JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 838 Blog Bookstore
This is part of a longer piece I’m doing
on Man in the Machine—Early Days of Man-Machine Singularity
Continuing from yesterday on Poe’s untitiled books in “The
Raven”, and making my way backwards through his Collected Works (from his criticism in volume XI to his short essays
in volume X), I found an extraordinary piece on computers and a chess-playing
machine. Poe addresses a touring wonder
called the Maelzel Chess-Playing Machine, which theoretically was a stand-alone
device which thought and played the game, beating all-comers. (The version of
the works that I own was published by Harper’s around the turn of the
century—they didn’t bother to date their own work or give any references to the
origins of Poe’s, which is awful The
essay1 though originally appeared as Edgar
Allan Poe, "Maelzel's Chess-Player" in the Southern Literary
Messenger, April 1836, 2:318-326.)
The machine was actually in its 65th
year or so on tour, starting out life with Baron Kempelen, the original
inventor of the device in 1769. Maelzel
was a shuckster who happened to be one of the machine’s final owners--touring
with it in America
in the 1830’s--before the thing burned to bits in 1854.
But before he deals with the innards of the automaton, Poe
writes on its history, and touches on some very deep understanding of the
Babbage Difference Engine, “computers”, and thinking machines. This is especially interesting because the
Babbage machines hadn’t yet been given wide public conversation—that would come
in 1843 with Babbage’s somewhat unlikely bulldog, Lady Ada Lovelace, who
published an account of his work in Taylor’s
Scientific Memoirs. Poe’s work predates
this by seven years, though
Lovelace’s commentary is far more robust, more
mathematical, and longer and deeper2. Beautiful, even. (For example: “We may
say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as
the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”)
Poe states the difference between Babbage’s machine and a
thinking machine. First up, his
paragraph on Babbage’s engine, rearranged for easier consumption:
(1) “Arithmetical
or algebraical calculations are, from their very nature, fixed and determinate.
(2) Certain
data being given, certain results necessarily and inevitably follow.
(3) These
results have dependence upon nothing, and are influenced by nothing but the data
originally given.
(4) And
the question to be solved proceeds, or should proceed, to its final
determination, by a succession of unerring steps liable to no change, and
subject to no modification.”
The thinking machine (chess-player) occurs later in the same
paragraph:
(1) “But
from the first move in the game of chess no especial second move follows of
necessity. In the algebraical question, as it proceeds towards solution, the certainty
of its operations remains altogether unimpaired. The second step having
been a consequence of the data, the third step is equally a consequence
of the second, the fourth of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and so on, and
not possibly otherwise, to the end.
(2) But
in proportion to the progress made in a game of chess, is the uncertainty of
each ensuing move. A few moves having been made, no step is certain.
(3) Different
spectators of the game would advise different moves. All is then dependent upon
the variable judgment of the players.
(4) Now
even granting (what should not be granted) that the movements of the Automaton
Chess-Player were in themselves determinate, they would be necessarily
interrupted and disarranged by the indeterminate will of his antagonist.
(5) There
is then no analogy whatever between the operations of the Chess-Player, and
those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage…”
[The full quote is below as well
as the link for the entire piece.]
This is an interesting and fundamental understanding of the
differences between a calculating device and a computer capable of iterative
deduction. I think also that both he and
Lady Lovelace thought of the Babbage machine in terms of an added, extra intelligence
for the human brain.
After dealing with the machine’s history, and after looking
at other explanations on how the thing could work, Poe delivers his
conclusion: that the machine wasn’t a
machine after all, and that it could not function in this way unless it was
being guided by a human inside the machine, which in fact, of course, it
was. Even after displaying the internal
clockworks of the device, whoever it was exhibiting the machine would open and
close the three doors covering the machine’s inner workings would do so in such
a way that a small person could scoot back and forth to avoid detection, all of
the exhibition being done at a safe distance
After that, the confederate would follow the game on his own board after
hearing the moves announced by the showman, and then move the arm of the
automaton via levers and such to produce his move, the taking of pieces done by
Maelzel. (How this went undetected for so long is a sacred mystery. It would seem as though someone at some point
would’ve seen a faint light of a candle coming form inside the box, or smoke,
or something.) The machine was originally designed for a brilliant Polish
cavalryman who lost both legs in combat and was not above this deception. Poe’s unraveling of the story and display of
reasoning and getting to this conclusion is a pretty powerful display.
