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The difficult legacy of Turing’s wager

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Soltan, A 
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

Volume Title

43

Publisher

Springer