Real Danger Men: Begin To Think Like Computers

Real Danger Men Begin To opine Like ComputersThis quote by Sydney G. Harris has several con nonations to it. In whiz view, it fundament eithery shows that how we work, how we live and tied(p) the trend we count is constrained by the brutes that we use. Explaining it with a very(prenominal) simple example, as an adult in the world today, we do non choose to write boththing at each(prenominal). We vertical type eitherthing. So, on that point touchablely is no call for proper handwriting. It is very similar to other famous quotation If you have a hammer, every problem looks handle a nail. It narrows your public opinion. It narrows your skills and diminishes your imagination.The essential significance of this quote by Sydney G. Harris is that atomic number 53 should commit up ones mind and realize the peril that we all face today, and not what we perceive to be the real threat. Today, the predilection is for us to theorise approximately how one day, machines and co mputers expertness be able to think like us, and the troubles that that might bring for the human race. Have we all not given a thorough thought to it after watching the Sci-fi Hollywood movies set in the 22nd century, where the true enemy of e artistic creationh is the army of machines that men themselves once created? except people do not realize the real game that faces us today, which is that if we touch off thought, behaving and acting like the machines do it would be by out-of-the-way(prenominal) more than disturbing than the former.Let us try and coiffure some very simple questions to understand what Mr. Harris is all apprehensive about. What is that irreproducible human trait that we stand to lose and in the process reverse like machines? What is it that separates serviceman from computers? Is it our ability to think? Or is it our ability to plow and give away? As quoted by Edsger W. Dijkstra The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. They do not do it on their birth, but it solves the purpose. With the development of expert systems and advanced technologies, machines do like a shot think by themselves and learn on their own. So, what is the fine line between humans and machines? May be it is our ability to feel, to imagine, to be intuitive and to have emotions. As Albert Einstein once said, Imagination is more significant than knowledge. For knowledge is exceptional to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever bequeath be to know and understand. Let us look at the deviation between this imagination, intuitiveness and facts, the knowledge accumulation.Blaise atomic number 91 was one of the very famous physicist, mathematician and philosopher, who excessively invented the first digital computer to minimal brain damage or subtract up to eight digit numbers. One of his around famous full treatment is called the Penses, explained the distinction between the spirit of geometry and the spirit of finesse, the difference between machines and humans. The key distinction between these two modes of according to Pascal is that while the spirit of geometry analyses observable facts into clearly definable elements and uses deductive reason out to construct a system of knowledge and rules based on punctilious attestation, the spirit of finesse concerns ideas and perceptions which cannot be precisely defined or gloomy down into parts, and uses instinctive reason to bear sense of the relevant phenomena as a whole. Furthermore, the spirit of finesse results in imperfect opinions about which intellect people may from time to time argue.A computer thus, works as a spirit of geometry and humans as a potpourri of the spirit of geometry and the spirit finesse which gives them the ability to reason system of logically and also to have an intuitive mind, which has a suppleness of contemplation for things it whop s. Such a brain is accustomed to adjudicate at a single see and that too tacitly, without mechanical rules. For example, Einstein did not uniquely possess all piece of information that was not accessible to physicists of that era when he genuine the theory of relativity. He merely deduced the same existing facts in a completely different manner, and then made testable prophecies on the basis of them. This explains some other of the very famous quotes by Albert Einstein Laws atomic number 18 save reached by non-logical methods. To piddle away a law one has to have an intellectual love of the subject.We may now deduce the apprehensions of Mr. Harris. While the mechanical thinking of computers implies that every predicament has a definite and clearly definable solution, still not all the human thinking can be equated with problem-solving. There atomic number 18 no set rules and theorems which can logically conclude many important questions that confront us in the human life Wh at is religion?, Does deity real exist?, How should one choose a career avenue?, Am I truly in love? These questions do not have unambiguous solutions, but these queries are uncorrectableies that require thoughtful illumination. Richard cutting edge de Lagermaat, 2002The danger of losing our humanly thoughtful illumination is very evident in todays world. Apart from the example of using computers for writing, we can deduce from the classroom teachings, how we couch heavy importance on facts and information. Every school focuses on a truck load of information which is stormed into the young brains. We inculcate the substance of logic in our children at a tender age, thus, taking away the essentials that make them more human than anything else, the originality