Alan had been stimulated by Hilbert's decision problem, or the Entscheidungs problem as it was in German.
艾伦受到希尔伯特判定性问题的刺激，
He had not only answered it, but had done much more.
然后不仅解答了它，还走得更远。
Indeed, he would entitle his paper 'On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungs problem.'
他给这篇论文起了题目，叫作《论可计算数及其在判定问题上的应用》。
It was as though Newman's lectures had tapped some stream of enquiry which had been flowing all the time and which found in this question an opportunity to emerge.
一直都在潜伏、积蓄着的探索之火山，被纽曼的讲座助了把力，终于找到机会喷发了。
He had done something, for he had resolved a central question about mathematics, and had done so by crashing in as an unknown and unsophisticated outsider.
这个无名的、幼稚的圈外人，突然闯进了数学界，解决了一个中心问题。
But it was not only a matter of abstract mathematics, not only a play of symbols, for it involved thinking about what people did in the physical world.
而且，因为它涉及了在现实世界中，人类是如何进行思考的，
It was not exactly science, in the sense of making observations and predictions.
所以它不仅是抽象数学的问题，也不仅是一个符号的游戏。
All he had done was to set up a new model, a new framework.
从可观察和可预测的角度来说，这不能完全算是科学。
It was a play of imagination like that of Einstein or von Neumann, doubting the axioms rather than measuring effects.
他创立了一套新的模型和框架，就像爱因斯坦或冯·诺伊曼一样，这是一场想象力的风暴，他在挑战公理，而不是现象。
Even his model was not really new, for there were plenty of ideas, even in Natural Wonders, about the brain as a machine, a telephone exchange or an office system.
也许这个模型并不是全新的，之前也有很多想法，《自然奇迹》也说过，大脑就像机器。
What he had done was to combine such a naive mechanistic picture of the mind with the precise logic of pure mathematics.
但艾伦所做的是，用精确的纯数学逻辑，将那种朴素的大脑的机器模样给描绘出来了。
His machines—soon to be called Turing machines —offered a bridge, a connection between abstract symbols, and the physical world.
他的机器——不久后被称为"图灵机"——为抽象符号和实体世界之间建起了桥梁。
Indeed, his imagery was, for Cambridge, almost shockingly industrial.
惊人的是，他想象的这种机器，仿佛真的像是可以造出来的。
Obviously there was a connection between the Turing machine and his earlier concern with the problem of Laplacian determinism.
显然，图灵机，与他早期对拉普拉斯决定论的一些思考，是有关系的。
The relationship was indirect.
但这是一种间接的关系。
For one thing, it might be argued that the 'spirit' he had thought about was not the 'mind' that performed intellectual tasks.
一方面，他曾经考虑过的"灵魂"，并不是指执行智力活动的"思维"。
For another, the description of the Turing machines had nothing to do with physics.
另一方面，图灵机的描述与物理无关。
Nevertheless, he had gone out of his way to set down a thesis of 'finitely many mental states', a thesis implying a material basis to the mind, rather than stick to the safer 'instruction note' argument.
尽管如此，他跳出了自己先前的圈套，就是"有限的思维状态"，这种设定涉及了思维的物质基础。他转而采取了更安全的"便条"这种论证。