in getting food, producing ants
and slugs to carry on.
Oh, you argue, soon
you’ll have all that and
then they’ll be a threat.
Have you not seen
how we climb different trees
to get us closer to the moon?
Ruth Aylett
Turing
The ghost in this machine is his:
its processors
silicon flesh of his logic.
From here to there in steps.
He asked,
Must you always
eventually arrive?
Tracking those steps,
an impossible downward stair
looping into itself but
never reaching the ground.
The irresolvable resolves
into the logician who claims
he always lies.
He needed a machine;
made one in thought
that read, decided, wrote.
An unbounded tape
guiding, recording
steps chosen, steps carried out;
proved it was impossible
to be sure it would halt.
Read: a war and coded traffic
Write: decryption, a Bombe.
Read: body as machine
Write: machine intelligence.
Read: body as demand
Write: an opportunist young man.
Read: legalised bigotry
Write: chemical castration.
