The Universal Turing Machine of 1936 gets all the attention, but Turing’s O-machines of 1939 may be closer to the way intelligence (real and artificial) works: logical sequences are followed for a certain number of steps, with intuition bridging the intervening gaps. “Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two faculties, which we may call intuition and ingenuity,” Turing explained. “Intuition consists in making spontaneous judgments which are not the result of conscious trains of reasoning. These judgments are often but by no means invariably correct (leaving aside the question what is meant by ‘correct’).”
Expert Intuition
Expertise defies formalization; conscious effort defeats itself.
Collective Brain
Why isolated groups lose knowledge and capabilities.
Unreliable Parts
Mega-projects orchestrate unreliable elements into coherent wholes.