Is the mind a computer?

A computer is similar to the mind, but I don't think I would say it the other way.



Consciousness.

The Chinese Room Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

i am aware of john searle's chinese room argument but I remain unconvinced by it. Though, it has been a while since i checked it out so I will have more to say on the matter shortly!

computers, if i am not mistaken, can only reach any sort of conclusion through a series of programmed numbers they will weigh and compute. The human mind is more broad. Computer cannot be creative in any way. they will never be innovative logically or artistically.

Well - computers are nothing but a reproduction of the mind.

Computers don't know anything that humans don't already know. Sure, they may be able to come up with answers to complex questions that most humans could not get close to answering, but these answers only come through their programming...which is man-made.

Human's are separated by their learning capacity, their emotions, their ability to interact in social settings etc...which is a lot different from a computer punching out an equation or what not.

The difference between the computer mind and the human mind is vast.

First, computers store and process information that we call memory. The fault in the computer mind is in the fact that computers do not actually understand the information. It merely processes it.

Further, computers have no intent. The body, for example, will not move your arm up and down unless your mind commands it to do so. If your body performs this action with intension, then your body must have its own mind to carry out the choice. The body, however, may react. For example, when you touch a hot oven, your hand will jerk away on its own. It processes its own information to react without consulting the mind- without intention (and therefore consciousness). The computer is not so different. It is more like a body than a mind. It follows commands. Just because it processes information does not make it a mind. It has no intention what-so-ever. Without intention, we may not have creativity. Further, without consciousness, computers can not have a sense of self (self awareness).

It seems that computers as we know them today, at best, can be extensions of the mind.

- computers have mathematical bases (serial Von Neumann processing and the Turing machine); minds have evolutionary bases (complex parallel dynamics, chaotic attractors, exapted vestiges).

- (most) computers are disembodied and unsituated; minds are embodied and situated in the real world.

- when computers say "Hi!" they don't mean it (ever wonder why savants can have "super human" abilities in math, recall, music, etc., but always at the expense of social ability? how much brainpower is involved in human sociality? is a social butterfly a genius?)