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Some Doubts About “Turing Machine Arguments”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

James D. Heffernan
James D. Heffernan*
Affiliation:
University of the Pacific
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Extract

In his article “On Mechanical Recognition” ([6]) R. J. Nelson brings to bear a branch of mathematical logic called automata theory on problems of artificial intelligence. Specifically he attacks the anti-mechanist claim that “[i]nasmuch as human recognition to a very great extent relies on context and on the ability to grasp wholes with some independence of the quality of the parts, even to fill in the missing parts on the basis of expectations, it follows that computers cannot in principle be programmed to recognize or learn to recognize all patterns” ([6]), p. 24). Nelson proposes, contrary to this claim, that “gestalt recognition is not beyond digital automata” ([6], p. 24). in particular, he claims, he will establish by what he calls “Turing machine arguments” ([6], p. 25) that the following four theses are true:

  1. (1) automata can recognize different pattern types in one and the same set of instances;

  2. (2) automata can recognize the “same” pattern in different (even completely disjoint) sets of instances;

  3. (3) automata can recognize incomplete, degraded patterns having missing or indeterminate parts;

  4. (4) automata can recognize family resemblances. ([6], pp. 24–25)

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 638 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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References

[1] Dennett, D. C. Content and Consciousness. New York: Humanities Press, 1969.Google Scholar
[2] Dennett, D. C. “Intentional Systems.” The Journal of Philosophy 67 (1971): 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Dennett, D. C. “Mechanism and Responsibility.” In Essays on Freedom of Action. Edited by Honderich, Ted. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.Google Scholar
[4] Dreyfus, H. L. What Computers Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.Google Scholar
[5] Mendelson, E. Introduction to Mathematical Logic. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1964.Google Scholar
[6] Nelson, R. J. “On Mechanical Recognition.” Philosophy of Science 43 (1976): 24–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Sayre, K. M. Consciousness: A Philosophic Study of Minds and Machines. New York: Random House, 1969.Google Scholar
[8] Sayre, K. M. Recognition: A Study in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963.Google Scholar