Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Computing Machinery and Intelligence 59theorem is to be used we need in addition to have some means ofdescribing logical systems in terms of machines, and machines interms of logical systems. The result in question refers to atype of machine which is essentially a digital computer with aninfinite capacity. It states that there are certain things thatsuch a machine cannot do. If it is rigged up to give answers toquestions as in the imitation game, there will be some questionsto which it will either give a wrong answer, or fail to give ananswer at all however much time is allowed for a reply. Theremay, of course, be many such questions and questions whichcannot be answered by one machine may be satisfactorily answeredby another. We are of course supposing for the present that thequestions are of the kind to which an answer “Yes” or “No” isappropriate, rather than questions such as “What do you think ofPicasso?” The questions that we know the machines must fail onare of this type. “Consider the machine specified as follows . .. Will this machine ever answer “Yes” to any question?” Thedots are to be replaced by a description of some machine in astandard form . . . When the machine described bears a certaincomparatively simple relation to the machine which is underinterrogation, it can be shown that the answer is either wrongor not forthcoming. This is the mathematical result: it isargued that it proves a disability of machines to which thehuman intellect is not subject.The short answer to this argument is that although it isestablished that there are limitations to the powers of anyparticular machine, it has only been stated, without any sort ofproof, that no such limitations apply to the human intellect.But I do not think that this view can be dismissed quite solightly. Whenever one of these machines is asked the appropriatecritical question, and gives a definite answer, we now that thisanswer must be wrong, and this gives us a certain feeling ofsuperiority. Is this feeling illusory? It is no doubt qitegenuine, but I do not think too much importance should beattached to it. We too often give wrong answers to questionsourselves to be justified in being very pleased with suchevidence of fallibility on the part of the machines. Further,our superiority can only be felt on such a occasion in relationto the one machine over which we have scored our petty triumph.There would be no question of triumphing simultaneously over allmachines. In short, then, there might be men cleverer than anygiven machine, but then again there might be other machinescleverer again, and so on.Those who hold to the mathematical argument would, I think,mostly be willing to accept the imitation game as a basis fordiscussion. Those who believe in the two previous objectionswould probably not be interested in any criteria.4. The Argument from Consciousness. This argument is verywell ex-