Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 188: "What is thought, if not the manipulation of symbols?"

Chapter 188: "What is thought, if not the manipulation of symbols?"

1 January 1937.

Cambridge, England

Alan Turing sat hunched at his desk in the dimly lit room.

On the table before him lay several copies of his newly published paper.

"On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem."

He stared at the cover, almost not believing it existed.

The paper, his labor for over a year, was now public.

But the world had yet to grasp its meaning.

Alan took a slow sip of his tea.

A knock interrupted his thoughts.

"Come in," he called.

John Smithson, a young mathematics lecturer and close friend, stepped in, unwrapping his scarf.

"Happy New Year, Alan," he said cheerfully. "Thought I’d stop by. I see you’ve made this year memorable already."

Alan gestured to the stack of papers. "Memorable, maybe. But understandable? That remains to be seen."

John pulled up a chair. "I’ve been reading it all morning. Alan, you’ve got equations, symbols, machines made of logic... You have to explain this to me in plain English."

Alan smiled. "Alright. Let’s begin simply. Imagine a very long tape practically infinite divided into little squares. Each square can hold a symbol. There’s a machine that reads these symbols one at a time. It can do three things read, write a new symbol, or move left or right."

John blinked. "That’s it?"

"That’s it," Alan confirmed. "But here’s where it gets interesting. This simple machine can follow instructions, step by step. I call these instructions the ’table of behavior.’"

John frowned. "Okay... but what makes it special?"

Alan stood, grabbing a piece of chalk and walking to his blackboard.

He drew a rectangle labeled ’Control Unit,’ a tape with cells, and an arrow as a reading head.

"This machine, John, can perform any logical calculation, as long as you provide the correct set of instructions. If a task can be computed by a human following steps, this machine can simulate it."

John leaned forward. "So you’re saying this is a... thinking machine?"

"Not exactly thinking. But a machine that can follow any computation logically. Think of it as a machine that simulates any other machine, as long as it has the right instructions. That’s why I call it the ’Universal Turing Machine.’"

John rubbed his chin. "This is... revolutionary. But what was that long German word in the title? Entscheidungsproblem?"

"Ah yes," Alan said, returning to his desk. "The Entscheidungsproblem. It’s German for ’decision problem.’ A famous question in logic posed by David Hilbert. It asks is there a method a definite, step-by-step procedure to determine if any given mathematical statement is provable?"

"And your answer?"

Alan sighed. "No. There are some problems that are undecidable. Meaning, no algorithm can ever solve them."

John’s eyes widened. "So not everything in math is solvable?"

"Exactly. And that’s the crux of it. The Universal Machine helps define what is computable and, by contrast, what is not."

"So, your machine is not just a tool," John said slowly, "it defines the boundaries of what can be calculated?"

"Yes," Alan said. "We’re drawing the line between the solvable and the impossible."

Later that day, Alan entered the college common room.

Dr. Alistair Graham, a senior logician, waved him over.

"Alan! Just the man I wanted to see. I read your paper last night. It’s quite the intellectual feast." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

"Thank you, sir. I’m not sure many will find it as appetizing."

Graham laughed. "You underestimate yourself. Tell me... this machine you’ve described. Could it, one day, be built?"

Alan sat down. "Well, it exists now as a concept. But yes, I think a physical version could be constructed. We’d need something that can store instructions, read them, and execute them conditionally."

A student nearby leaned in. "But wouldn’t that require enormous machinery? Thousands of moving parts?"

"Perhaps at first," Alan said. "But the principle is what’s important. For instance, imagine a device using electrical signals instead of mechanical parts. You could store information magnetically or via relays."

The student looked skeptical. "What would it even do?"

Alan smiled. "In theory? Anything. Solve equations. Sort data. Predict outcomes. Even play games. If it’s a task that follows logic, the machine can handle it."

Dr. Graham raised an eyebrow. "Even language? Could such a machine... understand?"

Alan hesitated. "Understand is a strong word. But simulate language responses? Yes. With the right programming."

"Incredible," Graham murmured.

Two weeks later, Alan received a letter from Princeton University.

John von Neumann had reviewed his paper.

He was intrigued.

"Dear Mr. Turing,

Your work on computable numbers is brilliant. The concept of a universal machine aligns with certain ideas we’ve been developing regarding stored program architecture...

Yours sincerely, J. von Neumann"

Alan folded the letter carefully.

His hands were shaking slightly.

He turned to his journal that night and wrote.

"The implications are clear. Computation is not tied to hardware. It is a process of symbols and instructions. The mind can be mimicked in motion, not in matter."

At a guest lecture at Cambridge weeks later,

Alan stood in front of a crowd of curious minds.

"I want you to think about this," he said, his voice calm. "When you multiply two numbers by hand, you’re following a set of instructions. Add here, carry there, record the result. A machine can do this too, if it knows the steps."

He paused, letting the idea settle.

"Now, expand that. Every mental task that follows logic can, in theory, be broken into such steps. A machine that mimics this behavior doesn’t ’think’ like us, but it performs the same operations."

A student raised her hand. "So is this machine intelligent?"

"No," Alan replied. "But it challenges our definition of intelligence."

Another asked, "Could this machine write music?"

"With enough rules, yes. The question is would it be art, or imitation?"

That night, walking alone along the River Cam, Alan looked up at the moon.

His mind raced.

"What is thought," he whispered, "if not the manipulation of symbols?"

He knew his machine could not love, or feel, or dream.

But it could mimic processes humans called intelligence.

It could obey rules, test logic, and expose the boundaries of truth.

And that was enough.

In Berlin, Kurt Gödel scribbled notes beside a worn copy of Alan’s paper.

"Turing has done it," he said to no one. "A machine for the mind."

At Princeton, discussions began around building machines with memory banks and processors ideas that would soon become blueprints.

Alan returned to his room, lit a candle, and read the final paragraph of his own paper.

"It is thus shown that the Entscheidungsproblem cannot be solved by a machine. But the limits of logic themselves have now been drawn."

He closed the paper and looked into the candlelight.

"Let them build," he murmured. "Let the age of machines begin."

Alan Turing, not yet thirty, had no idea that decades from now, machines based on his theoretical dream would fly aircraft, decode genomes, paint pictures, and simulate stars.