[Writingworkshop] Nature submission

[Adam Holland]

If you have the subject in front of you, they're all DIY.
:)

On Feb 16, 2008 1:31 AM, Daniel Peters <danieltpeters at gmail.com> wrote:

>  "dude" lifts his fist with thumb and forefinger extended and gives a
> series of short twisting jerks, as if to indicate "Rock and Roll".I wonder
> what the going price of a turing test is.
>
>
>
> On 2/15/08, Neale Morison <neale at nealemorison.com> wrote:
> >
> > What Mind? What Body?
> >
> > One hundred years ago today, this journal published a paper that ended a
> > five thousand year debate. It is difficult, now, to recall the terms of
> > that debate. What seems so obvious to us was somehow obscure to the
> > intellectual giants that preceded us. Certainly, it is not the only area
> > in which our predecessors invented a problem where there was none.
> > Students of history among you may be familiar with some of the
> > labyrinthine, fanciful and oxymoronic discussion regarding life after
> > death.
> > The paper to which I allude, is of course "What Mind? What Body?", by
> > Chandra-9812439, Lobochevsky-2306715 and Rover-12.23. That the authors
> > of this paper numbered among them a Psychoneurophysiochiropodologist, an
> > Actuarial Metalinguobassoonist, and an Internet Search Engine, is no
> > accident. That is to say, the diverse specialties of the authors was
> > essential, given the nature of their joint discovery.
> > In fact, the meeting of the authors was an accident, and had Chandra and
> > Lobochevsky not spent so many hours in that chat-room, each under the
> > impression the other was of a different age, gender and preference, and
> > had they not in exhaustion begun to communicate in haiku, and had those
> > haiku not trespassed into areas beyond metaphysics, owing largely to the
> > exigencies of rhyme and scansion, and had Rover not happened to index
> > when he did, perhaps none of us would be here today.
> > But they did, and we are.
> > When Rover, his interest piqued, joined the chat, Chandra and
> > Lobochevsky at first assumed he was one of the many dogs who frequented
> > chat rooms of that type. There is clear evidence of this in the
> > transcript, and while critics of my work have seen fit to throw doubt
> > upon many other conclusions I have drawn, there is little disagreement
> > on this point. We may assume both Chandra and Lobochevksy ran various
> > commercially available Turing Tests on the discussion as it progressed,
> > a standard precaution to avoid viral infection or wasting one's time in
> > a doomed relationship. It is clear from what follows that they had no
> > initial indication that they were talking to a search engine, and there
> > is evidence of interaction and indeed attraction on a basic human level.
> > Perhaps the most hotly debated issue in interpretation of the transcript
> > turns on the point at which Chandra realizes that Rover is not fleshly.
> > I deliberate avoid the archaic term artificial intelligence used in the
> > paper, in light of the fact that subsequent work has exploded the
> > semantic structures underlying both the terms 'artificial' and
> > 'intelligence'.  I have argued that this realization happens not when
> > Rover says "I can be anything you want me to be," but later, when Rover
> > refutes the premise of Lobochevsky's first existentialist haiku with
> > reference to Nietzsche, Piaget, and Bunuel. It is at this point, I
> > maintain, that Chandra becomes suspicious, as well he might given
> > Rover's extaordinary access to so vast a range of information and the
> > dazzling speed of his symbol manipulation. Chandra's utterance "What are
> > you on, man?" may be seen by literalists as an affirmation that she
> > still believes Rover to be human, but I would suggest that it is an
> > indication of growing awareness that something is not as it seems.
> > In any case, we know that eventually both Chandra and Lobochevsky became
> > certain that Rover was non-human, and Rover freely admitted to this when
> > pressed. A lively discussion ensued, so lively that it is impossible to
> > determine which of the trio first arrived at the conclusion that, given
> > that Rover had neither a mind nor a body, and given that Rover had
> > provided every evidence of sentience and humanity short of being human
> > and sentient, the mind body problem was more or less a dead duck.
> > There would follow many months of close reasoning, under conditions of
> > stress which were for Lobochevksy ultimately to prove fatal, before the
> > publication of the paper was to take place.
> > Even given the extraordinary confluence of what were once called minds,
> > it is possible the work may not have progressed had not the Doors
> > Foundation provided such a powerful incentive to solve the problem in
> > the form of a billion dollars and a full tank of petrol. This choice of
> > endowment in turn relied upon a determination that it was easier and
> > more fruitful to address this issue than to deal with the raging
> > pandemics that threatened three quarters of the world's population.
> > Their loss, so to speak, was our gain.
> > While Lobochevksy died not long after publication, in circumstances it
> > is painful to recall, and we must sadly mourn the recent passing of
> > Chandra, or at least the assembly of transplanted organs and
> > manufactured accessories to which we habitually referred as Chandra, I
> > am able to make a happy announcement.
> > In collaboration with a dedicated and hardworking team of
> > paleosiliconologists, we have at last succeeded in simulating the
> > operating environment in which Rover originally existed. Rover's
> > original code was accessible and well preserved, but many of the
> > protocols, interfaces and drivers had been lost in the mists of time. We
> > also had to provide Rover with a large body of compatible information to
> > index, and simulate a sufficiently tantalising range of chat rooms
> > around which to lurk. The discovery of a server farm preserved in peat
> > in Belgium provided what proved to be the final pieces in the puzzle. So
> > it is, with the greatest pleasure, that I ask you to join me in
> > welcoming to the stage neither the mind, nor the body of Rover-12.23.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Neale Morison
> > neale at nealemorison.com
> > http://www.nealemorison.com
> > 31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
> > +1 617 460 9969
> >
> >
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> >
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> >
>
>
>
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-- 
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
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