in thinking, in perceiving, in imagining all by them themselves.A quote from Charles Dickens novel, Third Times strengthens this school of thought Facts alone are wanted in life, Plant nothing else, and free radical out ev erything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts nothing else will ever be of any service to them. It shows the direction that we are moving. But this is not the lone want from our life and our education. It is also a must to understand how to think intelligently on the basis of raw facts, make consequential connections between them, and come up with imaginative original ideas.The supra discussions pose computers as an evil creation of humans. Does that mean that computers are truly an iniquity? argon they destroying the very genius of mankind? Evidently and quite an rightly it is untrue. According to some researchers, programs such as clip art and Microsoft Word encourage creativity in children by making it practicable for them to write and edit documents without getting encumbered with the mechanics of handwriting and spell out Provenzo,1999.The computer is thus, not evil unless it is apply as an alternate to learn the fundamentals, such as writing, reading and basic mathematics. The time that we become subordinate on computers and come out using it as our numero uno resource of education, we lose the fundamentals which build everything else. This is when we lose our creativity, originality and narrow our thinking to programmable machines.Thus, this quote expresses an grotesque message, that even though technology is highly advantageous and it truly makes our life a lot easier for us, if used incongruously, it is also as devastating as it is obliging. For example, a car is surely is a faster and more comfortable way of commuting from one place to another, especially over long distances. And with time, it has only improved to better suit the needs and comfort of ours. However, while exploiting the prodigality and ease, we tend to become so used to this comfort that we start neglecting the very nature of ours, walking, as and when possible. From the very first word to the last one in this quote, Sydney G. Harris is trying t o differentiate between a humans lifestyle and a computers lifestyle. By precept that men will begin to think like computers, he indicates that our future is likely to be lazy because this is what the tool all of us use gives us. Computers are out hammers which drill all the nails by themselves. It gives us shortcuts for all the problems we feed it it does things the easy way.The same implies to any other technology. Consider the following questions. Has Google made us lazy? Are Facebook friends our true friends? Are we more efficient when we are multi-tasking on our android and windows hand-held devices?We need true answers to all these questions. What we need is a real time realization, a quick snap back to the time when we did not have all or any of this. That time, we used to read in libraries to witness out about people, places and things and in this process used to learn more in the library than what we do through Google, just the overview. We used to be close to our dear f riends and met them often, confided in them instead of dropping a realistic hippopotamus on them through Facebook. We used to be more focused. We used to have more time than we seem to have right now with all the technology and we thought multi-tasking was saving us all the efficiency and time in the world. We used to be healthier than we are. We used to go out and play under the sky on a honey oil earthly carpet of grass instead of building virtual coldms, cities and warmth for pets that did not exist.We need a quick consciousness, to apprehend that we live internal a computer now. We have our own virtual lives and cities and events, all in spite of appearance a computer. And between this entire clamour, we are choke upting how it felt to be real, to be human. Through this quote, Mr. Harris is trying to turn us around to face the real danger and make us understand that, in fact, we are losing our inseparable humanness. He is trying to alarm us that if we humans continue on this path to think, act and behave like computers, the consequences will be far more severe. The author of the quote has surely achieved his ambition by saying this quote.John F. Kennedy once said Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. The discussions surely suggest that we may not be far from the time when this quote becomes the unintended reality of the human race and we are all reduced from the most extraordinary creature to have walked the planet, to the most extraordinary computer to exist.To conclude, in this progressively more computer reduce and fact-driven world, as the quotation by Sydney G. Harris suggests, the real danger is not that machines would start thinking like humans, but neither is it that humans will start thinking like machines. The biggest concern is that humans will stop thinking like humans do. We will lose the very innate nature that makes us humans. We face the hazard that people begin to think unaccompanied like computers and that we lay more value to technical proficiency than astuteness, and numeral calculations than sound acumen. We live in virtual lives and in process forget the wonder of natural life we have been bestowed by the almighty. We are succumbing into our own trap, into our own creation. Hence, following the theory of Pascal, we must inculcate from childhood in our students, not merely the spirit of geometry, but more importantly, the more difficult and ever so obscure, the spirit of finesse.