2001-09-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1798This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17982001-09-13ZAnswering Subcognitive Turing Test Questions: A Reply to FrenchRobert French has argued that a disembodied computer is incapable of
passing a Turing Test that includes subcognitive questions. Subcognitive
questions are designed to probe the network of cultural and perceptual
associations that humans naturally develop as we live, embodied and
embedded in the world. In this paper, I show how it is possible for a
disembodied computer to answer subcognitive questions appropriately,
contrary to Frenchs claim. My approach to answering subcognitive
questions is to use statistical information extracted from a very large
collection of text. In particular, I show how it is possible to answer a
sample of subcognitive questions taken from French, by issuing queries to
a search engine that indexes about 350 million Web pages. This simple
algorithm may shed light on the nature of human (sub-) cognition, but the
scope of this paper is limited to demonstrating that French is mistaken: a
disembodied computer can answer subcognitive questions.Peter Turney