Art and Science holding hands – A Tribute to Alan Turing

Alan Turing’s name and work has cropped up in my life in many ways. My cognitive science studies led me to look into AI, and my subsequent qualitative work caused me to form a position in my scientific study which remains today.
Later, as his personal circumstances emerged, I had cause to think deeply about what had happened to him and how he had been treated by a society that, shockingly recently, was radically intolerant. My work in equalities and human rights have been influenced and informed by his and other’s treatment, and motivated my to work towards change.
Turing is probably most famous for his founding work to develop the computer, for which I am eternally grateful, as the internet has opened my world to knowledge, new friends and keeping in touch with old friends that would not have been possible without it.
More recently, I discovered a further, connection. Alan Turing was great friends with Alan Garner, my favourite childhood author who made a mark on my psyche with books such as ‘The Owl Service’ and ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’. They lived in one of my favourite areas near Alderley Edge, an area I have visited regularly throughout my life for inspiration, and they spent hours discussing writing and science. I have no idea what their conversations consisted of, but I often wonder of they arrived at the realization, like so many scientists, that emotions, language, society and culture, the underpinnings of human life, and the abstractions and impact thereof through art, would be extremely difficult to programme into a machine. The way science often gets round these philosophical musings is to claim it isn’t relevant because it isn’t ‘field specific’, but did the artist and the scientist discuss how, in many ways, art and science are holding hands?
In the last couple of years, a series of novels by Scarlett Thomas have renewed my interest in Bletchley Park and codebreaking, as well as resetting my thinking around speculative fiction – in terms of what is real and what isn’t. These excellent books, which examine various scientific and philosophical issues within, reinvigorated my interest in AI and how little we really know about thinking and measurement of consciousness.
It’s only now I realize that although there are many arguments against AI – and my own drift toward matters of consciousness and away from strict logic – Turing’s work, and his connections with Manchester, have provided a mirror for my early thinking and a baseline. And isn’t that what science is all about, extending other people’s work? Isn’t it about providing a position that is a starting point for other people to work from, not a definitive truth? 
Also, it’s only now that I realize how far science extends into art, whether it’s through writing in terms of the novels and authors I have mentioned above and many others, or visual arts in terms of both mediums and stories. Without Alan Turing and his colleagues’ work, the philosophy of science would not be nearly as rich as it is today.