Comment by Planktonne

19 hours ago

People in the past being wrong doesn't mean you have to repeat the same mistakes, and it definitely doesn't mean you should throw your hands up and declare that all similar things must be identical.

Quibbling over commonly-understood definitions is not a strong argument. If you're genuinely struggling to understand that El Ajedrecista [1] did not meet any definition of thought, then the solution is not to demand that people redefine all terms to accomodate you, but that you consult a dictionary.

You clearly have a working definition, or you wouldn't have been able to declare that tallness isn't thinking; please engage honestly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ajedrecista

I have a vague understanding, enough to know that tallness isn't thinking. I think I can usually use the word correctly. (I don't think El Ajedrecista qualifies, but it was starting to play chess, so it's closer to "smart" than a rock is.)

That doesn't mean I know whether "smart" should be applied to what AI's do, and I suspect nobody else knows either. This is the sort of thing philosophers debate about, not common sense.

Turing invented the imitation game because he didn't really know either.