Computation & Philosophy of Mind

Alan Turing

1912–1954 · Computation & Philosophy of Mind

The Mind Who Invented the Machine That Thinks

Turing is for the person who asks where the boundary is between thinking and calculating — and whether that boundary might be an illusion. You've probably wondered what it would mean for a machine to genuinely think, and whether the question even makes sense. Turing didn't just build the theoretical foundations of every computer — he asked the question that still haunts AI: can a machine do something that deserves to be called thinking? His answer was not "yes" but something far more interesting: perhaps the question itself needs redesigning.

the nature of computationmachine intelligencemathematical foundationsthe limits of the decidablemind and mechanism

Where to Start Reading

The Essential Turing

Edited by B. Jack Copeland — the definitive collection of Turing's key papers, including 'On Computable Numbers' (1936) and 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' (1950). Each paper comes with accessible editorial commentary. Start with the Imitation Game paper.

Alan Turing: The Enigma (Andrew Hodges)

The authoritative biography — rigorous on the mathematics, moving on the life. Hodges makes the technical work genuinely comprehensible. The basis for the film The Imitation Game, though far deeper.

Turing's Vision (Chris Bernhardt)

A short, accessible guide to Turing's 1936 paper for readers without a maths background. If you want to understand what a Turing machine is and why it matters, this is the clearest explanation available.

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

Related Thinkers

Classical Philosophy

Plato

428–348 BC

The Inventor of the Examined Life

Stoic Philosophy

Marcus Aurelius

121–180 AD

The Private Notebook of an Emperor

Rationalist Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza

1632–1677

The Geometer of Human Freedom