X-Message-Number: 8526
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 23:00:16 -0700
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Sorry to come in late but I just got off a plane.

>The _only_ thing a computer does is flip switches.

A computer flips switches in response to events in its environment, and 
directly affects its environment via various devices too. Computers, 
in their environment, are constantly growing, interconnecting, proliferating 
and sharing information. Flipping switches is their fundamental, but 
not necessarily their most significant activity. Ignore their 
interactions with their environment, and you may as well have no computer 
at all.

Turing knew this, of course; a Turing machine has an infinite paper tape to 
distinguish it from some lowly FSM. Without the infinite tape all 
the fundamentals of Computability theory, including the general 
halting problem, could not be deduced. Whether your hangup is switches, 
bits, or flashing lights, if you ignore the environment that affects and 
is affected by a computer, you're not considering a really truly 
Turing-equivalent device.

[...]
>No, our minds are not tools. WE are the ones who will things, and 
>choose things. We design our tools to do for us what we want.

That we do fabrication and programming work for computers does not 
suggest that they cannot become vehicles for our minds. On the contrary, 
this use is itself a kind of uploading:

Here we come perilously close to cryonet's bane, and that makes us nervous. 
The wretched question of identity has generated so much more heat than 
light, we press lightly on the keys for fear of waking the beast. Let us 
leave the unanswerable question - whether identity lies in the 
abilities, the essence, or the context, and stick to the facts.

There is a perceived difference between the natural and artificial; this
difference cannot be quantified, and so is worthless in the world of fact.
I think Most cryonetters will recall Heinlein's epigram on this: "The 
obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that 
Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" -- but beavers and their 
dams are." 

In the world of fact, Turing's test is not the philosophical vagary detested
by so many here. The Turing Test provides us with a real litmus for
determining the success of an upload: if the upload is adequate to give its
original no reason to think that it is not his equivalent, then it is a 
success, so far as he is concerned. Isn't that the whole point of
the exercise?

Thomas suggests that it is by our will that we may distinguish ourselves
from computers. But a lack of will would be a glaringly obvious flaw in
any upload. Even in our new world-beating chess computers a lack of strategic
and purposeful thinking would be fatal. 

But there is more to this. The embittered Gary Kasparov remarked of his 
first loss that Deep Blue was constructed specifically to match
*Kasparov* in chess, and that therefore it was not the general chess
powerhouse it seemed. If we credit this, perhaps it is fair to think that,
at least in part, Deep Blue is the first successful upload?

Peter Merel.

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