Born of the Ones and Zeroes

Computers as an example of Consilience

<< Psychology has for a very long time had an argument over whether the workings of the human mind are just chemical reactions or the result of some true Mind, some will behind each of us that decides our actions and determines who we are.

My idea of a universe in which all things shared one truth, in which all things can be explained by the physical laws of the universe, does not hold room for any supernatural Mind, apart from the brain that clearly seems to run the human body.
    Whether or not we do have a non-physical will, we certainly do not know. In such a universe, though, we would not. And, if we would not, then that does not prevent us from having computers, which are also simply physical processes, from eventually achieving thought.

Certainly computers and computer programs display intelligence of a sort today, but what they show is not even close to what we as humans show. We may be in an entirely separate realm- except that if we are nothing but programs, we must expect that other programs will eventually reach what we have.
    If a computer program ever does become self-aware in any way, its existence would be probably the best argument for a consilient universe that anyone could ask for. If such a beautiful, incredible thing as intelligence can be explained and achieved physically, then there would be little contest in my mind as to whether Wilson, so long ago, (this would have to be far from now, of course,) had been correct after all.

Computers may not have been a part of our past, and we may drive them from our future to escape what revelations they would bring us about ourselves, but at this point in history they play a critical role, and should they prove to be half of what any science fiction writer expects of them, then they present the best possibly argument for Consilience. >>