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Alan Turing’s Concept of Mind

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Abstract

In the mid of nineteenth century, the hypothesis, “machine can think,” became very popular after Alan Turing’s article on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” This hypothesis, “machine can think,” established the foundations of machine intelligence and claimed that machines have a mind. It has the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall explore the importance of Turing thesis, which has been conceptualized in the domain of machine intelligence. Turing presented a completely different view of the machine itself. It addressed philosophers, rather than the mathematicians, and proclaimed that digital computers might be considered as intelligent machines. This approach was wholly new, both philosophically and technically, and started many philosophical debates which continue to this day. He proposed an imitation game, as a test, what is now referred to as a Turing test to evaluate if a machine thinks. That is to say that the main aim of machine intelligence not only constructs challenging programs to solve our day-to-day problems but also reproduce mentality in machines and claimed that all the mental qualities are ascribable to machines. What will be attempted in this paper is a critical evaluation of the arguments against the Turing test put forward by many philosophers.

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Notes

  1. Turing (1950, p. 433).

  2. Ibid. p. 442.

  3. Ibid.

  4. See, Nath (2009a, b).

  5. Searle (1996, p. 41).

  6. Searle (1980, pp. 417–457).

  7. https://nptel.ac.in/content/storage2/courses/109101003/downloads/Lecture-notes/Lecture-19-20-21.pdf.

  8. Turing (1950, p. 438).

  9. Dennett (1981, pp. 152–154).

  10. This is quoted by John R. Searle, in his Minds, Brains and Science, p. 29.

  11. Haikonen (2007, p. 185).

  12. Clark and Chalmers (1998, p. 8).

  13. Putnam (1975/1985).

  14. Shagrir (2005, p. 236).

  15. Putnam (1975/1985, p. 227).

  16. Clark and Chalmers (1998, pp. 7–19).

  17. Ibid.

  18. See, Nath (2009a, b).

  19. Lucas (1964, p. 44).

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid, p. 46.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid, p. 47.

  24. Putnam (1998, p. 4).

  25. Putnam (1989, pp. 74–75).

  26. Ibid, p.83.

  27. See, Nath (2009a, b).

  28. Dreyfus (1979, p. 198).

  29. Weizenbaum (1967, p. 479).

  30. McGinn (1987, p. 280).

  31. Ibid, p.281.

  32. Nath (2009a, b pp. 441–458).

  33. Penrose (1989, p. 407).

  34. Penrose (1994, p. 12).

  35. Lumer et al. (1998, pp. 1930–1934).

  36. Brown and Norcia (1997, pp. 2401–2408).

  37. Tononi et al. (1998, pp. 3198–3203).

  38. Logothetis et al. (1996, pp. 621–624).

  39. Edelman (2004, p. 5).

  40. Laureys (2006, p. 81).

  41. Velpula and Nath (2019, pp. 167–181).

  42. Penrose (1989, p. 26).

  43. Ibid, p.17.

  44. This is quoted by R. Penrose, in his The Emperor’s New Mind, p. 424.

  45. Searle (1996, p. 14).

  46. Searle (1994, p. 1).

  47. Searle (1996, p. 28).

  48. Ibid., 31.

  49. Ibid, 32.

  50. Ibid., p. 37.

  51. Ibid., p 37.

  52. See, Churchland (1989, pp. 338–394).

  53. Pradhan (2002, p. 100).

  54. Searle (1998, p. 386).

  55. Searle (1994, p. 57).

  56. Ibid., p. 56.

  57. See, Nath (2015., pp. 40–53).

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  1. Department of HSS, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India

    Rajakishore Nath

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Nath, R. Alan Turing’s Concept of Mind. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 37, 31–50 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-019-00188-0

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