Turing, A.M., 1950, Computing Machinery  and Intelligence, Mind, 59, 433-460.

The instructor considers this paper to be very important for a number of reasons.

      ♦  What does it mean to say a machine (defined first) thinks?

  It is the first intelligent discussion concerning the construction of smart machines.

  The discussion illustrates the importance of clearly defining what you are talking about before you begin what would  otherwise be a meaningless discussion.

  In the process of defining terms he arrives at an equivalent and much more clearly defined problem.

  The paper incorporates a clever alternative to providing a rigorous proof for an argument. The alternative consists of two parts.

      ♦  One part consists of presenting available evidence to support the hypothesis. Here he uses the terms

          ♦  ♦  Sub Critical and Super Critical

          ♦  ♦  Skin of an Onion

      ♦  The second part consists of anticipating and then providing responses to reasonable objections.

          Clearly, however, such an approach cannot address all objections. His approach to alleviating this potential objection is to group them into larger categories.

          ♦  ♦  The Theological Objection

                    God created humans, therefore...

          ♦  ♦  The "Heads in the Sand" Objection

                    The consequences would be too terrible...

          ♦  ♦  The Mathematical Objection

                     Godel's theorem and the class of unsolvable problems...

          ♦  ♦  The Argument from Consciousness

                    No machine can feel pleasure or grief...

          ♦  ♦  Arguments from Various Disabilities

                    You may be able to make a machine do this or this but you cannot make it do that... 

          ♦  ♦  Lady Lovelace's Objection

                    "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to  order it to do."...
          ♦  ♦  Argument from Continuity in the Nervous System

                   The nervous system is continuous, computers are discrete...

          ♦  ♦  Argument from Informality of Behavior

                    You cannnot develop rules to cover every situation

          ♦  ♦  Argument from Extra-Sensory Perception

                    This human characteristic cannot be duplicated in a machine...