At heart it was the same problem of mind and matter that Eddington had tried to rescue for the side of the angels by invoking the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. But there was a difference.
这个问题的本质,是思想与物质的关系,爱丁顿曾经试图用海森堡不确定性定理来拯救自由意识论。但是这里有所不同。
Eddington had addressed himself to the determinism of physical law, in order to deal with the kind of Victorian scientific world-picture that Samuel Butler had parodied in Erewhon:
爱丁顿的着眼点,是塞缪尔·勃特勒在《埃万共和国》里描绘的维多利亚式科学图景:
If it be urged that the action of the potato is chemical and mechanical only, and that it is due to the chemical and mechanical effects of light and heat, the answer would seem to lie in an enquiry whether every sensation is not chemical and mechanical in its operation?
如果说运动是化学的、机械的,那么感觉是否也是化学的、机械的?
...Whether there be not a molecular action of thought, whence a dynamical theory of the passions shall be deducible?
……意识是否也有作用?我们能不能推导一套动力学理论,来解释人的激情?
Whether strictly speaking we should not ask what kinds of levers a man is made of rather than what is his temperament?
我们是否应该无视人的性情,而去关心他是一个什么样的杠杆?
How are they balanced? How much of such and such will it take to weigh them down so as to make him do so and so?
他有多么平衡?如何才能让他不平衡?
It was a picture drawn from nineteenth century physics, chemistry and biology.
这番质问反映了19世纪的物理、化学和生物学面临的挑战。
But the Turing challenge was on a different level of deterministic description, that of the abstract logical machine, as he had defined it.
但是图灵的挑战,是在决定论的另一个层面上,一个抽象的逻辑机器的层面。
There was another difference. Victorians like Butler, Shaw and Carpenter had concerned themselves with identifying a soul, a spirit or life force.
另外还有一个不同,维多利亚时代的人,比如勃特勒、萧伯纳和卡本特,他们讨论的是人的灵魂和精神,
Alan Turing was talking about 'intelligence'.
而图灵现在要讨论的是"智能"。