Turing's Wager is a

philosophical argument An argument is a series of Sentence (linguistics), sentences, Statement (logic), statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the Logical consequence, conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give Reason (argument) ...

that claims it is impossible to infer or deduce a detailed mathematical model of the

human brain The human brain is the central organ (anatomy), organ of the nervous system, and with the spinal cord, comprises the central nervous system. It consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. The brain controls most of the activi ...

within a reasonable timescale, and thus impossible in any practical sense. The argument was first given in 1950 by the

computational theorist A computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computation are mathematical equation solving and the execution of computer algorithms. Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historic ...

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...

in his paper ''

Computing Machinery and Intelligence "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" is a seminal paper written by Alan Turing on the topic of artificial intelligence. The paper, published in 1950 in ''Mind (journal), Mind'', was the first to introduce his concept of what is now known as th ...

'', published in ''

Mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...

'' . The argument asserts that determining any

mathematical model A mathematical model is an abstract and concrete, abstract description of a concrete system using mathematics, mathematical concepts and language of mathematics, language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed ''mathematical m ...

of a computer (its

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

or any isomorphic equivalent such as a

Turing machine A Turing machine is a mathematical model of computation describing an abstract machine that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite the model's simplicity, it is capable of implementing any computer algori ...

or virtual simulation) is not possible in a reasonable timeframe. As a consequence, determining a mathematical model of the human brain (which is, by its nature, more complicated) must also be impossible within that timeframe.

Effect of modern technology on the wager

It has been argued that modern neuroimaging techniques will allow researchers to create accurate simulations of the human mind within the 21st century (; , ), thereby overcoming the wager.Turing's Wager should not be confused with 'A Wager on the Turing Test', a real-life wager between Kurzweil and Mitchell Kapor over whether a computer will pass the Turing Test by 2029 . Others have argued that such claims are unjustified .

Relationship between Turing's Wager and the Turing Test

The

Turing Test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949,. Turing wrote about the ‘imitation game’ centrally and extensively throughout his 1950 text, but apparently retired the term thereafter. He referred to ‘ iste ...

attempts to define when a machine might be said to possess

human intelligence Human intelligence is the Intellect, intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex Cognition, cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. Using their intelligence, humans are able to learning, learn, Concept ...

, while Turing's Wager is an argument aiming to demonstrate that characterising the brain mathematically will take over a thousand years. While building an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and mapping the human brain are both difficult endeavours, the former is actually a sub-problem of the latter .

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * {{Refend Alan Turing History of artificial intelligence History of neuroscience Neurophilosophy Arguments in philosophy of mind