A Phil/Comp-Sci Pseudokoan
A young monk asks the Zen-master Roussos: “What is the best computer game ever?”
Roussos replies: “Manic Miner on the 48K ZX Spectrum.”
“Wonderful, my game-playing neural-network has long since mastered that game. Eugene has been toileted” said the monk.
The novice then continues: “What is the second-best computer game ever?”
Roussos replies: “Clearly Sonic 2 on the Megadrive. It even came out on Sonic Tuesday.”
“Fantastic, my GAN just stylistically blitzed through that too. And the third best?”
Roussos graciously replies: “Elite on the BBC Micro, or perhaps Populous on the Amiga.”
“Indeed, much trickier, but both recently Armageddoned and ELITED to beyond Thargol.”
So, the zen-master enquires: “Could your game-playing Turing-machine know the warped mind of Mathew Smith if I fed it his Z80 machine code?”
“Ah…” said the novice.
R. Jones, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Liverpool. Hsdjon12@liv.ac.uk