Dijkstra questions whether asking if computers can “think” is a useful way to understand them. A submarine can travel through water, but calling that movement swimming adds little to explaining how it works. His comparison suggests that applying a familiar human or biological label to a machine may create confusion rather than insight.

In the surrounding essay, he criticises descriptions of computers as brains and the exaggerated expectations such comparisons encourage. The remark challenges the framing of the question; it does not establish that machines cannot perform tasks associated with human thought, nor does it settle questions about consciousness.

A practical reading is to ask what a system can do, how it does it and what evidence supports claims about its abilities. This shifts attention from disputed labels to clearer questions about capabilities, while leaving deeper philosophical issues open.