Tuesday, January 31, 2012

NBC Chapters 3 & 4 Response


There are quite a few differences between a computer mind and a biological mind; many of which can easily be interpreted.  Well for one, our brains are a living, breathing, and soft component of our body. A computer’s brain is a piece of hardware and program that is built specifically to store data; it does not breathe or necessarily “live”.  When the human body repeatedly interacts with an object or task, memory is created of the said interaction and is stored in the part of the brain associated with memory. This memory can be recalled at any moment again for the user to once again complete the task. What makes this retrieval unique is that most of the time it is done subconsciously, without having to tell ourselves to go fetch that information and wait for the brain to do so. That is not how a computer functions. A user has to program a “memory” into the computer and then command the computer to bring up that memory. I can remember working with a robotic arm in middle school and the tedious work of programming every single step into the robot and remembering to save every little action. When the biological brain saves the information, it is practically painless where as my fingers and wrists began to ache after programming the robot for nearly 30 minutes straight. And whereas when the human goes to reach for a glass, per say, the actions are smooth, flawless, almost elegant in transition from the extension of the arm to the folding of the fingers around the glass whereas for a robotic arm to perform the exact same actions in the same flawless manner, nearly a hundred commands or more must be inputted precisely. However, there is technology being worked on that can give computers “artificial intelligence”, where they will be able to “learn” as biological organisms can.

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