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The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.

Alan Turing

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Alan Turing
Age: 41 †
Born: 1912
Born: June 23
Died: 1954
Died: June 7
Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Computer Scientist
Cryptographer
Logician
Marathon Runner
Mathematician
Statistician
University Teacher
Warrington Lodge Medical and Surgery Home for Ladies
Alan M. Turing
Alan Mathieson Turing
Turing
Alan Mathison Turing
Machines
Deserve
Question
Believe
Think
Meaningless
Thinking
Discussion
Originals
Original

More quotes by Alan Turing

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In attempting to construct such (artificially intelligent) machines we should not be irreverently usurping His (God's) power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children,” Turing had advised. “Rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates.
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Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.
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A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.
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Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none.
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No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Alan Turing
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Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.
Alan Turing
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Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.
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One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, My little computer said such a funny thing this morning.
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It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.
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Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.
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These disturbing phenomena [Extra Sensory Perception] seem to deny all our scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming.
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Mathematical reasoning may be regarded.
Alan Turing
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When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first... Of course, to observe is not its real duty, we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed...Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.
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Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
Alan Turing
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The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely.
Alan Turing
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A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.
Alan Turing
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I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future. Turing believes machines think Turing lies with men Therefore machines do not think Yours in distress, Alan
Alan Turing
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My little computer said such a funny thing this morning.
Alan Turing
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Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.
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No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain.
Alan Turing