Solidarity With a Dead Man

By Maya Schmidt

“I’m afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future.

Turing believes machines think

Turing lies with men

Therefore machines do not think

Yours in distress,

Alan”

-Alan Turing

---

Sometimes I feel like a machine. I certainly put in a great deal of effort to avoid appearing as one,

and it doesn’t seem like the others do.

Maybe only a machine would think

That connection is a puzzle to be solved

With enough effort and concentration

---

“Turing believes machines can think.

Turing lies with men.

Therefore, machines cannot think.”

It hammers at the back of my mind,

a code of human behavior.

I know it is written to be absurd.

I need to make sense.

---

Maybe they’re just better at reading rules than I am.

Do they know they act by a code?

Wouldn’t it be a funny joke

If they worked together when they wrote the rules

Then hid the page from me?

Maybe

This is when I’m supposed to be laughing

---

They tell me:

“Turing believes machines can think

Turing lies with men

Therefore, machines cannot think”

Effort and concentration are useless here.

Certainly

You can memorize the patterns and rules and lines;

A fair amount can even be improvised-

Instinctively it will click, they say,

Instinct,

Intuition,

It’s just the background processing

For a set of rules on how to be human

That I don’t understand how to read.

---

Turing believes machines can think.

Turing lies with men.

Therefore, machines cannot think.

“Men who lie with men are human… incorrectly.”

That is the piece of the code they kept hidden from me.

Or is that one of their rules which they don’t see,

Because, unlike me, they understand the unspoken code?

Because they never had to recite to themselves the rules of being human to survive dinner?

To avoid becoming dinner, I revise and recite:

Turing believes machines can think.

Men who lie with men are incorrectly human.

Turing lies with men.

Therefore, machines cannot think.

---

“Those who are incorrectly human cannot think.”

Shit, they dropped this too.

Removing moths and punching holes

In logic

Oh, believe me, I understand now.

I’m incorrectly human-

“Turing believes machines can think.

Men who lie with men are incorrectly human.

Turing lies with men.

Those who are incorrectly human cannot think.

Therefore, machines cannot think.”

Although of course he originally wrote it:

“Turing believes machines can think

Turing lies with men

Therefore, machines cannot think”

And he said he was afraid, because it doesn’t make sense.

It was written to convey the absurdity of a world in which…

Effort and concentration are useless.

Certainly,

You can memorize the patterns and rules and lines,

A fair amount can even be improvised.

Instinctively it will click, they say,

Instinct-

Intuition-

It’s just the background processing

for a set of rules on how to be human.

---

Whilst you are here!

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