Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
The claims that Dr. F. H. George (Philosophy, April 1957, p. 168) makes on behalf of his machines are obscurely stated. Does he claim (1) that a machine has been made and has actually produced a kind of response which is incalculable, given the specification to which it has been built and also the prescribed conditions, what is put in for the particular performance in question? “Incalculable” does not mean that nobody has bothered to calculate, but that somebody has bothered, that the calculations show that the response in question is not among the calculated ones, that it is not chance or mechanical breakdown, but a specific response to something specific among the given conditions. If he could substantiate this claim, then I would reluctantly agree that some machines are cleverer and more thoughtful than I thought possible, and some men sillier and less thoughtful, for they deliberately design machines to do they know not what.
1 “Thinking and Machines,” Philosophy (April 1957) referred to in text as G2.
2 “Could Machines be made to think?” Philosophy (July 1956) referred to in text as G1.
page 259 note 1 “Can Machines Think?” Philosophy (April 1952).
page 259 note 2 “Minds and Machines,” Listener (December 27, 1956).
page 260 note 1 Cerebral Mechanisms in Behaviour: The Hixon Symposium (1951), p. 23.