Transfinite State Machine

from The Heresiarch's Breakfast by DOUG the Eagle

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about

I've done a lot of 1970s-ish stuff lately so I thought it might be fun to do something more in my earlier style, with greater use of 1980s synth textures such as the MicroWave's PPG noises.
The lyrics nagged at me for a few weeks and the song kind of fell together like an explosion in reverse. It was one of the later songs to be recorded for the album, and I think my favourite part is the vocoder stuff at the ending.

lyrics

TRANSFINITE STATE MACHINE

I was sitting at a bar in Thanet, talking to my mate from another planet
We had some drinks and then we ordered food
And I asked my mate a question while he was in the mood
I said,
“My little robot is driving me insane.
He hasn’t got a soul because he hasn’t got a brain.
What can I do to make him come to life?”
And the sandwiches arrived and then he stabbed them with a knife and he said
“T. F. S. M.
You need a transfinite state machine – and that should solve your problem”

“Consciousness is an energy field induced by neural impulses at a specific frequency which causes the soul to coalesce around it like cosmic debris collecting around an accretion disk. You’ll have to implement your brain as an ASIC or a similar analogue technology. Don’t use digital modelling. Because, well, you can model a power plant down to the quantum level, but it will never generate a single Watt of actual power and a consciousness-bearing device has the same problem.”

I wrote schematics down on a handkerchief
He took one of the sandwiches and spat out all the beef
I figured – while I’m getting all this alien technology
I’d ask him if he knew the trick of immortality.
So I said,
“My fleshy body will age and fade away
The world is full of wonders and I’d really like to stay.
What can I do to keep me young and nice?”
And then he finished off his drink and started
playing with the ice and he said
“T. F. S. M.
You need a transfinite state machine
And this is how you transfer
your consciousness into it...”

credits

from The Heresiarch's Breakfast, released March 5, 2017

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DOUG the Eagle Cwmbran, UK

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