CHAPTER 9
Beyond Leibniz’s Dream
In his address before the London Mathematical Society, Turing said:
I expect that digital computing machines will eventually stimulate
a considerable interest in symbolic logic . . . The language in which
one communicates with these machines . . . forms a sort of symbolic
logic.
1
The connection between logic and computation to which Turing alludes has
been a principal theme of this book. Nevertheless, readers may still ask:
how is it that logic and computation are related? What does arithmetic
have to do with reasoning? A clue is provided by a colloquial use of the verb
“to reckon,” in which it does not have its usual meaning: “to calculate.”
I reckon he’s sweet talking her in the moonlight right now.
We are listening