34804Y140 For all you know, the year might be 2216

AND YOU
ARE ALSO JUST
ANOTHER VERY BORED TEENAGER
IMMERSED INSIDE A 'VIRTUAL WORLD'
GAME THAT STIMULATES A VERY PRIMITIVE
& EXCITING WORLD OF THE EARLY 21st century?!!!
Once you acknowledge the mere feasibility of such a scenario,
modern mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is
only one real world, whereas the actual number of possible potential virtual worlds is infinite,
the probability that YOU happen to inhabit the SOLE 'REAL WORLD' is almost zero!? None of our scientific
breakthroughs has managed to overcome this notorious Problem of Other Minds!? The best test that scholars
have so far come up with has been called the Turing Test, but it examines only social conventions?! According to the Turing Test,
in order to determine whether a pc hàs a mìnd, you should communicate simultaneously both with thàt computer ànd with a real person, without knowing which is which!!! You can ask whatever question you want, you can play 'your' games, argue, ànd ÉVEN flìrt with them. Take as much time as you like.... Thèn you need to decide whìch ìs the computer, & whìch ìs the húman! And if you cannot make up your mind, or if you make a mistake, the computer has passed the Turing Test, and we should treat it as if it really does have a mînd? However, that won't really bé a proof, of course! Acknowledging the existence of other minds is merely a social and legal convention. The Turing Test was invented in 1950 by the British mathematician Alan Turing, one of the fathers of the Computer
Age. Turing was also a gay man in a period when a 'socalled' homosexuality was still illegal in Britain! In 1952
he was convicted of committing homosexual acts and forced to undergo a
"chemical castration"! The Turing Test is simply a replication of a
mundane test every 'gay' man had to undergo in 1950s Britain:
càn yóu pass for a 'straight' man? Turing knew from personal
experience that it didn't matter whó yóu réally were -
it mattered only what others thought about yóu.
According to Turing, in the future computers
would be just like gay men in the 1950s.
It won't matter whether computers
will actually bé conscious
or not. It will matter
only what people
think about
you.