Transitional Automaton: a poem

My poetry collection, «Αλγόριθμοι Σιωπής» (Algorithms of Silence), explores the quiet, often unseen structures that shape our inner lives. As a computer scientist and a poet, I’m fascinated by the language we use to describe these systems – whether they are emotional, social, or computational. 

The following piece is an experiment that embodies this theme. It presents a single core idea – about choice, memory, and predetermination – in three different languages: the original Greek poem “Αυτόματον Μεταβατικόν,” an English transcreation, and a pseudocode version that translates the poem’s philosophical questions into the logic of an automaton.

– Vasileios Klimis, Queen Mary University of London

Transitional Automaton

Once,
a decision – small,
like a flaw in a cogwheel –
tilted the whole system toward a version
never written.

In the workshop of habits,
every choice left behind
a trace of activation;
you don’t see it,
but it returns
like a pulse
through a one-way gate.

•

I walk through a matrix of transitions
where each state defines the memory of the next.
Not infinite possibilities –
only those the structure permits.

Is this freedom?
Or merely the optimal illusion
of a system with elastic rules?

•

In moments of quiet
(but not of silence)
I feel the null persisting
not as absence,
but as a repository in waiting.
Perhaps that is where it resides,
all that was never activated.

•

If there is a continuation,
it will resemble a debug session
more than a crisis.

Not a moral crisis;
a recursion.
Who passes down to the final terminal
the most probable path?

•

The question is not
what we lived.
But which of the contingencies
remained active
when we
stopped calculating.

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Αυτόματον μεταβατικόν

Κάποτε,
μια απόφαση – μικρή, σαν στρέβλωση σε οδοντωτό τροχό –
έγερνε το σύνολο προς μια εκδοχή
που δεν γράφτηκε ποτέ.

•

Στο εργαστήριο των συνηθειών
κάθε επιλογή άφηνε πίσω της
ένα ίχνος ενεργοποίησης·
δεν το βλέπεις,
αλλά επιστρέφει
σαν παλμός σε μη αντιστρεπτή πύλη.

•

Περπατώ μέσα σ’ έναν πίνακα μεταβάσεων
όπου κάθε κατάσταση ορίζει τη μνήμη της επόμενης.
Όχι άπειρες πιθανότητες –
μόνον όσες η δομή επιτρέπει.
Είναι ελευθερία αυτό;
Ή απλώς η βέλτιστη πλάνη
ενός συστήματος με ελαστικούς κανόνες;

•

Σε στιγμές σιγής (αλλά όχι σιωπής)
νιώθω το μηδέν να επιμένει
όχι ως απουσία,
αλλά ως αποθήκη αναμονής.
Ίσως εκεί διαμένει
ό,τι δεν ενεργοποιήθηκε.

•

Αν υπάρξει συνέχεια,
θα μοιάζει περισσότερο με debug session
παρά με κρίση.

•

Όχι κρίση ηθική·
μία αναδρομή.
Ποιος μεταβιβάζει στο τερματικό του τέλους
το πιο πιθανό μονοπάτι;

•

Η ερώτηση δεν είναι τι ζήσαμε.
Αλλά ποιο από τα ενδεχόμενα έμεινε ενεργό
όταν εμείς
σταματήσαμε να υπολογίζουμε.

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Pseudocode Poem version

Pseudocode poems are poems written in pseudocode: the semi-formailsed language used for writing algorithms and planning the design of program. Here is the above poem as a pseudocode poem.

FUNCTION life_automaton(initial_state)
  DEFINE State_Transitions AS Matrix;
  DEFINE active_path AS Log;
  DEFINE potential_paths AS Set = {all_versions_never_written};

  current_state = initial_state;
  system.log("Initializing in the workshop of habits.");

  REPEAT

    WAIT FOR event.decision;
    // a decision — small, like a flaw in a cogwheel
    IF (event.decision.is_subtle) THEN
       previous_state = current_state;
       current_state = State_Transitions.calculate_next
                                (previous_state, event.decision);
       // it returns like a pulse through a one-way gate
       active_path.append(previous_state -> current_state);
       potential_paths.remove(current_state.version);
    END IF

   // Is this freedom? Or merely the optimal illusion
   // of a system with elastic rules?
   
   IF (system.isQuiet) THEN
       // I feel the null persisting
       // not as absence, but as a repository in waiting.
       // Perhaps that is where it resides, all that was never activated.
       PROCESS potential_paths.contemplate();
   END IF

  UNTIL system.isTerminated;
   
  // If there is a continuation,
  // it will resemble a debug session more than a crisis.
  // Not a moral crisis; a recursion.
  DEBUG_SESSION.run(active_path);

  // The question is not what we lived.
  // But which of the contingencies remained active
  // when we stopped calculating.
  RETURN final_state = active_path.getLast();
END FUNCTION

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More on

• Poetry and Computer Science
• Links between Poetry and Computer Science (including pseudocode poems) [On Teaching London Computing]

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This blog is funded by EPSRC on research agreement EP/W033615/1.