In many areas there is a difference in the capabilities of human brains and computers. Computers, it can be argued, are able to recall information with much greater accuracy than humans. On the other hand, the inherent ability of neurons to communicate is currently far greater than the best efforts of computers. "Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum can have up to 80,000 synaptic endings, or junctions between neurons, whereas for a computer, the corresponding number is only about three or four at most (Penrose 11)."
It is conceivable that in the future a greater knowledge of our own brains would allow us to model computers so that they have 80,000 or even a million "synaptic endings." But does that mean that they will be conscious?
A strict materialistic viewpoint would imply that if we were to recreate the human brain, for example as a computer, that it would function just as our brain does, including consciousness and thought.
Erich Harth counters that notion by describing what he calls the "Creative Loop," in a his book of the same name. The theory, which is based on much scientific and biological evidence, is basically that loops in the processing of information in the neurons of the brain cause what we have come to regard as creativity and, ultimately, thought. This, Harth asserts, is what makes humans conscious.
As far as visual input goes, Harth and his graduate students at Syracuse University have shown that the brain uses imaging based on the past to recognize what it sees currently and to create images and ideas that have not yet been literally seen. It works like this: the retina of the eye perceives light and transfers the data to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) which in turn transfers the information to the cortex and the brain-stem. "A part of the brain-stem reticular formation has long been known to be essential in the maintenance of consciousness and thought (Harth 65)." At this point, the brain-stem is informed of sensory and cognitive events occurring in the cortex.
What happens now in the process is simple, yet fascinating: the cortex and brain-stem transfer the code back to the LGN. The LGN perceives it again and sends the information back to the cortex after juxtaposing it with many previous images recalled from the brain’s memory. After going through the loop countless times, the raw light data becomes what we call an "image."
This is useful in two ways that are essential to our function as human beings of society. The first is that it takes data and allows sight to become true vision. Take for example the computer screen at which you are staring. You see thousands of pixels, each displaying a specific color. As your brain perceives and analyzes this data it gets sent through the LGN loop. Each time it goes through the pixels are being compared to images of letters that the brain perceived before and eventually (actually within a fraction of a second) you recognize that what you are staring at are representations of letters in the pattern of words or detailed pictures.
We use this method in a process which we call "creativity." Especially in our dreams, but also in every day conscious and subconscious thought, we run visual possibilities and representations of images in memory through this loop. We can manipulate images and concepts (i.e. laws of physics) which we know to be true in order to creatively determine what the probable outcome of the imagined process is.
Similar processes likely occur in all types of loops relating to each of the senses. Thus, we have the power to imagine things which have not yet occurred. We can imagine tools and machines that will enhance our lives. We can play a song in our head and manipulate it to create new songs. We can imagine what it would taste like if we ate chocolate covered pepperoni. And people like Einstein can imagine things such as the Theory of Relativity.
This is believed to be a fundamental difference between thinking humans and computers which we have programmed.
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