Combining Texts

Ideas for 'A Discourse on Method', 'Sets, Aggregates and Numbers' and 'Deriving Kripkean Claims with Abstract Objects'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / c. Turing Test
A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes]
     Full Idea: One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can.
     From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56)
     A reaction: A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
Abstract objects are captured by second-order modal logic, plus 'encoding' formulas [Zalta]
     Full Idea: My object theory is formulated in a 'syntactically second-order' modal predicate calculus modified only so as to admit a second kind of atomic formula ('xF'), which asserts that object x 'encodes' property F.
     From: Edward N. Zalta (Deriving Kripkean Claims with Abstract Objects [2006], p.2)
     A reaction: This is summarising Zalta's 1983 theory of abstract objects. See Idea 10558 for Zalta's idea in plain English.