When computing machines were invented, mechanical at first, and then digital, the idea gradually developed that one day a machine might be made ?in the image of man?. Science fiction picked this up and ran a long way with it, but so far the reality is nowhere near the crazy robots and egocentric computers of the movies. Just because a computer can play chess, does not mean it knows what it is playing, or even cares.
One of the early models for ?intelligent machines? was based on simply building a matrix as complex as the human brain. Some people thought that it was all a matter of quantity ? if you packed enough circuits into a computer its mass would provide enough complexity to produce intelligence, but of curse this does not happen. Models were also developed which . . .
If you are reading this, you are intelligent. You can also be assured that the writer of this item was not a machine. Not many years ago, many of the pioneers of artificial intelligence would have been disappointed to read these introductory words, because it was their hope that by now machines would have been able to read and write articles, but such an event is still a long, long way off. Intelligence is not as easy as it sounds.
When computing machines were invented, mechanical at first, and then digital, the idea gradually developed that one day a machine might be made ?in the image of man?. Science fiction picked this up and ran a long way with it, but so far the reality is nowhere near the crazy robots and egocentric computers of the movies. Just because a computer can play chess, does not mean it knows what it is playing, or even cares.
One of the early models for ?intelligent machines? was based on simply building a matrix as complex as the human brain. Some people thought that it was all a matter of quantity ? if you packed enough circuits into a computer its mass would provide enough complexity to produce intelligence, but of curse this does not happen. Models were also developed which tried to mimic the connection patterns of neurons, but human thought processes were found to be too complex and subtle to copy this way. Yet another model was tried; one which attempted to simulate human thought processes, but again, the brain was wired in such a way as to make this unsuccessful.
The problems involved with producing artificial intelligence are so many they have not yet been completely listed. There is such an integration of abilities in the human brain, it cannot be copied by mere wires and switches. Man integrates sight, sound, feel, smell, taste, position (balance), memory, and deeper abilities such as intuition, imagination and emotions. All these things interplay like multiple waves, rippling across a pool. Man is also rational, yet he makes decisions based on irrational reasoning. His trillions of brain cells process information faster than all the supercomputers in the world combined, yet most of this processing is completely automatic.
As an experiment, ask someone what the Prime Minister had for breakfast. How long did it take you to know? Less than a second? A standard ?average? computer, if asked the same question through 'search for files? would look at all its files, checking each one for information regarding the Prime Minister. If it was a big computer it might be minutes before it told you there were no files on this subject. How did you know that you didn't know? How does the human brain store information so that when you are asked something you do not have in you memory you can know instantly that it is not there?
Another experiment. Take two pencils, one in each hand, and write, at the same time, with both pencils, the letters of the alphabet. You will find that as you write ?A? with one hand, your other hand has to wait till it can write ?B?. This is because your brain needs a huge amount of processing power to control all the muscles of an arm and hand. It cannot provide enough RAM (Random Access Memory) to control two arms at the same time ? unless you train it to do so.
Intelligence is a quality common to all living things. Even a bacterium can learn how to turn left or right depending on whether a light is switched on or off. In higher orders of life many animals display amazing intelligence, such as the salmon's ability to find its way back to the exact spawning pools of its parents, or the porpoise which can obey commands. But where does this intelligence come from?
In science there is a general rule which says nothing can be greater than its cause. In other words, and in the context of this item, Man can never make a robot more complex than himself. Man's great intelligence can produce only lesser models. By this law of diminishing returns it is easy to see that something very intelligent must have produced the lesser intelligence of Man.
The Bible describes the origin of Man as being the product of a creative act. The fact that Man has intelligence fits very well with science, because Man is the most intelligent of creatures, therefore something more intelligent than Man must have produced him. Since there is no creature on Earth that fits the bill, it must have been some external Intelligence. Thus science and the Bible are in harmony, as they always are when good science is involved.
Richard Gunther, Copyright 2005