• TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I want to bounce something off of anyone willing to contribute.

    First, a statement from @T Clark

    From Wikipedia:

    A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object it would not inwardly feel any pain, yet it would outwardly behave exactly as if it did feel pain, including verbally expressing pain.

    An unself-conscious and unaware organism that acts as if it's self-conscious and aware in a way that cannot be detected either physically or by observing its behavior is conscious and aware.
    T Clark

    The Turing Test

    If a machine can fool a person into believing that it itself is a person, it must be considered as AI. In other words, AI is a person.

    The premise underlying the Turing Test is:

    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's the principle of the identity of indiscernibles which, unlike its converse, the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals, is, last I checked, controversial.

    The Turing Rule is the principle of the identity of indiscernibles and it's the premise on which the Turing Test is based.

    Please discuss. Much obliged.
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    If a machine can fool a person into believing that it itself is a person, it must be considered as AI. In other words, AI is a person.TheMadFool
    Careful with the syllogism. Not that the computer, if it passes the test, is a person. It is that the computer is intelligent.
  • T Clark
    14k
    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's the principle of the identity of indiscernibles which, unlike its converse, the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals, is, last I checked, controversial.TheMadFool

    What you call "the identity of indiscernables," a phrase I hadn't heard before, is a central one to how I see the world. If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference. Both the Turing test and the P-zombie apocalypse are good tests of the principle.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Careful with the syllogism. Not that the computer, if it passes the test, is a person. It is that the computer is intelligent.Caldwell

    You can't tell the difference and, ergo, by the Turing rule, the AI is a conscious (makes it a person) OR, intriguingly, if that's a hard pill to swallow, acknowledge the problem of other minds.

    What you call "the identity of indiscernables," a phrase I hadn't heard before, is a central one to how I see the world. If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference. Both the Turing test and the P-zombie apocalypse are good tests of the principle.T Clark

    I avoided including p-zombies in the OP because I wanted to focus on the Turing principle.

    Anyway, since you brought it up, let's discuss.

    A person (P), an AI (I), and a p-zombie (Z) are all identical as in they can't be identified if all 3 are in a room.

    Ergo, as per the Turing principle:

    1. P, I, Z are all actually conscious. P-zombies are impossible (physicalism) but AI is conscious.

    2. P, I, Z are all not actually conscious. P-zombies are possible (nonphysicalism) but other persons lack consciousness (solipsism).
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    You can't tell the difference and, ergo, by the Turing principle, the AI is a conscious (makes it a person) OR, intriguingly, if that's a hard pill to swallow...TheMadFool
    Dude, don't re-interpret the Turing test. Stick to what the Turing test says.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Dude, don't re-interpret the Turing test. Stick to what the Turing test says.Caldwell

    I have done no such thing.
  • T Clark
    14k
    I avoided including p-zombies in the OP because I wanted to focus on the Turing principle.TheMadFool

    I'm mostly interested in the broad principle you described, what you call the "identity of indescernibles," rather than the specific examples, i.e. P-zombies and the Turing test. It pops up all the time, e.g. different interpretations of quantum mechanics or the existence of universes outside our own.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I'm mostly interested in the broad principle you described, what you call the "identity of indescernibles,"T Clark

    So, what's your take? Do you think the Turing principle (identity of indiscernibles) is justified/unjustified?

    Does it follow that, if X and Y are indistinguishable, X = Y?
  • T Clark
    14k
    So, what's your take? Do you think the Turing principle (identity of indiscernibles) is justified/unjustified?TheMadFool

    As I noted, the so-called "identity of indiscernibles" is central to my beliefs. So, yes, the Turing test is a reasonable way to see consciousness. And there's an even broader principle. As William James wrote:

    Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?

    Not only are two things the same if you can't tell them apart, they're the same if there is no practical, meaningful, concrete difference between them or their consequences.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    My examples have been hypothetical. Can you cite any real-world examples of the Turing principle in action?
  • Gary M Washburn
    240
    [reply="TheMadFool;600773"

    How about being on hold? A very polite bot does not recognize that a live person expects variation even when repeating the same statement. Leibniz was an ass. The identity of indiscernibles is inane, would make us real suckers for Raven, or is it Mystique?

