Free Will #2

“Turing Test with Numbers”

          I’ve been working on some new entries related to the issue of free will, and it is really hard to know where to start.  There are so many inter-related issues and so many terms that are difficult to define and rather nebulous.  Yet, it is a ubiquitous human experience.  Even little kids can understand free will in the sense that they experience it themselves.  But, having experienced free will every moment of every day for the last 20,000+ days consecutively, I still have a hard time coming up with any kind of good definition, much less an explanation!

          Well, I thought I’d do something a bit fun with this entry, partly just to help me be able to dive in while I figure out how to structure this discussion.  I’ve always been intrigued with the “Turing Test” – the idea that Alan Turing put forth about machine intelligence.  Could a machine fool a human into thinking that the machine was human?  This issue is not directly in line with free will, but it seems to me that it might be a starting point for consideration.  I believe it is closely related to the issue of free will.

          Of course, first I must make a little editorial comment.  I kind of feel that humans are frequently not that hard to fool!  Machines could certainly fool humans in certain situations.  One of the things that humans tend to do is ascribe human traits to lots of things that really don’t have them.  It’s called anthropomorphism.  I know people who name their cars.  What kind of a thing is that?  Personally, I have no deep feelings for any car I’ve ever owned.  Of course the most obvious example of this is how we interact with our pets.  I think most pet owners ascribe pretty significant and extensive human traits to their pets.  At some point in these entries, I’ll have to address the differences between humans and all other animals, including, yes, even dogs!  But not now.

          Actually, I thought it would be interesting to venture into the middle of the computer’s world (yes – an anthropomorphism).  Specifically, numbers.  Could we create a series of numbers – digits – that are uniquely human?  Just a thought experiment I was trying out.  It’s not very easy, but I’d like to try it out on you.

          OK, my first line of thinking was to consider that computers could generate two types of number sequences.  One is some kind of a pattern calculated by some equation, either simple or complex.  The other would be a random number sequence.  Actually, generating a random number sequence turns out to be more complicated than it might first seem, probably because it seems so simple for us humans to do it[1].  But anyway, I thought “all I need to do now is come up with a sequence of numbers that is neither a pattern related to an equation or a random series, and then I will have something that is uniquely human.”  That seemed pretty cool.  But then I thought about the digits of pi – never repeating, but certainly not random.  I know it can be calculated, so it kind of fits into the first category.  But, anyway, I realized that a uniquely human series of digits would be pretty hard to come by. 

          Well, I had an idea that I’d like to try out.  I think I figured out a series of digits that fits the criteria of uniquely human.  I’m going to show you six series of digits, twenty digits each, and one of the six series I claim is uniquely human.  Can you figure out which one it is?

Turing Test Number Series – each containing 20 digits 0-9

One way to think of this is to ask “can you figure out digit #20 (in red) based on the first 19 digits you are given?”

A.  34123034323639550691

B.  12345678901234567890

C.  98832863158718824883

D.  14916253649648110012

E.  71828182845904523536

F.  04656464621583251630

Also, try to figure out how you would generate a circuit or a computer program to generate each of these series of numbers.

I will give the “answer” and my thoughts about it in the next entry so that you have to think about this first. 

FIRST HINT…

DON’T READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT A FIRST HINT!!!

It’s not a huge hint, but maybe this will help:  three of the series are patterns, two are random number sequences, and one is what I consider uniquely human.

OK – ANY GUESSES FROM YOU HUMANS (or computers) OUT THERE?

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[1] I know, I know – can humans really be random?  Can they really generate a series of random numbers?  Surely a topic for the future!