Turing test The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history, which is firmly entrenched in the distinction between dualist and materialist views of the mind. René Descartes prefigures aspects of the Turing test in his 1637 Discourse on the Method when he writes: Here Descartes notes that automata are capable of responding to human interactions but argues that such automata cannot respond appropriately to things said in their presence in the way that any human can. Descartes therefore prefigures the Turing test by defining the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the
Turing test could pass the Turing test simply by manipulating symbols of which they had no understanding. Without understanding, they could not be described as "thinking" in the same sense people do. Therefore, Searle concludes, the Turing test cannot prove that a machine can think. Much like the Turing test itself, Searle's argument has been both widely criticised and highly endorsed. Arguments such as Searle's and others working on the philosophy of mind sparked off a more intense debate about the nature of intelligence, the possibility of intelligent machines and the value of the Turing test that continued through the 1980s and