The difficult legacy of Turing’s wager
Published version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Thwaites, Andrew https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6237-7140
Soltan, A
Wieser, Eric https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0412-4978
Nimmo-Smith, I
Abstract
Describing the human brain in mathematical terms is an important ambition of neuroscience research, yet the challenges remain considerable. It was Alan Turing, writing in 1950, who first sought to demonstrate how time-consuming such an undertaking would be. Through analogy to the computer program, Turing argued that arriving at a complete mathematical description of the mind would take well over a thousand years. In this opinion piece, we argue that — despite seventy years of progress in the field — his arguments remain both prescient and persuasive.
Description
Keywords
computational neuroscience, philosophy of neuroscience, policy, Alan Turing
Journal Title
Journal of Computational Neuroscience
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0929-5313
1573-6873
1573-6873
Volume Title
43
Publisher
Springer