Page 5 - Can Computers Think?

The idea that we aren't special is neither pessimistic, fatalisic nor any other negative 'ism' that you may try to associate with it. This is the wrong thread for that discussion, but we were not put here the way we are for a reason.

We are unique, and if you want to call that special, then so be it. But every thing out there is unique; it just happens that our own uniqueness has allowed to ponder that fact, making us seem special. We are still a very large collection of very unspecial, and non-unique interactions, on a very small level.

People like to think of Evolution as working toward some "goal". This is possibly among the most common, and also off-base misconceptions about evolution. Evolution has no particular goals in mind, as there is no locus of control controlling the specific changes that occur because of it. However, it seems that there is a goal of "making things better", "increasing complexity", and "increasing information", simply because of the magnitude of specific small scale changes that collectively interact, and produce these changes.

We are not all that different from the ecological systems that produce evolution. The complexity of the neurologic, biologic, chemical, and physiologic changes that occur in each of us all the time are perhaps more vast than all ecologic and genetic changes that cause evolution here on earth. They just happen on a much smaller scale, and at a much faster rate. That is why consciousness is an emergent property of these interactions, just as evolution is an emergent property of the interaction between ecological and genetic changes on a larger scale. Our particular emergent property just seems more special, and is slightly less autonomous - but still very driven by autonomous properties.

Interesting and somewhat relevant link:

http://www.physorg.com/news67174218.html

Down the line a few more years,the computers are definitely going to have Artificial Intelligence. The chess playing computers like deep blue can be considered thinking computers already since they play according to the opponent's moves.