My basic argument is that a computer cannot distinguish between metaphor and nonsense. This would be my new “Turing Test.” I was very fond of a particular Italian poem, but I was told by an Italian friend that it was a hackneyed poem of little worth. I then taught myself to experience the poem alternately, as real poetry and as the silly nonsense that my friend claimed it really was. Having done so, I realized that I could do the same (...) with any metaphor, such as “having a green thumb.” Thinking about the nature of this switch, from the literal to the metaphorical, I also realized that it was the sort of change that could not be prescribed or even described: this, the basic aesthetic gesture, remains beyond the boundary of logical definition. It then dawned on me that it might provide a test for the validity of a “Turing Test,” by any definition. Can a computer track a mind as it goes through this transformation? I could not envisage such a possibility. This would be a “Turing Test” based on the discipline of aesthetics rather than on technology. It may even be argued that the ability to experience metaphor is the very definition of the human. (shrink)