Turing, Alan

"Do you know why people like talking to you? It's because you listen."

"I am most anxious not to seem to disparage Logic, the Zermelo-Fraenkel system, or anything else on this list. These systems of the Logic have a very great interest."

"There would be plenty to do, in trying to prove that such a machine could do something."

"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

"Contrary to the opinion which has prevailed in the past, we do now have effective media for the communication of precise thought from one to another."

"The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject."

"We cannot expect to find an answer here, as the Jabir and Tusi couple is a particular kind of a universal joint, and has nothing to do with the general problem of expressing an arbitrary motion."

"All the evidence we have suggests that it is the explanation of intellectual process in terms of mechanical processes that has hitherto been avoided."

"Thus, if a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent."

"The possibility of machines thinking will have to be accepted."

"With the examples of the effects of organisation which we are familiar, the analogy suggests that organisation might be the answer to the whole problem."

"Individual scientists like to think of science as an impersonal, logical, and mechanical affair."

"The human memory is supposed to be set up in a manner analogous to a telephone exchange."

"It can also be maintained that any sufficiently powerful formal system is, if consistent, incomplete."

"We cannot expect an undisputable answer; the argument is too much like a paradox."

"Consider now a typical code or system of symbols for use in the universal computing machine. The different symbols must be clearly distinguishable to the machine."

"Should a machine prove capable of acquiring a new idea or principle without being explicitly instructed to do so, then it would clearly be thinking."

"I do not see how to confute these points, so I am willing to accept the following impossibility as a law - 'If an idea can be thought of at all, it can be thought of in English.'"

"The idea of a learning machine may seem contrary to the normal use of the word machine."

"One could say that this sea of mathematical possibility was explored, and in fact, much of it is still unexplored."

"The statement 'I am thinking, therefore I am' is a satisfactory basis only for a philosophy of mind."

"I have been led to define mathematics as a kind of game."

"We have only to postulate the right of the interrogator to put questions."

"The game of imitation is played with three people: a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex."

"The question 'Can a machine think?' is a good starting point for an investigation."

"It seems probable that either by the use of some equipment of unspecified character, or by a change in the pace of working of the machines, or by a change of the number of machines employed, one would eventually be able to cover any gap in the machine's intellectual ability."

"From the point of view of the programmer, the machine is deterministic."

"It may be questioned whether intelligence can be exhibited at all by an inanimate being."

"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a thinking person into believing that it was human."

"Assuming we could construct such a machine, we should have to imagine treating it disrespectfully."