Lets leave this old discussion with a third (& final) post on the subject.
In the previous two posts, we had touched upon the brain being analogous to a hard drive. Lets extend that to a comparison of humans to computers. So you have the usual components of a computer and their human counterparts – CPU – Brain Neurons, Hard Disk – Brain again, Keyboard/Mouse/ webcam - Our hands/skin/ eyes (our senses basically). So there we have it, it’s all linked.
But that’s just the hardware. It gets really interesting when we get to what makes it all come to life – in a computer or in humans. In computers we have two that immediately come to mind (!) - Software: Programs/Interface for various activities/ functions; Programming: The words/rules that guide the software.
Do we have something like this for humans? Yes, I would think so, but it’s not quite that simple (at least to me). Some types of software/programming is fairly easily to correlate – any form of Learning, be it from our parents, from social experiences, peers, books, videos etc, gets internalized as some form of program that can be brought up when reacting to a situation.
But where is the “program” written? In the maze of neural connections? And more importantly – who /what is the “Programmer”? Is it the Mind, the Soul or our Consciousness? And if so, what is the Mind.. & who controls/ guides it?
Or one more theory – Is our DNA the only core program that is embedded in us at birth – from then on all our learning is assimilated into complex learning patterns, all due to the DNA that was given to us. Think of something like a neural network, that has a starter / base program and after that it goes on spreading into a much larger program based on other learnings that get assimilated into its system. So how you turn out/ react/ is a combination of experiences/ learnings and your DNA’s reactions to the way those experiences are assimilated.
Is that it? Because if that is it – then its like a random number generator with a seed input. Outcomes are purely random and possibly unchangeable. Or is there a controller in between – our old friend, the Mind? Yes, I wold think so. And what is this Mind/Consciousness exactly? Is it in our control or by someone else (think God, maybe)?
Anyway that mind or consciousness may be exactly what differentiates us from machines. Or so we think.
You need to read Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (unsure of spelling). He touches on so many of these topics especially on artificial intelligence and process of consciousness, etc. Heavy reading if you can get through it.
Yes, had tried reading it many years ago, during college days… Very interesting but too heavy even then. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it at that time.
Just recently I had the urge to retry reading it buts since I have a hard copy at home in Chennai, didnt want to buy another one. Was looking for an e-copy on Kindle, but doesnt seem to be there on Amazon. An e-copy would be so very convenient as one can refer to it whenever required, whenever some thought crosses one mind.
Same would be convenient for most other reference books, more than fiction/ novels. There is one company that’s coming out with a reference reader, its called Kno – check it out.