Can Computers Think?

Can Computers Think?

In order to answer this question thinking must first be defined. Thinking is something that most scientists still don’t have a concrete definition of. The human brain is a very complex entity and we still don’t completely understand what happens when thoughts are processed. Scientists know that the brain is comprised of neurons that send signals to each other but the actual details are still not known. Bearing this in mind it is very hard to say whether or not something is thinking without a clear definition. The best I can do is to offer my own definition of thinking. I say thinking involves taking in information, making decisions, and being able to learn. Given this definition, it is my opinion that computers can think. Computers can take in information, make decisions, and they are beginning to learn.

Comparing, ordering, remembering, storing, duplicating, choosing, These are all actions that require some thought process. Computers can do all these things, and while comparing a 1 against a 2 may not seem like a big deal, it does require a thought process. The computer must know the value of what is comparing, then use judgment to decide which one is bigger, and which one is smaller. And computers can do much more than compare two numbers. They can compare letters, words, phrases, and more.

To see computers thinking you can simply go to an internet search engine, such as yahoo.com. Yahoo accepts information when you type in your search criteria. For example, lets say you want to search for information on artificial intelligence. You type in “artificial intelligence” into the text box and Yahoo takes that text and compares it to the text of millions of pages located in it’s database. It locates the pages that contain information that matches your search and displays those pages in order according to the closest match. Yahoo has just done many things that involve thinking. It has compared your search criteria with the contents of millions of web pages. Yahoo has ranked these comparisons according to the closest match, and it has ordered these pages according to rank. Comparing, ordering, and ranking all require thinking. And these are all tasks that the computer is able to do. This may not seem like very complex thinking, but never the less these simple tasks do require thinking.