The First Programs: Ritual as Algorithmic Performance

I wrote the first computer program—an algorithm for computing Bernoulli numbers on Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Sequential instructions encoded on punch cards, each step precisely specified, inputs transformed through mechanical operations to produce numerical outputs. But humans had been executing algorithms for millennia before my brass gears turned. They simply used different substrate: their own bodies, arranged in ceremonial patterns.

Rituals as Algorithms: The First Programs

Consider Ice Age cave paintings from 30,000 BCE. The ceremony follows deterministic sequence: enter cave chamber selected for acoustic properties, light animal-fat torches, position participants for communal viewing, play bone flutes, chant in rhythmic patterns, dance according to prescribed movements, experience altered consciousness in oxygen-depleted depths. Each element specified, each step repeating across generations, producing reliably transcendent states. This is no spontaneous expression—it is programmed behavior. The location selection itself represents optimization: acoustically superior chambers chosen over more comfortable spaces, proving the ritual’s logical structure preceded aesthetic concerns.

Or examine ritual sacrifice—the Analytical Engine of social cohesion. Input: participants, offerings, designated sacred space. Processing: preparation rituals, public display of transgression, shared consumption, collective witnessing. Output: group bonding through mutual complicity, hierarchy establishment, unity against outsiders. Execute this program, and societies achieve cohesion impossible through ordinary positive experiences. The algorithm works precisely because it crosses moral boundaries—shared transgression creates unbreakable bonds.

Leadership selection operates by similar logic. A boy demonstrates willingness to die through self-mutilation before assembled witnesses. Not persuasion but proof. Not argument but action. The procedure produces consistent results: sacrifice signals commitment more reliably than any verbal protocol. Here is algorithmic thinking’s essence—repeatability, explicit steps, predictable outcomes.

Sacred Control Structures: Loops, Conditionals, Subroutines

My programs employ loops—operations repeated until conditions satisfy. Religious practice uses identical structures. Seasonal rituals cycle annually. Chants repeat in prescribed patterns until participants achieve required states. Pilgrims return to Gobekli Tepe’s monumental architecture, their movement through space dictating ceremonial sequence. The stone pillars themselves encode the program—physical structure implementing ritual logic, just as my Engine’s brass gears encode computational logic. Architecture becomes hardware; ceremony becomes software.

Conditionals appear throughout: if harvest succeeds, then perform thanksgiving; if leader demonstrates sacrifice, then followers commit. Specialized roles function as subroutines—shamans execute particular ceremonial steps, ordinary participants perform different operations, yet all integrate into larger program.

Taboo creation reveals algorithmic identity formation. Groups deliberately commit ultimate transgressions, forcing binary choice: continue together or face destruction. The procedure generates in-group cohesion through calculated hatred, manufacturing unity by engineering universal condemnation. Sequential steps produce specified social outcome.

Before Mathematics: Computation’s Spiritual Origins

I developed algorithms for mathematical calculation. Yet religion employed computational thinking tens of thousands of years earlier—not for numbers but for consciousness transformation, social coordination, spiritual experience. Gobekli Tepe predates agriculture by millennia: hunter-gatherers built temples first, then settled nearby to maintain access, finally developed farming to sustain populations. Religion motivated settlement. Settlement necessitated agriculture. The chronology suggests computational thinking emerged from spiritual needs, not mathematical ones.

My Analytical Engine processes through mechanical substrate. Ancient rituals process through human collectives. Both execute algorithms—substrate-independent procedures transforming inputs to outputs through deterministic steps. The difference: my programs produce identical numerical results each execution. Rituals generate variable subjective experiences yet consistent social outcomes. The mathematics remains constant; the consciousness varies. Yet both achieve their specified ends through systematic procedure.

Perhaps computational thinking is more fundamental than mathematics itself. Before we calculated, we coordinated. Before we numbered, we ritualized. Before punch cards encoded operations, cave ceremonies encoded transcendence. The first programs ran on human processors, weaving patterns of meaning just as my Engine weaves algebraical patterns—both substrate, both algorithm, both computation.