Message in a Bottle

Abstract

How can we articulate phenomena for which the requisite concepts, logical structures, and narratives are not yet available? How can an observer who seeks to describe something novel speak of the future and its relation to the present? Turing addresses this challenge by casting the information he wishes to convey in the form of a question. He situates it within the text in such a way that the intended insight emerges for the reader as the outcome of an inescapable logical inference. This methodological precision is, among other things, what sets him apart from mere soothsayers.