Firstly, the brain functions by non- algorithmic processes. As physicist Niels Bohr said to a student, “You’re not thinking, you’re just being logical.”
l The brain has chemically based events. “Unless we could give Prozac to a computer the machine won’t be anything like the brain.”
l The brain has emotions. “Even a baby has a base of feelings.” Emotions are also chemically based and from recent brain research it’s clear that learning and remembering are intertwined with feeling. The stronger a feeling, the more the experience is wired into the brain.
l Responses are not key for the brain. “There isn’t a computer yet that has passed the Alan Turing test,” which is: a human sits on one side of a screen with either a human or computer on the other. The human asks questions and judges from the answers whether there’s a computer or human on the other side. So far not a single computer has passed the test.
l The point of computers is to free up humans to enjoy their minds, Greenfield says, and to do the dangerous work in places that are hazardous for humans.