ABSTRACT
To a future generation of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, the metaphysical truth embodied in Turing's Test was an article of faith, and to many its fulfilment has become their goal. The enduring status of the test is undoubtedly due to its simplicity, when contrasted with the baffling edifice of psychology and philosophy built around definitions of intelligence. The strong AI advocates consider that the mind is a formal system, and that what is required to pass the Turing Test is nothing more or less than a computer system that is formally equivalent to the human mind. John Searle has introduced into strong AI belief a family of nagging inconsistencies about the mind that has pestered modern philosophy since its inception. No branch of AI more purely reflects the approach that is most consistent with the historical pattern of mechanization than the field of expert systems. Paracelsus modified significantly the procedure for fashioning artificial men and came up with different results.
