alt Hacker NewsI like the analogy with Schrödinger’s cat. Like Schrödinger’s cat it is actually not a good thought experiment. Both have been debunked. Schrödinger’s cat is applying quantum behavior (of a single interaction) to a macro system (with trillions of interactions). While the Turing test can be explained away with Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment.
I would argue that Schrödinger’s cat has done more damage to the general understanding of quantum physics then it has done good. In contrary though, I don‘t think the same about the Turing test. I think it has resulted in a net positive for the theory of mind as long as people take Searle’s rebuttal into account. Without it (as is sadly common in popular philosophy) the Turing test is simply just wrong, and offers no good insight for neither philosophy nor science.
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What do you mean by Schrodinger's cat experiment being "debunked"? The only way I can think to debunk it is to say there are ways to determine if the cat is alive such as heartbeat or temperature, which are impossible to isolate at a quantum level. I don't think anyone claimed the animal was in a superposition.
Note: I said “theory of mind” when I (obviously) meant “philosophy of mind”.
The Turing test and Searle's "rebuttal" are both pretty inconsequential. There's no real definition of "thinking," therefore neither proof/disprove or say much.
Turing's imitation game is about making it difficult for a human to tell whether they are communicating with a computer or not. If a computer can trick the human, then... what? The computer is "thinking" ?
I think most people would say that's an insufficient act to prove thinking. Even though no one has a rigorous definition of thinking either.
All this stuff goes around in circles and like most philosophy makes little progress.