    Turing didn't think a human could be fooled. He also set conditions on the test that would make it very hard not to be. Language is not what philosophers want us to think it is. It is a living growing drama. It is intimacy. Something a machine can never bring to it. A young man of my acquaintance, when annoyed at you, would call you a tino-nino. If very annoyed, a tino-nino-nuckinuck! No machine could ever get the meaning, but even a simpleton human would instantly grasp it. If we are forced to stick to defined terms the sophisticated systems available today certainly could give us a run for the money, but if forced to throw away the lexicon, the human will win hands-down every time. The fact is, all linguistic terms are the result of a synthesis that is still perfectly enigmatic to science and to philosophy, and AI can only win the Turin-Test by locking us into fixed terms and ignoring the mystery of synthesis. It's a drama intimated amongst us, not explicated and recorded in some unchanging format. And if AI really wants to fool us, I suggest it teach its systems how to avoid mindlessly repeating the same assertions without at least altering its inflection to recognize the uniqueness of a real human listener.
  • AJJ
    909
    Turin didn't think a human could be fooled.Gary M Washburn

    This is interesting. I’m not sure either that a human would necessarily be fooled—it seems logically possible for an AI to be indiscernible from a human, but in reality a person could discern the two if they understood the limitations in the AI’s programming and exploited them to discover it.
  • AJJ
    909
    it seems logically possible for an AI to be indiscernible from a humanAJJ

    This might be wrong then, since limitations in the AI’s programming would be unavoidable.
  • Yohan
    679
    Something a machine can never bring to itGary M Washburn
    What if there aren't any machines? What if that is just a concept we project onto experience?

    Imagine you have a dream. In the dream there is AI that communicates to you. The reality would be that this AI in the dream is a symbolic representation of your subconscious, or a collective unconscious etc. If Idealism is true (perhaps a big if), then the whole world is either a collective consciousness or singular consciousness. Either way, it would mean that AI would be stemming from consciousness, even though the AI (carrier of the message) itself could just be a projection or thought form, not itself possessing the consciousness.

    Its kind of like......no matter how good a book is, how intelligently written, how lively the characters in the book, we know that it is only a carrier of a message, and not the intelligence itself.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k


    You overestimate and underestimate at the same time.
  • Gary M Washburn
    240
    Can't say I've ever had a dream involving a computer or "device". Maybe it's a generational thing.

    What AI can never get past is that every time a human uses a word it conveys a difference. Maybe just a unique inflection or tempo, a micro-pause or elision. Something in every word that situates its meaning uniquely.
  • Gary M Washburn
    240


    What? AI? I think you mean I am saying Turing did, as far as I have read of him.
  • T Clark
    14k
    Turing principleTheMadFool

    When I look up "Turing principle" it discusses the computability of functions. I don't think that's what you're talking about. What do you mean specifically?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    When I look up "Turing principle" it discusses the computability of functions. I don't think that's what you're talking about. What do you mean specifically?T Clark

    I edited the OP to correct the confusion.
  • Gary M Washburn
    240
    Isn't a function by definition "computable"?
  • T Clark
    14k
    I edited the OP to correct the confusion.TheMadFool

    When I was a psych major long, long ago, I remember reading about computer generated therapy. Here is a link to a program created back in the 1960s. Pretty limited, but apparently some people couldn't tell that it was computer generated.

    http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/eliza.htm
  • Tom Storm
    9.2k
    Pretty limited, but apparently some people couldn't tell that it was computer generated.T Clark

    Sure. I have met living therapists who are less engaged than a computer and no one seems to notice they aren't really there either...

