MICHAEL POLANYI: CAN THE MIND BE REPRESENTED BY A MACHINE?
Polanyiana 19 (1-2):35-60 (2010)
Abstract
In 1949, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester organized a symposium
“Mind and Machine” with Michael Polanyi, the mathematicians Alan Turing and Max Newman,
the neurologists Geoff rey Jeff erson and J. Z. Young, and others as participants. Th is event is
known among Turing scholars, because it laid the seed for Turing’s famous paper on “Computing
Machinery and Intelligence”, but it is scarcely documented. Here, the transcript of this event,
together with Polanyi’s original statement and his notes taken at a lecture by Jeff erson, are edited
and commented for the fi rst time. Th e originals are in the Regenstein Library of the University
of Chicago. Th e introduction highlights elements of the debate that included neurophysiology,
mathematics, the mind-body-machine problem, and consciousness and shows that Turing’s
approach, as documented here, does not lend itself to reductionism.
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2012-03-15
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31 ( #25,288 of 55,935 )
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