Abstract. Church’s Thesis asserts that the only numeric functions that can be calculated by effective means are the recursive ones, which are the same, extensionally, as the Turingcomputable numeric functions. The Abstract State Machine Theorem states that every classical algorithm is behaviorally equivalent to an abstract state machine. This theorem presupposes three natural postulates about algorithmic computation. Here, we show that augmenting those postulates with an additional requirement regarding basic operations gives a natural axiomatization of computability and a proof of Church’s Thesis, as Gödel and others suggested may be possible. In a similar way, but with a different set of basic operations, one can prove Turing’s Thesis, characterizing the effective string functions, and—in particular—the effectively-computable functions on string representations of numbers.

Alonzo Church's mathematical work on computability and undecidability is well-known indeed, and we seem to have an excellent understanding of the context in which it arose. The approach Church took to the underlying conceptual issues, by contrast, is less well understood. Why, for example, was "Church's Thesis" put forward publicly only in April 1935, when it had been formulated already in February/March 1934? Why did Church choose to formulate it then in terms of G odel's general recursiveness, not his own #-definability as he had done in 1934? A number of letters were exchanged between Church and Paul Bernays during the period from December 1934 to August 1937; they throw light on critical developments in Princeton during that period and reveal novel aspects of Church's distinctive contribution to the analysis of the informal notion of e#ective calculability. In particular, they allow me to give informed, though still tentative answers to the questions I raised; the char...

The Abstract State Machine Thesis asserts that every classical algorithm is behaviorally equivalent to an abstract state machine. This thesis has been shown to follow from three natural postulates about algorithmic computation. Here, we prove that augmenting those postulates with an additional requirement regarding basic operations implies Church’s Thesis, namely, that the only numeric functions that can be calculated by effective means are the recursive ones (which are the same, extensionally, as the Turing-computable numeric functions). In particular, this gives a natural axiomatization of Church’s Thesis, as Gödel and others suggested may be possible.

Around 1950, both Gödel and Turing wrote papers for broader audiences. 1 Gödel drew in his 1951 dramatic philosophical conclusions from the general formulation of his second incompleteness theorem. These conclusions concerned the nature of mathematics and the human mind. The general formulation of the second theorem was explicitly based on Turing’s 1936 reduction of finite procedures to machine computations. Turing gave in his 1954 an understated analysis of finite procedures in terms of Post production systems. This analysis, prima facie quite different from that given in 1936, served as the basis for an exposition of various unsolvable problems. Turing had addressed issues of mentality and intelligence in contemporaneous essays, the best known of which is of course Computing machinery and intelligence. Gödel’s and Turing’s considerations from this period intersect through their attempt, on the one hand, to analyze finite, mechanical procedures and, on the other hand, to approach mental phenomena in a scientific way. Neuroscience or brain science was an important component of the latter for both: Gödel’s remarks in the Gibbs Lecture as well as in his later conversations with Wang and Turing’s Intelligent Machinery can serve as clear evidence for that. 2 Both men were convinced that some mental processes are not mechanical, in the sense that Turing machines cannot mimic them. For Gödel, such processes were to be found in mathematical experience and he was led to the conclusion that mind is separate from matter. Turing simply noted that for a machine or a brain it is not enough to be converted into a universal (Turing) machine in order to become intelligent: “discipline”, the characteristic