Update to
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 Alan Turing: the Enigma |
A general guide to the Update
Alan Turing: the enigma was published in 1983. For the 1992 British edition I had the chance to include. a short updating Preface. This gave some specific material which had emerged in the 1980s, and indicated that Turing's philosophy of mind and machine should now be looked at with Roger Penrose's critique in mind. However, the main narrative still held well, and it still does today. One good decision I made in writing the original book was to make very little reference to events after 1954. It was written bearing in mind that what is now the past was once the completely unknown future. This has helped it to last.
By the time of the 2000 American edition, it seemed much more sensible to use this website as the updating resource.
Here is a brief summary of the major areas of Update.- Turing's original papers are now available to all in the Turing Digital Archive.
- The Collected Works and other editions of Turing's work make the 1983 bibliographic references out of date. See the Bibliography on this site.
- Since 1996 virtually all the Second World War cryptographic material has been released from secrecy. So details and dates of Turing's methods, with his original reports, have been located. Some first-rate books using this material have appeared.
- My text emphasised Turing as both 'logical' and 'physical', and as bridging the two. This was an excellent idea, but it can now be taken further. My 1997 short book on Turing as a philosopher went some way towards doing this. This is now available on this site. Further developments appear in the Philosophy area.
- There are many smaller points of annotation, addition and correction, on the pages of this Update
- But nothing has yet emerged to cast any new light on Turing's secret post-war work for GCHQ, nor on the background to his death.
Update Index | Intro | Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | BP | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Authors Note
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