Alan Turing Essays (Examples)

This machine was also one of the first true computing machines, and its level of logical simplicity and mechanical complexity are evidence of Turing's supreme genius in this area (Ellsbury). Not only did this machine revolutionize cryptography, which in itself made a giant contribution to the world of computer science, it also provided a great deal of information that was used by the Allies in order to win the war (ikiepedia; Ellsbury). The Bombe in and of itself, however, does not constitute Turing's single greatest achievement in the world of computer science or logic.

This honor, without a doubt, belongs to the Turing Machine, which is not actually a mechanical device at all, or even a single machine (Hodges (a)). The Turing Machine is actually a description of infinitely man theoretical machines, which could be built to carry out a specified series of operation based on the reading, erasing, and…

Turing and Searle Response

(a) Alan Turing would answer the question as to whether or not Amy should punish her child for insulting the intelligence (quite literally) of Siri by stating that she should punish the child. There are two principle reasons as to why Turing would advocate this point-of-view. The first is that Turing believed that computers and machines were capable of intelligence. In fact, he posited the viewpoint that one of the points of confirmation of the intelligence of these types of inanimate objects is whether or not they could pass his Turing test, in which an interrogator decides which of two sources, one a person and the other a computer, is an actual human (and therefore capable of intelligence). This assignment states that Siri is able to pass such a test, which greatly implies that Turing would ascribe a significant degree of intelligence to that machine and…

Agnes Meyer Driscoll

Like Yardley, Agnes Meyer Driscoll was born in 1889, and her most significant contribution was also made during World War I. Driscoll worked as a cryptanalyst for the Navy, and as such broke many Japanese naval coding systems. In addition, Driscoll developed many of the early machine systems. Apart from being significantly intelligent for any person of her time and age, Driscoll was also unusual in terms of her gender. Her interests led her to technical and scientific studies during her college career, which was not typical for women of the time (NA). When she enlisted in the United tates Navy during 1918, Driscoll was assigned to the Code and ignal section of Communications, where she remained as a leader in her field until 1949.

As mentioned above, Driscoll's work also involved remerging technology in terms of machine development. These were aimed not only at creating ciphers,…

Functionalism is. What advantage does it have over the Identity Theory?

Functionalism imparts the theoretical underpinnings of much work in cognitive science and is one of the chief theoretical developments of Twentieth Century analytic philosophy. To solve psyche problem, functionalism is presented as one of the main schemes. Following are the customary questions that are asked to solve psyche problem: what makes a mental state mental? Or what is the eventual nature of the mental? To be more particular, what makes a thought? Or what do thoughts have in common in virtue of which they are thoughts? What makes a pain? (Functionalism) Through their informal roles, functionalism recognizes mental states and processes; and neural states and processes hold functional roles. (The Identity Theory of Mind)

As per functionalism, informal relations among mental states sensory inputs and behavioral outputs comprise mental states. Three separate sources of functionalism are as follows. Putnam…

History Of Communication Timeline

TIMELINE: HITORY OF COMMUNICATION

(with special reference to the development of the motorcycle)

35,000 BCE.

First paleolithing "petroglyphs" and written symbols. This is important in the history of communication because it marks the first time humans left a recorded form of communication. Also, these written symbols became the ultimate source of later alphabets.

Wikipedia, "Petroglyph."

12,600 BCE.

Cave paintings at Lascaux show early representational art. This is important in the history of communication because the caves depict over 2000 figures, including abstract symbols. More recent research suggests these may record astronomical information.

OURCE: Wikipedia, "Lascaux."

3400 BCE.

First surviving umerian pictograms demonstrate a primitive form of record keeping. This is important in the history of communication because pictograms, together with ideograms, represent a primitive form of writing, in which a symbol either means what it looks like, or represents a single idea.

OURCE: Wikipedia, "Pictogram."

