Your complimentary articles

You’ve read one of your four complimentary articles for this month.

You can read four articles free per month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Poetry

Typing to Turing

by Samantha Neave

The bombe, designed by Alan Turing, was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-encrypted messages during World War II.

Can computers think?
The question? – an enigma,
As I type, I hope they do
So they can bring my thoughts to you,
Somewhere in the ether, now.

You brought us back from the brink.
Your mind helped us win the War,
Perhaps it will help us win many more?
Your code-breaking bombe
Drops:
Our gain.
We live on despite your loss,
At the cost of your pain.

Yet your end is not found in death, but hope:
Freedom over battle-tinged fear,
Loved ones reunited.
Your story found as minds grow clear,
History’s blight of injustice, now righted.

The legacy you leave is seen in the screen
As I type these words.
And it is my hope that if computers can think,
then stretch,
And reach beyond,
They will pass on the message to you –
That you, at last, are heard.

Samantha Neave graduated from the Open University, and enjoys reading and writing poetry, philosophy, and fiction.