Alan Turing
1912-1954 · Analytic Metaphysics · Renowned
Turing was a British mathematician who laid the foundations of computer science. His 1936 paper described a computer before any existed, a machine reading and writing symbols on a tape, and proved that no procedure can settle every mathematical question. He led wartime codebreaking against the Enigma cipher, and in 1950 he proposed the test that carries his name: can a machine talk its way past you?
Signature
The position Turing is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Mind
- leans Brain Only
- Knowledge
- Naturalism / Sense Experience
Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Brain Only (25 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (25 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Turing refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Agnosticism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - End of Things
- Technological Singularity
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Naturalism / Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Rational Expertise
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Productive Tension
What is the status of paradox? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Vocation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?