A mess of a descartes.

therefore i am

So… would you describe yourself as a dualist or a materialist?

Ah, a good morning to you too, how are you this fine day sir?

Stop changing the subject, we are here to talk about the Initiation game as promised yesterday and afore yesterday.

We are indeed, and I kind sir am ready, it was just that your opening gambit caught me by surprise and, may I say, lacked a certain politeness. Or may I suggest humanism.

Sorry, I apologise, I was impatient to begin… good day to you.

Good day sir. Now, what were you saying?

Dualist or mentalist?

Ah, I see you are referring to the so-called Turin Test, or as they explained in the film The Initiation Game, the initiation game.

Now, I see there that you deliberately use upper AND lower case to underline your point.

That I do sir.

By the way, what is it with the archaic language all of a sudden and the multiple sirs?

I was reading about Descartes.

Is that relevant, I don’t remember seeing him in the film - though there was a chess-player.

Alexander, he of the wooden board, was indeed a character in the film – handsome chap…. Descartes wasn’t but had a word or to to say about the imitation game, lower case.

So what is the imitation game, lower-case?

I think, therefore I’m pretty certain; that it’s a test to try to see if the person you are talking to is a machine or a human being.

Ah! That’s why you said ‘nice segue’ the other day. (editorial note t)

It was! And Descartes prefigured the notion by, and I quote here, ‘identifying the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the human from the automaton.’

Nice quote.

Thank you sir.

From whence cometh it ?

Yonder Wikipedia, I like to delve therein when I’ve seen celluloid that stimulates.

So you liked it.

I did, I knew very little of the subject before going and know a lot more now so it was certainly instructive.

Even if a little historically inaccurate?

A minor quibble.

Did it make you cry?

It wasn’t THAT good. Good Vibrations made me cry.

It did!?

Yep.

Hang on, are we talking about The Initiation Game or Good Vibrations?

Tell you what, let's have a break and then we'll try and weave it all together into one tremendous mess.......

(probably to be continued)