| 1935 | works |
| p.212 | 3193 | Turing showed that logical rules can be specified computationally and mechanically | |
| Full Idea: Turing showed that any formal process can be specified computationally, and captured by a Turing Machine. Hence logical rules (and arithmetic) could be obeyed not by someone representing and following them, but by causal organisation of the brain. | |||
| From: report of Alan Turing (works [1935]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 8.2 | |||
| A reaction: It is questionable whether logic is an entirely formal process, if it involves truth. You would need an entirely formal notion of truth for that. But a brain can do whatever a flow diagram can do. |
| 1950 | Computing Machinery and Intelligence |
| p.296 | 3979 | The Turing Machine is the best idea yet about how the mind works | |
| Full Idea: Alan Turing had (in his theory of the 'Turing Machine') what I suppose is the best thought about how the mind works that anyone has had so far. | |||
| From: comment on Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950]) by Jerry A. Fodor - Jerry A. Fodor on himself p.296 | |||
| A reaction: I am not convinced, because I don't think rationality is possible without consciousness. The brain may bypass the representations used by a computer. |
| p.57 | p.115 | 5321 | In 50 years computers will successfully imitate humans with a 70% success rate |
| Full Idea: In about fifty years' time it will be possible to program computers to play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70% chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. | |||
| From: Alan Turing (Computing Machinery and Intelligence [1950], p.57), quoted by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §5.9 | |||
| A reaction: This is the famous prophecy called 'The Turing Test'. The current state (2004) seems to be that the figure of 70% is very near, but no one sees much prospect of advancing much further in the next 100 years. Dennett sees jokes as a big problem. |