will the organism in our experiment behave differently ... or change in any way due to our new command?
"Certainly it will be different. It probably will behave differently. But it also may not if, for example, that gene you disabled was functionally duplicated elsewhere." - edsheppa
And now you've done it. You've admitted that the cellular system processes genetic instructions, rather than merely expresses them.
Thus, the whole issue of the Turing Test is moot. If the cellular system processes commands and data without dispute on this thread, then there is no need to tie ourselves up in senseless semantic arguments over the Turing Machine (which is good, because your claim that the Turing Test was about "intelligence" rather than processing was pretty bizarre, especially in a biological discussion).
your claim that the Turing Test was about "intelligence" rather than processing was pretty bizarre...Dude, is it so hard to click a link and learn something? I guess so. Just for the lurkers, here's the accepted definition
Turing testA criterion proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 for deciding whether a computer is intelligent. Turing called it "the Imitation Game" and offered it as a replacement for the question, "Can machines think?"
A human holds a written conversation on any topic with an unseen correspondent (nowadays it might be by electronic mail or chat). If the human believes he is talking to another human when he is really talking to a computer then the computer has passed the Turing test and is deemed to be intelligent.
As everyone but you will see, my characterization is accurate and yours isn't. The Turing Test is only about machine intelligence.
...especially in a biological discussion
Yes, it is bizarre. Why then did you bring it up in #697? Oh, that's right, you didn't know what it was.
You've admitted that the cellular system processes genetic instructions, rather than merely expresses them.
I have no #@%$&* idea what you mean. I don't think you do either.