9 Algorithms That Changed the Future, Part 4

Alan Turing and Jonathan Swift.

Books & Culture June 27, 2012

In the first three weeks of this round, we’ve heard from a computer scientist (Cary Gray), a physicist (Andrew Dawes), and a mathematician (Mitch Keller)—and now, winding up, an editor. Editors come in different flavors, of course, but many of us are unspecialists, magpies. We’re said to chatter idly, and no doubt sometimes we do, but if we’re any good at our job, we spend more time listening than talking—listening in on all sorts of ongoing conversations.

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers

219 pages

$15.98

This past week, for instance, if you had a mind to, you could have spent most of your time taking in tributes to and commentary on the life of Alan Turing, whose centenary was celebrated on June 23. In their responses to John MacCormick’s book, Cary, Andrew, and Mitch all mentioned MacCormick’s tenth chapter—”What Is Computable?—and talked a little about Turing’s pioneering work. A number of books on Turing (already the subject of a vast literature) have been published or are about to appear this year, including a Centenary Edition of Andrew Hodges’ biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma, first published in 1983.

My own introduction to Turing came in the fall of 1968. Wendy and I were married in September of that year, after which we set out for Santa Barbara. I had just transferred to Westmont College to begin my junior year as an undergraduate. And that fall, I read Hugh Kenner’s The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy, an unclassifiable book with delicious illustrations by Guy Davenport (the front cover showed Gulliver, hat in hand, under the rather suspicious eyes of a pair of Houyhnhnms) and an epigraph from Wyndham Lewis: “Wherever there is objective truth there is satire.”

Buster Keaton figured here (I’d seen a couple of his films in a class with Wendy during my freshman year), Andy Warhol, William Butler Yeats, Charles Babbage (completely new to me), and many more, including Turing (the subject of another Davenport drawing), whom I read about for the first time. Above all, Kenner invited the reader to consider “an astonishing half-century, 1690-1740,” as in some respects parallel to our own time (his book was published in 1968), where “juxtaposition has wholly given way to counterfeiting, in a world of image-duplicators; parody to quotation, in a world of nonfictional fiction; classicizing to eclectic connoisseurship, in a world that has turned into one huge musee sans murs.” Once you’ve read Kenner’s account of “counterfeitable man” in the age of Swift and Pope, you’ll never again think of the Turing Test in the same way.

If you are curious—and I hope you will be—The Counterfeiters was reissued recently by the Dalkey Archive Press. Although it was written more than 40 years ago, it is almost uncannily illuminating for this moment, right here, right now. Kenner reminds us to stand back and assay “for traces of the controlling person” in narratives that present themselves to us as “fact,” hence inarguable—narratives about what it means to be a human being, about “machine intelligence,” and much more.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

See also Part 1 of this round, by Cary Gray; Part 2, by Andrew M. C. Dawes; and Part 3, by Mitchel T. Keller.

Copyright © 2012 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

Our Latest

Train Up a Village

Modern parenting can be isolating and exhausting. But in the church, raising children is a shared responsibility.

Excerpt

Kids Should Learn the Minor Prophets Too

A new children’s book series explores the neglected prophetic books and how they point to Jesus.

Where Ya From?

Leading with Excellence with Nicole Martin

Nicole Martin stops by to share some of the lessons of servant leadership she’s learned behind the pulpit, in the classroom, and in her new role with Christianity Today.

Yours, Mine, and ‘Our Father’

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus calls his divided followers to pursue unity as the family of God.

Public Theology Project

How to Get Through the Next Four Years

The nonstop news cycle will be crazy. You don’t have to be.

News

And the Word Became Accessible: Publishers Release Dyslexia-Friendly Bibles

Designer hopes a new, custom typeface will be a life-changing tool for those with reading disorders.

‘Heretic’ and the Truth That Sets Us Free

In the Hugh Grant horror movie, Latter-day Saint missionaries are entrapped in more ways than one.

The Russell Moore Show

Media and Leadership in a World on Edge

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of ‘The Atlantic,’ talks about politics, Palestine, and publishing.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube