Alan Turing wished to know
What it was that made us so
Much smarter than those things,
Like bees and birds that fly and sing,
Or even tools which buzz and whirr
With motors, tubes, and wiring.
With nothing more than rules and codes
He conjured up a thought machine
To answer doubts from queries posed
About the what of everything.
Important answers did he find
To questions that he had in mind -
Like how to make an airplane fly,
And what might be the root of pi,
Of when to hold and when to share,
Or which to eat - the plum or pear?
He saw his gadget on the brink
Of something quite incredible.
And with a faith, a perfect faith,
He began to say that it could think.
He thought the Truth of everything
Was now within his fingers’ grasp,
And replicating Adam’s sin
He sowed a small and whirling wind.
Gödel knew and even proved
That there are truths unprovable;
But Alan would not stoop to seek
A truth that only hearts might see.
But with his heartfelt certainty
He discovered that the world could be
A great deal crueler than need be.
And dismayed by input of this sort
He looked at life with great unease.
So he queried his smart machine
Of WHY it is that we should be.
But despite the logic and the rules
His machine could only whirr and purr
And could not find the answers which
would soothe his vast anxieties.
Without the answer as to “WHY?”
With little love, with nothing right,
With only pain awaiting him,
His rules of logic said “to die.”
So, trapped by what the logic said,
A poisoned apple by his side
Turing tasted of that fruit
Which he had nurtured until ripe
And closed his eyes and swallowed hard
And lost his chance at love and life.
- Finding the Light of G‑d, pages 114-115