3300…

Communication History

Fans of science fiction are fond of recalling a remark by novelist Arthur C. Clarke, to the effect that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I am currently typing these sentences onto a laptop, where I am also currently watching a grainy YouTube video of the legendary magician Harry Houdini, performing one of his legendary escapes -- from a straitjacket, in this case. Houdini is probably the most famous stage magician of the twentieth century, as witnessed by the fact that his name is familiar to my generation although he died almost a century ago. If Houdini were to suddenly reappear in front of me right now -- in the flesh, I mean, and not merely on YouTube -- how would I explain to him that the way in which all of this is taking place? To someone who has been dead for a century, the…

Successful Simulation of Intelligence is Essentially Equivalent to the Possession of Intelligence

Researchers have been attempting to develop artificial intelligence for more than a half century now, but it has become increasingly apparent that intelligence is a multidimensional construct that is incredibly difficult or perhaps even impossible to truly simulate. As the review that follows below will demonstrate, the assertion that successful simulate of intelligence is essential equivalent to the possession of intelligence is erroneous due to the multidimensionality of intelligence as well as its other nebulous qualities that preclude successful simulation being the essential equivalent to the possession of intelligence (Pogio & Meyers, 2016). This paper reviews the relevant literature to show that the Turing test and Chinese Room argument fail to provide an adequate response to this claim. Finally, a discussion concerning whether the successful simulation of human reasoning is in principle possible and whether the answer to…

n addition, he makes several considerations about the machines which have the capacity to learn. He suggests that technological improvements and a learning process associated with rewards and punishments can contribute to having machines learn. Under these circumstances, he states, we would be only a step away from having machines with the capacity of autonomous thinking.

John Searle is also interested in the argument. Unlike Turing, he concludes that regardless of the programme which a machine or computer can be given, the obatined result will never come close to the complex entity that is the human mind. Artificial intelligence can exist and it can reach relevant levels of performance, according to the instructions that a human would give it. However, the thinker underlines, there is no possibility for artificial intelligence to come up with thinking acts on its own. Elements such as consciousness, intentionality, subjectivity belong solely to the human…

Deciphering the Enigma

Attempting a machine that would make codes impossible to break, the German military, as seen above, made a number of modifications to their Enigma machines. The plug board for example enabled the machine to increase its number of possible cipher starting points to something between two and three billion. The Enigma's rotors were also interchangeable while being wired differently, adding even more protection and encryption. In order to decipher codes created in this way, the code breaker would need to know not only the positions of each rotor, but also each starting position. Incredibly, according to Cooper, 100 machines working 24 hours per day would take 5.8 years to exhaust all the possibilities created in this way. It was therefore impossible to decipher the codes without the actual machine, the cipher key, and the correct rotor placements.

Nevertheless, there were those who attempted the impossible, and eventually…

Nonetheless, this does not make philosophy any less important in the field.

Philosophy today can be seen as a manifestation of the workings of the human mind, while psychology studies the mind itself. Philosophy is therefore a very important aspect in helping the psychologist understand the human mind. Philosophy is indeed responsible for the birth of psychology as a discipline in itself, as mentioned.

While the early philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, are responsible for many of the ideas in both philosophy and psychology today, the 17th century philosopher ene Descartes is known as the "father of modern philosophy" (Consciousness 9). All these philosophers made a specific point of studying what it means to be human and conscious.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung built upon the work of all the above philosophers in order to develop his theories of the conscious and the…

Claude Shannon does not have the same name recognition as obert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Alexander Bell, Bill Gates, or Doyle Brunson, but his work had an impact that rivaled each of these famous men. Shannon was a mathematician, an electrical engineer, and a cryptographer is famous in his field as the father of information theory. However, he also helped usher in the modern computer age, and used his mathematical knowledge to make money in Vegas playing blackjack, things that make him relevant to a modern society obsessed with computers and with gambling. In other words, Claude Shannon was a cool scientist before much of America realized that scientists could be cool.

Shannon always had tremendous promise as a scientist, and he realized that promise early in life. He was born April 30, 1916, and he spent much of his young life focused on attaining an education. He had an early…