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Jefferson’s Lister Oration (BMJ, 25 June 1949) says that no mechanism could feel, rather than artificially signal, pleasure at its successes or grief when its valves fuse, and that only when a machine writes a sonnet or composes a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt could it be agreed that machine equals brain. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 1949-06-25 · publication Records dated 1949 → Claimed date 1949-06-09. Delivered on 9 June 1949 (footnote, p. 1105); the wording read is the published text. Role Contesting Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Engagement States the contrary. States the contrary of U02 for feeling and sets felt thoughts and emotions, not the production of symbols, as the condition for agreeing that a machine equals a brain. Scope and limits Later than Descartes (1637), the earliest located contesting text. The oration’s conclusion adds that electronic apparatus ‘still does not take us over the blank wall’ when it comes to thinking.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
The Mind of Mechanical Man (BMJ, 25 June 1949), page scans ↗ British Medical Journal 1 (4616), pp. 1105–1110; page scans in PubMed Central (PMC2050428) · 1949-06-25
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Source excerpt “Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain” Location in source p. 1110, left column, paragraph beginning “The great difference”
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-04
Source details and check notes Authors Geoffrey Jefferson Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-11-04 (SHA-256 c7740569465eb6b32b0d59294341d80f35d3fb731ea43a5bf691aa04c060cce3). PubMed Central scans of the journal pages; replaces the third-party facsimile as the evidence source (same wording). A third-party facsimile of the six pages (https://www.edoardolimone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Geoffrey-Jefferson-Mind-of-Mechanical-Man.pdf, SHA-256 4e6ea632806197131de18f0bee5d407f7ddb4c4545a395030b13241e0703f1b8), read on 2026-11-03, has the same wording; its host’s permission is not established, so it is not a source. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-11-04 Language English (en) Attribution Geoffrey Jefferson, “The Mind of Mechanical Man (BMJ, 25 June 1949), page scans”, 1949-06-25. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, antecedent texts (research/prehistory). Read on the page image for the candidate pack; it could not be matched mechanically. Page image of p. 1110 (PMC scan brmedj03683-0008.png), read on 2026-11-04 and by a second check by a model of another family (C1), same SHA-256. The p. 1105 scan (brmedj03683-0003.png, SHA-256 d5ce80c5fd86f04a…) gives the issue date and the delivery date. The PMC PDF still answers a browser challenge. The third-party facsimile read on 2026-11-03 has the same wording. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
The Mind of Mechanical Man (BMJ, 25 June 1949), page scans ↗ British Medical Journal 1 (4616), pp. 1105–1110; page scans in PubMed Central (PMC2050428) · 1949-06-25
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “No mechanism could feel (and not merely artificially signal, an easy contrivance) pleasure at its successes, grief when its valves fuse” Location in source p. 1110, left column, same paragraph
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-04
Source details and check notes Authors Geoffrey Jefferson Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-11-04 (SHA-256 c7740569465eb6b32b0d59294341d80f35d3fb731ea43a5bf691aa04c060cce3). PubMed Central scans of the journal pages; replaces the third-party facsimile as the evidence source (same wording). A third-party facsimile of the six pages (https://www.edoardolimone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Geoffrey-Jefferson-Mind-of-Mechanical-Man.pdf, SHA-256 4e6ea632806197131de18f0bee5d407f7ddb4c4545a395030b13241e0703f1b8), read on 2026-11-03, has the same wording; its host’s permission is not established, so it is not a source. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-11-04 Language English (en) Attribution Geoffrey Jefferson, “The Mind of Mechanical Man (BMJ, 25 June 1949), page scans”, 1949-06-25. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, antecedent texts (research/prehistory). Read on the page image for the candidate pack; it could not be matched mechanically. Page image of p. 1110 (PMC scan brmedj03683-0008.png), read on 2026-11-04 and by a second check by a model of another family (C1), same SHA-256. The p. 1105 scan (brmedj03683-0003.png, SHA-256 d5ce80c5fd86f04a…) gives the issue date and the delivery date. The PMC PDF still answers a browser challenge. The third-party facsimile read on 2026-11-03 has the same wording. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Machine-checked . Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.
Date. Issue date in the BMJ masthead; the oration was delivered on 9 June 1949 (footnote, p. 1105).
Record ID pre-u02-jefferson-1949-contests