What is the purpose of computers?

[Dontaskme]

The purpose of computers is to compute.

For what purpose would it compute, it wouldn't know it's computing.

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[Logik]

For what purpose would it compute, it wouldn't know it's computing.

I am a computer. I know I am computing. I compute towards all sorts of purposes.

Right now, I am computing as to how I ought to obtain some caffeine. Given the options:
1. Make my own (instant gratification, crap coffee)
2. Stop at coffee shop on way to office (medium gratification, average coffee)
3. Get coffee at office (delayed gratification, great coffee)

And then I might possibly compute towards ensuring that the coffee at home becomes as good as the coffee at work. But that would require me to hire a barista at home. Seems like an overkill.

[Dontaskme]

Maybe the answer is to create a computer that can think about the question of its own existence

Would that make it human ? or make us computers ?

Computers have processing capability and memory retention that is way beyond human ability
They however cannot yet think for themselves and therefore have to be operated by humans

Computers can only be computers but the human mind is actually a biological computer also
Everytime you use logic you are using the biological computer otherwise known as your mind

There is no such thing as a human mind thinking for itself or using logic. If we want to label logic as a functioning brain, then the brain is mechanical not biological. No thing biological can think, thinking is immaterial.



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[Dontaskme]

For what purpose would it compute, it wouldn't know it's computing.

I am a computer. I know I am computing. I compute towards all sorts of purposes.

Right now, I am computing as to how I ought to obtain some caffeine. Given the options:
1. Make my own (instant gratification, crap coffee)
2. Stop at coffee shop on way to office (medium gratification, average coffee)
3. Get coffee at office (delayed gratification, great coffee)

And then I might possibly compute towards ensuring that the coffee at home becomes as good as the coffee at work. But that would require me to hire a barista at home. Seems like an overkill.

No I is doing.

Doing is done but not by I

All this knowledge is remembered via memory, there is no living I in a memory.

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[Dontaskme]

Computers are extensions and (imprecise) reflections of the human brain.

And what is a human brain a reflection of?

The simpler brains of other species.

Simpler brains denote prior brains, so go back to the very first brain. Assuming there is such an idea as a prior past. What was the very first brain a reflection of?

A Computer can never be (imprecise) for it wouldn't know that.

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[commonsense]

And what is a human brain a reflection of?

Computers.

That means brains are not the source of consciousness, because computers are not conscious.

It only means that whatever is reflected (say, in a mirror) is a bimodally reflected object and reflection of that object, and vice versa.

Your remark about consciousness, rather than a response to my comment about optics, begs the question, “What is consciousness?”.

Though some say that computers are arguably conscious. no one is suggesting that the purpose of computers is to have consciousness.

[Dontaskme]

“What is consciousness?”.

Not-A-Thing Yet Everything

[Greta]

And what is a human brain a reflection of?

The simpler brains of other species.

Simpler brains denote prior brains, so go back to the very first brain. Assuming there is such an idea as a prior past. What was the very first brain a reflection of?

A Computer can never be (imprecise) for it wouldn't know that.

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The first brain would have been a relatively small collection of glial cells, although all dynamic entities, living and nonliving, ultimately perform calculations.

[wtf]

The first brain would have been a relatively small collection of glial cells, although all dynamic entities, living and nonliving, ultimately perform calculations.

Do you mean to say that you subscribe to the computational theory of mind? In which subjective mental states, qualia, consciousness itself, are attributed to the working of a computation in the sense of Turing 1936? That would be the usual interpretation of the word calculation. I'm just asking if you used the word casually or if you intended the metaphysical consequences of assuming the mind is a computation?

[-1-]

The first brain would have been a relatively small collection of glial cells, although all dynamic entities, living and nonliving, ultimately perform calculations.

Remarkably accurate. According to the latest research, the first brain was developed upon the sense of sight. It saw a food or a predator; it had to calculate how close it was, how fast it was moving, and in what direction, to figure out if the path of the object (food or predator) intercepted with the path of the self.

[-1-]

A Computer can never be (imprecise) for it wouldn't know that.

I am sorry, but I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
A computer could never be imprecise. Okay.

But why? Because it (the computer, supposedly) wouldn't know that?

What is "that"? The reflection of the brain? Its predecessor? Your meaning is completely obliterated by an unreferenced use of a pronoun. Other than you and God, nobody else knows, definitely not your readers, what you mean by "that" in that sentence.

[Greta]

The first brain would have been a relatively small collection of glial cells, although all dynamic entities, living and nonliving, ultimately perform calculations.

Remarkably accurate. According to the latest research, the first brain was developed upon the sense of sight. It saw a food or a predator; it had to calculate how close it was, how fast it was moving, and in what direction, to figure out if the path of the object (food or predator) intercepted with the path of the self.

In this regard I'm rather taken with the sea squirt which, in its larval stage, has a brain which helps it swim until it finds a rock to latch onto. It then absorbs the brain because it doesn't need it any more. So brains may be associated with mobility, but that then begs the question about motile single celled organisms. Still, those things have organelles, which perform equivalent functions to organs in multi-celled critters.

Do you mean to say that you subscribe to the computational theory of mind? In which subjective mental states, qualia, consciousness itself, are attributed to the working of a computation in the sense of Turing 1936? That would be the usual interpretation of the word calculation. I'm just asking if you used the word casually or if you intended the metaphysical consequences of assuming the mind is a computation?

I can't say for sure. Computation seems to be at least part of it, but it famously doesn't explain a sense of being.

It does seem that complexity and what we think of as consciousness are intrinsically connected, but I suspect that a sense of being is fundamentally the same no matter how many brain cells you have. Humans have an advantage because we have a much better sense of the passage of time than other beasties. However, that sense of being an individual just trying to deal with what comes its way strikes me as universal. In my daily interactions with garden animals, it seems that many, such as lizards and spiders, often respond pretty well how a human would if in their situation with the same sensory limits.

[Dontaskme]

A Computer can never be (imprecise) for it wouldn't know that.

I am sorry, but I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
A computer could never be imprecise. Okay.

But why? Because it (the computer, supposedly) wouldn't know that?

What is "that"? The reflection of the brain? Its predecessor? Your meaning is completely obliterated by an unreferenced use of a pronoun. Other than you and God, nobody else knows, definitely not your readers, what you mean by "that" in that sentence.

The pronoun being the computer itself. The computer would never say it’s a computer, let alone it’s an imprecise computer.

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[Dontaskme]

The simpler brains of other species.

Simpler brains denote prior brains, so go back to the very first brain. Assuming there is such an idea as a prior past. What was the very first brain a reflection of?

A Computer can never be (imprecise) for it wouldn't know that.

.

The first brain would have been a relatively small collection of glial cells, although all dynamic entities, living and nonliving, ultimately perform calculations.

What would the glial cells be a reflection of ?

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[Logik]

I can't say for sure. Computation seems to be at least part of it, but it famously doesn't explain a sense of being.

Mind depends on complex body/brain to exist/function.

Sense of being is the mind recognizing that it's part of a whole. Recognition that the "self" is a consequence.

No body -> No mind.

No species -> No body -> No mind.

No biosphere -> No species -> No body -> No mind.