Can computers think?

Could your computer illustrate genuine understanding?

Jon Hawkins
The Apeiron Blog

With the advancement of modern technology over the last century : such as smartphones, computers, televisions and much more, technology is now a fundamental component of every day life. But one question that has been depicted by the media through robots, is whether a computer may be able to think.

While this debate is in fact not committing to, or discussing the controversial claim of whether computers can gain genuine consciousness, there still exist valid, widely debated arguments as of whether a computer could express genuine understanding of a given conversation, and even think independently.

Before I begin discussing this topic, it is worthwhile defining the terminology that will will be used in this article. A computer in this context, is a correctly programmed machine that produces an output in accordance with it’s rules, when presented with an input. It is important to note that the highest advancement any laptop can achieve is having the ability to manipulate coding of 1’s and 0’s — and when it achieves this, it is turing complete. (For more depth on this, I would recommend the Computerphile’s “Turing Machines explained” (Youtube.))

Because of that, any computer that you use is nothing more than advanced coding of 1’s and 0’s…

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Responses (7)

What are your thoughts?

Computers are superficial geniuses, but that’s it. You’ve inspired me to write the Shadow of Intelligence. Thanks.

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Hi Jon,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post, even though I´m no tech expert (quite the opposite) I feel like I could understand most of it.
I believe computers with do not exist yet but they will in the near future and what that will represent to…...

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