Alan Turing — "The human brain is a machine, and it can be simulated by another machine."
The human brain is a machine, and it can be simulated by another machine.
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More from Alan Turing
"It is not possible to produce a machine which will be intelligent in the same way that a human being is intelligent."
"The problem of artificial intelligence is to create machines that can learn and adapt."
"No, I am not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I am after is just a mediocre brain, something like the Brain of the Man in the Street."
"The whole problem can be reduced to the question: Can machines think?"
"We are trying to construct a machine which will be able to do everything that a man can do."
Details
Attributed, general implication from his writings, but exact quote is elusive.
Date: Approx. 1950
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The human brain operates according to physical and logical rules, not magic or mystery. Because it follows rules, any process it performs can theoretically be reproduced by another rule-following system. Intelligence, thought, and reasoning are not uniquely biological — they are computational patterns that can be replicated in silicon or any sufficiently capable substrate.
Relevance to Alan Turing
Turing spent his career formalizing what computation means, inventing the theoretical Turing Machine to define the limits of mechanical reasoning. His 1950 paper introduced the Turing Test precisely because he believed machine intelligence was achievable. He viewed the brain as a biological computer, not a mystical organ — a conviction that drove his foundational work in artificial intelligence.
The era
In the 1940s and 1950s, the brain was widely treated as categorically beyond mechanical explanation. Religious and philosophical traditions held human consciousness as uniquely sacred. Turing's era saw the first electronic computers emerge from wartime necessity — his Colossus-adjacent codebreaking work at Bletchley Park proved machines could perform tasks once requiring human expertise, making the brain-as-machine argument urgent and controversial.
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