    I don't think it would be hard to create the illusion of intelligence, after all, most conversation is just a little dance of mechanized and predictable semantics.
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    This is interesting. I’m not sure either that a human would necessarily be fooled—it seems logically possible for an AI to be indiscernible from a human, but in reality a person could discern the two if they understood the limitations in the AI’s programming and exploited them to discover it.AJJ
    The human examiner could not be fooled. The critics of Turing Test had already addressed its limitation -- the "test" is very limited to the basics to which both the human and computer subjects could say yes or no. So the test itself is not representative of what we, humans, would call adequate measure of human intelligence or consciousness. It is intentionally rigged so that not only the human subject, but also the computer could respond.
  • AJJ
    909
    So the test itself is not representative of what we, humans, would call adequate measure of human intelligence or consciousness.Caldwell

    This appears to highlight a problem with claiming that two things are the same if they aren’t discernible: whether they’re discernible or not is subject to the type of examination you’re able to make; it doesn’t seem right to say that two things are the same simply because someone hasn’t under certain conditions been able to tell otherwise.
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    Yes, that is the inevitable conclusion.
  • Michael Zwingli
    416
    The premise underlying the Turing Test is:

    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's the principle of the identity of indiscernibles which, unlike its converse, the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals, is, last I checked, controversial.
    TheMadFool

    Never having read anything by Leibniz, I am assuming that the "principle of the identity of indiscernibles" would dictate that two items which are utterly indiscernible must be held to be identical, ergo the same type of thing?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Never having read anything by Leibniz, I am assuming that the "principle of the identity of indiscernibles" would dictate that two items which are utterly indiscernible must be held to be identical, ergo the same type of thing?Michael Zwingli

    Yes.

    See below to a Marvel comics reference. Raven/Mystique refers to a shapeshifting supervillain/superhero.

    Raven, or is it MystiqueGary M Washburn

    Thanks for the link to ELIZA. Very interesting.

    To all three of the above members

    1. The principle of the indiscernibility of identicals: No issue here. If a and b are the same thing, for every predicate applicable to a (Px), Pa, that predicate is also true for b, Pb. In other words, if a = b implies .


    2. The principle of the identity of indiscernibles: Problematic. Why? Some but not all properties maybe shared. For instance, snow is white and also swans in the northern hemisphere are white. As far as whiteness goes, snow and these swans are indiscernible. Are snow and white swans identical? No! This is the weak version of the principle.

    In defense of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, it applies only if the objects in question are indiscernible in every sense i.e. if for every/all predicate Px, for a (Pa), it is also true that Pb, then a = b. This is the strong version of the principle and is, to my reckoning, clearly true.

    What about the Turing test? Clearly, it's an application of the Turing rule (the identity of indsicernibles, 2 above) but then people know that an AI is a machine and ergo, is definitely distinguishable from a person. So, people may raise an objection to the Turing test, that is to say, the Turing rule is the weak version of the principle of identity of indiscernibles.

    However, study closely what it is that's being assessed - consciousness. Consciousness has some behavioral correlates. For simplicity, let's say that the following predicates are true for consciousness: Pc and Qc where c is consciousness. Suppose now an AI (i) is such that Pi and also Qi. Put simply, the AI (i) is indistinguishable/indiscernible in every and all respects from consciousness (c). This, as you might've already noticed, is the strong version of the principle of identity of indiscernibles. In other words, the Turing test and the Turing rule are immune to the Raven/Mystique rebuttal.
  • Gary M Washburn
    240
    Identity is not an attribute. There is absolutely nothing it is "like" to conscious. Uniqueness is not a myth. There is no calculus, no formulation, that can infer it. You can't use analysis to achieve synthesis until you are capable of recognizing its limit. Its limit, that is, that there is nothing there at all. You might as well determine who you are by the accumulation of scars and scabs on you. They may mark you out, but do not tell you who you are. What they ("attributes") tell you is who you aren't. Analysis is nihilism.
  • Michael Zwingli
    416
    Yes...See belowTheMadFool

    I am currently chewing over...thinking about these two "principles". I have another question. Is "the indiscernibility of identicals" a proposition of Liebniz, as is "the identity of indiscernibles"?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I am currently chewing over...thinking about these two "principles". I have another question. Is "the indiscernibility of identicals" a proposition of Liebniz, as is "the identity of indiscernibles"?Michael Zwingli

    This might help: Identity of indiscernibles/Indiscernibility of identicals

    1. The indiscernibility of identicals:
    For any x and y, if x is identical to y, then x and y have all the same properties.

    2. The identity of indiscernibles:
    For any x and y, if x and y have all the same properties, then x is identical to y.
  • Michael Zwingli
    416
    This might help:TheMadFool

    Thank you. I have drawn a couple of conclusions about this, but am yet thinking it over. I will post something later today.
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