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Updated: Jun 28, 2026
14:05
One Dimensional Turing-Like Handshake Test for Motor Intelligence
Published on: December 15, 2010
First, scale up to the robotic Turing test, then worry about feeling.
Stevan Harnad1, Peter Scherzer
1Institut des sciences cognitives, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3P8. harnad@uqam.ca
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
|October 22, 2008
Summary
Consciousness, or subjective feeling, cannot be explained causally. Cognitive science should focus on replicating performance capacity via the robotic Turing test, excluding the explanation of consciousness itself.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Philosophy of Mind
- Neuroscience
Background:
- The nature of consciousness and subjective experience remains a significant challenge in science.
- Understanding the 'hard problem' of consciousness—why and how we feel—is central to this debate.
Purpose of the Study:
- To re-evaluate the scientific target for cognitive science regarding consciousness.
- To propose an alternative empirical goal that sidesteps the causal explanation of subjective feeling.
Main Methods:
- Philosophical analysis of the concept of consciousness and its relation to function.
- Examination of the causal efficacy of subjective experience.
Main Results:
- Subjective feeling (consciousness) lacks demonstrable causal power in physical systems.
- Explaining 'how and why we feel' is beyond the scope of current scientific paradigms.
Conclusions:
- The empirical goal for cognitive science should be redefined.
- Focusing on achieving the robotic Turing test—replicating all performance capacities—is a viable, albeit consciousness-free, scientific objective.
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