Alan Turing, the brilliant, is a darling of materialists. He is hailed as the founder of computing science and instrumental towards invention of the computer.
Before Turing, the dominant idea was that through mathematical reason, the human mind can gain access to the Platonic truths, Turing rejected this view in his 1936 paper on 'Computable real numbers'. He identified the constraints which bind mathematical reasoning in general (whether done by humans or machines). He proved that a universal algorithmic method of determining truth in math cannot exist.
Later in his essay of 1950 'Computing machinery and Intelligence' he argues that the same criteria that we use to impute intelligence and consciousness to other human beings could in principle be used to impute them to machines. He proposed a test which has come to be known as Turing Test. The Turing test has the following scheme. A human judge converses with both another human and a computer (which is able to communicate in the judge’s language) separately. The judge hasn’t been told which is which. After the judge has to determine which was the human participant and which was the machine. If the machine could deceive the judge into thinking of it as being human, the machine is said to have passed the test.
Many machines today can pass this test -- in a limited way. And apparently that makes Turing a darling of materialists as if the proposition of Turing Test itself is evidence of computational origin of consciousness. Materialists forget that the decision whether a machine has passed the Turing test, still needs to be judged by human intelligence, which is fallible as per Turing himself.
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With this background it is very sweet to actually learn a bit about Alan Turing and his view on machines and spirit.
The Binary Code of Body and Spirit: Computing Pioneer Alan Turing on Mortality
In a letter to a deceased friend's mother, Turing wrote:
Before Turing, the dominant idea was that through mathematical reason, the human mind can gain access to the Platonic truths, Turing rejected this view in his 1936 paper on 'Computable real numbers'. He identified the constraints which bind mathematical reasoning in general (whether done by humans or machines). He proved that a universal algorithmic method of determining truth in math cannot exist.
Later in his essay of 1950 'Computing machinery and Intelligence' he argues that the same criteria that we use to impute intelligence and consciousness to other human beings could in principle be used to impute them to machines. He proposed a test which has come to be known as Turing Test. The Turing test has the following scheme. A human judge converses with both another human and a computer (which is able to communicate in the judge’s language) separately. The judge hasn’t been told which is which. After the judge has to determine which was the human participant and which was the machine. If the machine could deceive the judge into thinking of it as being human, the machine is said to have passed the test.
Many machines today can pass this test -- in a limited way. And apparently that makes Turing a darling of materialists as if the proposition of Turing Test itself is evidence of computational origin of consciousness. Materialists forget that the decision whether a machine has passed the Turing test, still needs to be judged by human intelligence, which is fallible as per Turing himself.
...
With this background it is very sweet to actually learn a bit about Alan Turing and his view on machines and spirit.
The Binary Code of Body and Spirit: Computing Pioneer Alan Turing on Mortality
In a letter to a deceased friend's mother, Turing wrote:
".....As regards the question of why we have bodies at all; why we do not or cannot live free as spirits and communicate as such, we probably could do so but there would be nothing whatever to do. The body provides something for the spirit to look after and use....."
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