by DONALD CALLOWAY
Published 27 February 2011
CLARKSBURG, WV — We humans don’t think in terms of 1′s and 0′s so why should our computers do the same? From the very beginning of the computing age we have created our computers to do everything based on the binary number system, the “on” or “off” way of dealing with everything, and we’ve chosen to use electricity as the medium for passing data through our computing machine’s brain, it’s processor, to the final outcome. After all, electrical transmission seemed to be the logical and best choice since electrical circuits can either be “on” or “off” but not both “on” and “off” simultaneously; so the marriage between the binary number system and electricity has for many decades been one made in heaven for our so-called computing machines. In looking at the world in this way we have created machines that can compute, that is, manipulate these 1′s and 0′s of our machine’s world, the only thing our machines know, extremely rapidly to achieve a result, and we’ve cleverly constructed algorithms for our machines to follow in solving highly complex problems. But our computers can’t rationalize, that is, they can’t make informed choices among apparently mutually exclusive outcomes when any of the outcomes would be acceptable, just perhaps not the best choice for our situation from a variety of perspectives.
Is it just me or does anyone else think our present computing paradigm is flawed and thus seriously impeding our progress toward creating a machine that can truly think as we do? Since, as I said before, we obviously don’t think in terms of the binary number system, this conclusion seems likely. So, what is the answer? Out there somewhere lies a yet undiscovered, monumental breakthrough in computing that will give us the answer. The trick is in knowing how to construct a “thinking” architecture for our computing machines that is radically different from the present “computing” architecture based on the binary number system. In achieving this goal we must rethink how we think.
If our thinking mechanism is not binary, then what is it? Can we get any answers to this question from modern science? While it is true that present science accepts the fact that in the process of “thinking” there are electrical signals traveling to and through our brains,–we know this to be true because we only need to see what happens when we severe the spinal cord–what happens to these electrical signals that causes us to “think”, that is, have thoughts in a way that is far superior to even the most advanced computers of our time? To modern-day science, this is still an enigma wrapped within a riddle. So, how do we proceed in finding a solution? I believe that when we are able to understand how our minds work on a “computing” level, that is, how our brains function to perform all of the so-called “background processes”–such as regulation of our autonomic bio-mechanisms such as the pulmonary and cardiovascular systems of our bodies about which we are not consciously aware, that is, we don’t have to think about them,–then perhaps we will be able to construct a similar architecture to replicate that complex mechanism and then port it to a machine. If we can achieve this we will have constructed a computing machine that computes like we do but using a far less constrictive architecture than the one we currently use which is based on the binary number system. Perhaps this “new” architecture will lay the groundwork for a truly “thinking” machine, something that seems light-years away for a machine that is still computing the binary way.
Donald007 is a retired Navy LCDR and mathematician currently working as a supervisor for the WV Dept. of Health and Human Resources in Marion County, WV.
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