observing other manifestations of intelligence, if they are of the English or of the Chinese
kind, and that is precisely Turings point.
As a kind of afterword, and counterpoint to Searles confidence about the fundamental
inadequacy of Strong A.I, It is interesting to consider that whole novels, and rather moving and
believable ones at that, have been written on the idea that if we where in fact robots we might

not realise it, asking the question Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Bibliography

Dick, Philip K (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Doubleday

Searle, John (1980) Brains, Minds and Programs in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3)
Cambridge University Press

Turing, Alan (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence in Mind vol 59 No 236 Oxford
University Press