NicholasKees's Shortform

Niki Dupuis

NicholasKees's Shortform — LessWrong

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I was reading the original Turing test paper, and came across a bizarre paragraph called "The Argument from Extrasensory Perception" where Turing says, "Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming." He then proposes that if the human participants are allowed to use extrasensory perception, the test would need to be improved by placing participants in a "telepathy-proof room".

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14XelaP5mo

Admittedly, this was at a time where it was more plausible. Many scientists believed in ESP type stuff, and you saw recent miracles wielding the power of electromagnetism. The question I have: when could people have first gotten estimates of the fields produced by the brain to within a few OOMs? e.g. when were the first roughly accurate measurements of the amperage of an action potential? It seems like it'd be roughly before Turing's time, but I'm not sure when the actual number was produced. As an example of plausibility: if you use machines you can have brain to brain stimulation, via magnetoencephalography and TMS.

ChristianKl5mo53

When Turing was written there were a lot of new discoveries in physics, while today we think that we understand physics well enough to rule out forces unknown forces through which telepathy might work. (and scorn those people who think it might work through some crazy quantum entanglement)

16Zephaniah Roe5mo

Unrelated but I have always found the following passage from this paper fascinating. Turing lists some counterarguments to his claim that by roughly 2000, machines will be pretty good at the "imitation game." [...] One thing that is interesting here is that we currently are living in a time where many have their heads in the sand. The other interesting thing is "Consolation would be more appropriate: perhaps this should be sought in the transmigration of souls." Should we take this wording to mean that Turing does actually see the prospect as frightening yet inevitable? Does his solution--probably said with some amount of jest--reference humankind merging with machines?

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