Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Thinking Machines
Message-ID: <1990Dec04.195329.11248@looking.on.ca>
Date: 4 Dec 90 19:53:29 GMT
References: <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 21

In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes:
>Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing
>computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I
>do.

What's to suppose?  We are already capable of constructing such things.
To make one, mix sperm and egg together (that's the fun part) and gestate
for 9 months in convenient womb.   Raise in good family environment, educate
and expose to stimuli.   The result is a bioelectrical computer with nothing
mystical about it that thinks in the same sense that you or I do.

Many people don't think of this as constructing a computer.  But unless
you are religious, that is what it is.  A male and female do all of it,
nobody else need participate.  We get confused because our bodies perform
this unconsciously, with inate skills.   We don't understand how they do
it.  But they do indeed do it.

The only question then becomes "can this thing we made with our hands instead
of our gonads, think?"   If so, the question ends there.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473


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