What Turing Did after He Invented the Universal Turing Machine

Authors: Copeland B.J.¹; Proudfoot D.²

Source: Journal of Logic, Language and Information, Volume 9, Number 4, October 2000 , pp. 491-509(19)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Alan Turing anticipated many areas of current research in computer and cognitive science. This article outlines his contributions to Artificial Intelligence, connectionism, hypercomputation, and Artificial Life, and also describes Turing's pioneering role in the development of electronic stored-program digital computers. It locates the origins of Artificial Intelligence in postwar Britain. It examines the intellectual connections between the work of Turing and of Wittgenstein in respect of their views on cognition, on machine intelligence, and on the relation between provability and truth. We criticise widespread and influential misunderstandings of the Church–Turing thesis and of the halting theorem. We also explore the idea of hypercomputation, outlining a number of notional machines that “compute the uncomputable.”

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Artificial Life; Automatic Computing Engine (ACE); Church–Turing thesis; Colossus; connectionism; Halting theorem; history of computing; hypercomputation; Turing; Wittgenstein

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: The Turing Project, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: bjcopeland@canterbury.ac.nz, http://www.AlanTuring.net 2: The Turing Project, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: d.proudfoot@phil.canterbury.ac.nz, http://www.AlanTuring.net

Publication date: 2000-10-01