It is interesting to note here that, without going
all-academic about it, it seems to me that Babbage’s work on the computer passed
without mention in the experiences of the earliest computer pioneers of the
1930’s-1950’s. At least I don’t think I’ve
ever seen mention of Babbage in any way, at least through the construction of
UNIVAC II. And so we have an instance of
someone being recognized as the founding father of something without actually
exerting any influence on anyone else working in that that field’s early
future. This is not the case with
another person who actually did have an influence on those who followed him but
has never received full public recognition for his efforts—that would be
Vannevar Bush and his MEMEX as the precursor to the internet. I’ve never looked for Poe’s name in
conjunction with modern computing history (outside of cryptology), though I have
a sneaking suspicion that if Babbage wasn’t there then neither would Poe.
NOTES
1. The paragraph in its entirety:
But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of
the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine of
wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and navigation tables to
any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations mathematically
certain through its power of correcting its possible errors? What shall we
think of a machine which can not only accomplish all this, but actually print
off its elaborate results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention of
the intellect of man? It will, perhaps, be said, in reply, that a machine such
as we have described is altogether above comparison with the Chess-Player of
Maelzel. By no means — it is altogether beneath it — that is to say provided we
assume (what should never for a moment be assumed) that the Chess-Player is a pure
machine, and performs its operations without any immediate human agency.
Arithmetical or algebraical calculations are, from their very nature, fixed and
determinate. Certain data being given, certain results necessarily and
inevitably follow. These results have dependence upon nothing, and are
influenced by nothing but the data originally given. And the question to
be solved proceeds, or should proceed, to its final determination, by a
succession of unerring steps liable to no change, and subject to no modification.
This being the case, we can without difficulty conceive the possibility of
so arranging a piece of mechanism, that upon starting it in accordance with the
data of the question to be solved, it should continue its movements
regularly, progressively, and undeviatingly towards the required solution,
since these movements, however complex, are never imagined to be otherwise than
finite and determinate. But the case is widely different with the Chess-Player.
With him there is no determinate progression. No one move in chess necessarily
follows upon any one other. From no particular disposition of the men at one
period of a game can we predicate their disposition at a different period. Let
us place the first move in a game of chess, in juxta-position with the data
of an algebraical question, and their great difference will be immediately
perceived. From the latter — from the data — the second step of the
question, dependent thereupon, inevitably follows. It is modelled by the data.
It must be thus and not otherwise. But from the first move in the
game of chess no especial second move follows of necessity. In the algebraical
question, as it proceeds towards solution, the certainty of its
operations remains altogether unimpaired. The second step having been a consequence
of the data, the third step is equally a consequence of the second, the
fourth of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and so on, and not possibly
otherwise, to the end. But in proportion to the progress made in a game of
chess, is the uncertainty of each ensuing move. A few moves having been
made, no step is certain. Different spectators of the game would advise
different moves. All is then dependent upon the variable judgment of the
players. Now even granting (what should not be granted) that the movements of
the Automaton Chess-Player were in themselves determinate, they would be
necessarily interrupted and disarranged by the indeterminate will of his
antagonist. There is then no analogy whatever between the operations of the
Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage, and if we
choose to call the former a pure machine we must be prepared to admit
that it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of
mankind. Its original projector, however, Baron Kempelen, had no scruple in
declaring it to be a "very ordinary piece of mechanism — a bagatelle whose
effects appeared so marvellous only from the boldness of the conception, and
the fortunate choice of the methods adopted for promoting the illusion."
But it is needless to dwell upon this point. It is quite certain that the
operations of the Automaton are regulated by mind, and by nothing else.
Indeed this matter is susceptible of a mathematical demonstration, a priori.
The only question then is of the manner in which human agency is
brought to bear. Before entering upon this subject it would be as well to give
a brief history and description of the Chess-Player for the benefit of such of
our readers as may never have had an opportunity of witnessing Mr. Maelzel's
exhibition
--The Maelzel essay:
--And here as well.
2) Ada Lovelace writing on the computer “program” from her
extensive “Notes” section in her translation of Menabrea’s work on Babbage,
appearing in Scientific Memoirs, Selections from The Transactions of Foreign
Academies and Learned Societies and from Foreign Journals, edited by
Richard Taylor, F.S.A.,Vol III London: 1843, Article XXIX. “Sketch of the
Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.”
“The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine,
and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive
faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract
algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised
for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated patterns in the
fabrication of brocaded stuffs. It is in this that the distinction between the
two engines lies. Nothing of the sort exists in the Difference Engine. We may
say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as
the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
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