Implicit in these discussions was the materialist view that there was no autonomous 'mind' or 'soul' which used the mechanism of the brain.
这些讨论中有一点很明确，唯物主义认为，大脑的机制中不存在灵魂这样的东西。
(He had perhaps hardened his stance as an atheist, and his conversation was more free with anti-God and anti-church jokes than it would have been before the war.)
（艾伦也许已经坚定了自己的无神论信仰，与战前相比，他对那些反上帝和反教会的玩笑更加不在乎了。）
To avoid philosophical discussions about what 'mind' or 'thought' or 'free will' were supposed to be, he favoured the idea of judging a machine's mental capacity simply by comparing its performance with that of a human being.
为了回避关于思维、思想或者自由意识"到底是什么"这样的哲学讨论，艾伦倾向于仅仅通过对比机器和人类的行为，来检验机器的思维能力。
It was an operational definition of 'thinking', rather as Einstein had insisted on operational definitions of time and space in order to liberate his theory from a priori assumptions.
这是对思维的实验定义，就像爱因斯坦对时间和空间进行的实验定义，这使他的理论从先验的假设中解放出来。
This was nothing new—it was an entirely standard line of rationalist thought.
这并不新鲜，这是理性主义者的标准做法。
Indeed in 1933 he had seen it on the stage, for in Back to Methuselah Shaw had a future scientist produce an artificial 'automaton' which could show, or at least imitate, the thought and emotions of twentieth century people. Shaw had the 'man of science' assert that he had no way of drawing a line between 'an automaton and a living organism'.
实际上在1933年，艾伦就已经在这个水平上进行思考了。萧伯纳的《千岁人》中，有位未来科学家发明了人造人，它能够表现，至少是模仿，20世纪人类的思维和情感，而科学家无法区分人造人和生物人。
Again, his Natural Wonders book had accepted the rationalist view, with a chapter called 'Where some of the Animals do their Thinking' which treated thought, intelligence and learning as differing only in degree as between monocellular animals and human beings.
《自然奇迹》也接受了理性主义观点，题为《动物用什么来思考》的文章中提到，单细胞生物与人类相比，在思维、智力和学习能力方面，只不过有着程度上的差别。
It was no new idea, therefore, when Alan talked in terms of an imitation principle: that if a machine appeared to be doing as well as a human being, then it was doing as well as a human being.
因此，艾伦用模仿原则进行讨论，并不是个新想法：如果机器表现得像人类一样，那么它就是与人类一样。
But it gave a sharp, constructive edge to their discussions.
这给他们的讨论带来了有力的建设性优势。