Do Computers Think

Found in Channel : Philosophy — Damilare @ 12:28 pm

“Computers cannot think, but computers think”, that was the stupid (lets leave it at stupid for now, till we judge) response to the question during my discussion with Big Seg and Funmi on our way from Wasimi. Funmi, a final year law student of OAU had critically accused me of concluding hastily. But I quickly escaped siting the erroneous nature of man. I responded by saying “I am not a thinking-thing, but a human being prone to mistakes and errors” Big Seg then came in by drawing me to my statement. “What is a thinking-thing?” was the question. Trust me now, before saying PHP, I had said Computers! Then the main argument began. Do Computers Think?

I had never given it a real thought, maybe because I am not a ‘real’ philosopher. I had always centered my thoughts around Computers, Machines and Robots helping man to build the world, just like Man helps the creator (If any) to build the world. The fundamental question, “do computers think?”, never crossed my mind, except for sometime last year in an epistemology class when Prof. Sophie Oluwole dabbled briefly into AI.

Now let’s face it! What are computers? What are thoughts? Before continuing I can remember Big Seg said computers don’t think, “A Computer Does” in his words. And I can also remember that I was so stupid not to ask him what computers do? Anyway, I am going to answer for him, cos I think I know what computers do. Computers do word processing, computers develop web applications, etc. I am sure you must be hissing at me right now. Or thinking how dumb of me! But seriously, Computers do those things…because we make them do them. I can develop a web application, but I may also be able to make a robot develop web applications. Besides, I am not the one directly interpreting/compiling my code to machine languages but my computer, which have been programmed to do so.

Now what are thoughts? Or better still, what is thinking? Basically, Thinking is a verb like kicking, or eating. Though thinking is complex and entails a lot, but it, on the basics, presupposes doing something. Doing what? To be simple enough, when we think (logically), we compare data (from experience) and make decisions. For example, I am faced with a problem of choosing a wife. Let’s assume I currently have three girlfriends. First, I look into my personal dataset to search for the things I like and dislike, my ambitions and goals in life (A computers gets data from a database or a file system). I then assess the three cuties and ‘calculate’ which one of them has the most similar ‘dataset’ to mine (The computer gets user input and compare with the data from the database). When I get one, I marry her (The computer gets one similar input and prints!).

This is a simple model of a computer type operates. And this is basically one of our numerous thought models, Big Seg notably said Humans have intuitions and instincts but computers don’t. Yes! I agree, those models have not been fashioned out into thinking-things, but they may probably be in the nearest future. Who would believe the computer could be made to do the things it does today when Blaise Pascal was inventing the calculator (his thinking machine)!

Ambiguously, thinking presupposes ‘a mind of its own’, something that initiates the thought process. Thinking tends to encapsulate two things; initiating thought process and the thought process itself. Here, we need to drawing a line; a line between a thing that thinks, and a thing that makes a thinking-thing thinks. In humans, I would want to believe that the thinking thing in us is the brain, and what makes the brain thinks is the mind. So when we perceive someone is not thinking straight, we say, “Are you out of your mind”? Just like we say “Is you car out of fuel”? Like the fuel is the energy for your car to move, the mind could be energy for the brain to work.

Looking at computers as a thinking thing once again, we would deduce that they don’t have what makes them think, that is “They cannot (initiate thoughts) think” But they carry out the process of thinking, cos we act as the mind behind them. We give them the instructions. But in actual fact, what they do is thinking (as a process).

Computers cannot think, but they think. Guns cannot kill, but they kill, Cars cannot run, but they run, ‘Ganja’ cannot intoxicate, but they do. This is because Humans make them all do what they do. We cannot equate these creations of man with Man. What man has been doing over the years is to create more of himself to make this earth-building work easier for us all. Amazingly, the computer has been the most controversial, because man tend to feel threatened, hence the horrific sci-fi movies depicting machines subduing man in future.

I think we should start to appreciate the fact that man is extensible. Man has the ability to map out an attribute of himself, and of other things around him, on objects. This, in itself, is an attribute of man. I look forward to seeing more stunning intelligent machines created by man before the end of my lifetime.