The Incomputable Alan Turing

TL;DR

This paper explores Alan Turing's work on incomputability, highlighting its influence on his ideas of machine intelligence and its ongoing relevance in logic and artificial intelligence.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of incomputability's role in Turing's work and its implications for understanding machine intelligence and logical developments.

Findings

Incomputability significantly shaped Turing's conception of machine intelligence.

Turing's ideas anticipated modern developments in logic and artificial intelligence.

The paper emphasizes the philosophical and practical importance of incomputability in computing history.

Abstract

The last century saw dramatic challenges to the Laplacian predictability which had underpinned scientific research for around 300 years. Basic to this was Alan Turing's 1936 discovery (along with Alonzo Church) of the existence of unsolvable problems. This paper focuses on incomputability as a powerful theme in Turing's work and personal life, and examines its role in his evolving concept of machine intelligence. It also traces some of the ways in which important new developments are anticipated by Turing's ideas in logic.