©Huma Shah June 2010 Submitted to IJIS

Turing’s Test and the Muslim Woman

20th century mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing’s brilliant and prescient 1950

article Computing Machinery and Intelligence 1 (CMI) introduced the eponymous machine

test for intellectual capacity conveyed through text-based question and answer sessions. Yet

for sixty years the Muslim woman has cowered as ‘the elephant in Turing’s imitation room’

largely ignored among the mountainous thinking machine debate save for a footnote from

Ford, Glymour, and Hayes 2. In section 6 of CMI, countering pre-emptive objections in

Contrary Views on the Main Question ‘can machines think?’ Turing espoused opposing

views to his. Beginning with the holy stance 3, that anything man-made could not have a

‘soul’ Turing wrote “Thinking is a function of a man’s immortal soul. God has given an

immortal soul to every man and woman, but not to any other animal or to machines. Hence

no animal or machine can think” (p.443). Turing gave no indication of ‘whose’ God he was

citing but he added in the footnote on that page“…the fact that men’s souls are immortal and

therefore indestructible”. Turing’s otherwise seminal piece collapses as he, attempting to

palliate the theological objection, explains “The arbitrary character of the orthodox view

becomes clearer if we consider how it might appear to a member of some other religious

community” continuing with the verisimilitude, “How do Christians regard the Moslem view

that women have no souls?” (p.443). Turing elides how he became aware of this view

preferring to brush it aside “But let us leave this point aside and return to the main

argument” (ibid). Turing’s rebuttal of the theological position leaves him to attest “I am not

very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support” (ibid).

Turing’s casuistry is not impressive either. As Ford, Glymour and Hayes state “Turing’s

source for this view is unknown. The contrary opinion is given in the Qu’ran” (see footnote

1
A. M. Turing (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind, 59 (236), p. 433-460
2
Page 44 In (Eds) R. Epstein, G. Roberts and G, Beber 2008 book Parsing the Turing Test
3
Section 6 ‘Contrary Views on the Main question’ (1950, p.442)
©Huma Shah June 2010 Submitted to IJIS

2). Thus we wish to expiate here Turing’s use of the calumny “Moslem view that women

have no souls”.

The view of women subordinated by nature is ancient predating belief systems such as

Islam, Christianity and Judaism 4. Classical philosopher Aristotle likened rule of men over

women to rule of soul over the body, unlike statements in the Qu’ran which aver that men

and women exist in their own right. Qu’ranic texts do not apportion blame for the ‘greatest

ever deception’ of eating from the forbidden tree to Eve alone. Nor does the Qu’ran explicate

that the first woman was created as an ‘after thought’, from the rib of the first man, or that she

be unheard and hidden from view. With current controversy about wearing of the veil, the

earliest evidence of women wearing a veil is found in painted vases from Ancient Greek

times 5. The giver of democracy to Western civilisation, the Athenians, disqualified women

from voting. Their society believed women to be demons possessed by spirits 6. At that time

women’s life expectancy was lower than that of men, which Blundell reminds from

Aristotle’s explanation “men naturally live longer than women because they have more heat

in their bodies” (footnote 5, p. 112). Turing does not present any opinion on the concurrent

British view of women’s soul. Under his own supervision, women worked as ‘human

computers’ assisting (mostly) men with code-breaking at Bletchley Park during World War

II. His 1950 paper appeared less than a quarter of a century since his country women under

the age of 30 in 1928 were awarded the vote on equal terms with men. Turing’s father was in

the Civil Service in Empire India, which, despite the British Raj remained predominantly

Hindu inheriting and continuing to practice in isolated cases in the 20th century, the custom

outlawed by the British a century earlier, the practice of self-immolation- suttee, where a

4
L. Ahmed (1992). Women and Gender in Islam. Yale University Press: New Haven, US
5
S. Blundell, S. (1995). Women in Ancient Greece. Volume 2. British Museum Press, ISBN: 0-7141-2219-X
6
Bettany Hughes: Athens: The Truth about Democracy, documentary broadcast on More4, April 28, 2010:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-ancient-world-with-bettany-hughes/4od#3057803
©Huma Shah June 2010 Submitted to IJIS

woman widowed threw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband 7. Though Turing did

not live in the Sub-continent, we presume he would have been aware that suttee did not

involve a widower throwing himself on his deceased wife’s blazing pyre. Turing may also

have been aware of the Muslim struggle for an independent state on the Sub-continent, as he

might have been of the new nation’s granting to women the vote in 1947, with ‘new India’

following close behind in 1950 before some European countries honoured their women in

this way including Greece in 1952, Switzerland in 1971, and in 1976, Portugal 8. Even though

females had contributed greatly through the First World War while men fought over the

trenches women remained mostly a means to satisfy domestic needs in Turing’s era in

Britain. Thus it is not clear why Turing chose Muslim women particularly in his notice to

readers when arguing against the theological objection to machine thinking, other than he had

no defence.

In an otherwise assiduous piece Turing’s failure in CMI to reveal whether he was in

contact with Muslim men and women who might have imparted the false idea to him of

Muslim women having no soul, or where he might have read it should no longer be ignored

and must be purged to clear the shadow cast over Turing test literature and the study of

machine intelligence. Considered by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most important

thinkers of the last century 9 Turing was quite rightly given a posthumous apology in

September 2009 by Gordon Brown, the previous UK Prime Minister, for being mistreated 10

following an online 10 Downing Street petition that gained thousands of signatories.

However we conclude whatever a soul is, and if Turing had one, so also the Muslim woman.

7
Suttee Facts: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/suttee.aspx accessed 16.4.10; time: 21.35
8
Women’s Suffrage: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm accessed: 16.4.10; time: 21.36
9
Time Magazine: http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/scientist/ accessed: 11.6.10; time: 06.24
10
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm accessed: 11.6.10; time: 06.16